Formatting an external usb drive

[Rom Raptor]

since i've switched from windows to linux i figured i might as well convert my external hd to some linux filesystem, so i installed gparted and tried formatting to both ext3 and ext4, but after the formatting i can't do anything with the drive (copy or create files). Also there's a lost+found folder which i don't have permissions to view.

[Radar]

When you use gparted or any program to format a drive, you have to type the sudo or (root) password.
This makes the drive or partition owned by root. That is why you have permission problems.

To make this new partition or drive owned by you, (so you can copy/create files) assuming your user name is raptor, and
your usb drive mounts at /media type in the terminal

Code: Select all

sudo chown -Rv raptor:raptor /media/label_of_usb_drive

-R is for recursive
-v is for verbose

[Rom Raptor]

i later figured out it was a permission issue, so i changed so i got read/write, but the owner is still root. does that matter? if so, can that be changed?

[Radar]

Yes, the quickest and easiest way is to open up the terminal and use the sudo chown command. This will change ownership from root to your user_name.

Code: Select all

sudo chown -Rv user_name:user_name /media/label_of_usb_drive