New usb XHD Says I'm Not the Owner

BigH · Post by **BigH** » Thu Jul 25, 2019 4:19 am

SOLVED 25 July, 2019 Linux Mint Forums

Hi, again,

I recently bought a new 2Tb External Hard Disk Drive, aka XHD, for my Linux Mint 19.0 Acer laptop. It worked fine out of the box and I transferred many movies and videos to it. At the end of the day I simply shut it down without using the “unmount” command. The next day I could read and write these newly moved files but the XHD would accept no more files to its 1.5Tb free space. I contacted Linux Mint Forums, was told about the "Disks" program, ran it, and that seemed to correct my problems. The next day, however, the XHD again, would not accept new files for transfer.

I wrote again, to Linux Mint Forums, describing my problem, but not being patient enough to wait for a response, I reformated my XHD in exFat, thinking the computer would recognize the drive as new and provide me with an operating device. It did not. I eventually discovered the following:

Properties → Permissions → Owner: root → Group: root → You are not the owner, so you cannot change these permissions.

I’ve tried to look for cures in the other posts that seemed similar to mine but to no avail. I did find something that looks good to me but it is only a guess. See below:

Code: Select all

harvey@harvey-Aspire-E5-571G:~$ sudo blkid
[sudo] password for harvey:  
/dev/sda1: UUID="8ED7-7CCF" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI System Partition" PARTUUID="9a88e169-22eb-45e9-a092-f41ecac72b3e"
/dev/sda2: UUID="a09a4e1d-1f9d-41dc-a7f1-f672408f8f0e" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="c034d46a-4aad-4730-ba2a-f322a7b71124"
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="DISK 3" UUID="A695-1E3D" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="d2d6bcdf-01"
harvey@harvey-Aspire-E5-571G:~$

How do I become the owner of my XHD and gain complete access to the permissions of this device without the worry of it malfunctioning again?

Kindest regards,

Big H

bob466 · Post by **bob466** » Fri Jul 26, 2019 3:14 am

Some time ago I had a Flash Drive that suddenly became "Read Only"...so I Re-Formatted it back to NTFS and it's worked just fine ever since.

I also had an External 3TB HDD that all of a sudden wouldn't mount...plugged it into a Windows machine and it mounted...so I removed the Files and Re-Formatted it back to NTFS...cut/pasted the Files back...plugged it back into Cinnamon and it worked just fine and still does.

What caused my problems is anyone's guess but not removing the Device safely will corrupt your Files and might be your problem. Re-Format the External HDD to NTFS which works great with Mint and see what happens...you should be fine...Good Luck.

BigH · Post by **BigH** » Fri Jul 26, 2019 3:56 am

Re: New usb XHD Says I'm Not the Owner
Post by bob466 » Fri Jul 26, 2019 3:14 pm

Thanks for the information. I tried the reformat as you suggested but it was still a No Go. Exact same problem as before: No Permissions -> Not Owner. Do you have another suggestion? On a scale of 1 to 10 I'm about a three or four in the Linux Savvy scale. So as long as the instructions one may give me are clear and unambiguous, I will have no problems tackling more difficult fixes, FYI.

bob466 · Post by **bob466** » Fri Jul 26, 2019 5:28 am

BigH wrote: ⤴Fri Jul 26, 2019 3:56 am Re: New usb XHD Says I'm Not the Owner
Post by bob466 » Fri Jul 26, 2019 3:14 pm

Thanks for the information. I tried the reformat as you suggested but it was still a No Go. Exact same problem as before: No Permissions -> Not Owner. Do you have another suggestion? On a scale of 1 to 10 I'm about a three or four in the Linux Savvy scale. So as long as the instructions one may give me are clear and unambiguous, I will have no problems tackling more difficult fixes, FYI.

Have you tried the External HDD on another Computer either Windows or Linux...does the same thing happen ?

Have you tried Re-Formatting the External HDD on a Windows Computer ? You might think this is a silly thing to do but you never know.

If you don't eject the Drive safely you'll get File/Drive corruption...can't write to or cut/paste etc....but Re-Formatting should fix this...it did in my case.

It is possible the External HDD is the problem or the USB port on the Laptop...does the same thing happen with a different USB port ?

You should be able to plug in your External HDD into a Windows or Linux Mint Computer without any problems...that's why I recommend NTFS...you can have an Internal HDD on a Linux Mint Computer set to NTFS and it works just fine.

AndyMH · Post by **AndyMH** » Fri Jul 26, 2019 6:05 am

Open up your file manager (nemo in cinnamon), navigate to / and then right click on /media and open as root. Your external drives should be mounted in here probably under /media/you. On the folder for your external drive right click and select properties. On the permissions tab you should be able to change ownership from root back to you.

BigH · Post by **BigH** » Sat Jul 27, 2019 12:43 am

Thanks for your help, both of you.

bob466: I live in the country and I will be unable to hook my XHD up to a Win computer until Monday.

AndyMH: I did what you suggested and I was able to get to the Permissions screen. But when I scrolled up to put my name in the owner box and clicked on my name, it would not accept my name as the new owner. See attachment. I tried this multiple times, reformatting the HD from Fat32, to NTFS, to ext4, and back again. Nothing we have tried so far has worked. Open to new suggestions.

Thanks for all of your continued help.

bob466 · Post by **bob466** » Sat Jul 27, 2019 1:52 am

Hi BigH,

If after trying everything and you still have this problem...I'd return the External HDD for another one...a different brand might be a good idea too...good luck.

BigH · Post by **BigH** » Sat Jul 27, 2019 2:38 am

Ok, bob466. Thanks for all your help.

BigH · Post by **BigH** » Sat Jul 27, 2019 4:30 am

I fixed it !!!! I read on another page that the program Disks has a reformatting feature so I tried it. That made it worse. In desperation, I opened gParted and noticed for the first time that there was a picture of a key in the description line and a format type as unknown. Yet the graphical description was indicating that almost all of the 2 Tb space allocation was being shown. So in desperation, not being a Mint geek, I decided to reformat the hard drive with gParted. I tried this feature before with gParted but nothing worked then. Disks must have fixed something positive in my HD because now I could reformat my HD. After the reformat was completed there was a green box surrounding the graphical representation of my HD and now I am transferring files, once again, to this new HD. The real test will be tomorrow, when I power on my system. If you don't hear from me again my problem will have been fixed. Thanks for all of your help.
Big H

BigH · Post by **BigH** » Sun Jul 28, 2019 6:42 am

Yes. The XHD is working perfectly now. I still cannot change the owner of this HD but all of the Permissions are now appropriately set, and I am able, once again, to transfer files to this device. Thanks for all of your help.

Big H