[Worked Around] cannot mount USB hard disk in Mint XFCE

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erikjan
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[Worked Around] cannot mount USB hard disk in Mint XFCE

Post by erikjan »

On a Toshiba Satellite computer I installed Linux Mint XFCE 18.3 64-bit. The computer is old and slow, but still acceptable. There is a aggravating problem however: it is impossible to mount a hard disk via USB. Thunar sees the partitions, but trying to mount them I get the error:

GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.PolicyKit1.Error.Failed: Action org.freedesktop.udisks2.filesystem-mount is not registered (polkit-error-quark, 0).

I have searched on the internet and on this forum, but I could not find the solution, or understand what is written. The hard disk I try to mount has an ext4 system partition, a swap partition, a home partition with a few user directories and a vfat partition. Trying to mount any of them I get this error.

On Rosalinux PLasma R10 all partitions mount effortlessly. For this old computer however the lighter XFCE works better.

What can I do to make it possible that I can mount this hard disk on my XFCE installation?

Greetings,

Erkik Jan.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Mute Ant

Re: cannot mount USB hard disk in Mint XFCE

Post by Mute Ant »

A Thunar mount is going to be a managed connection... possibly your user needs to be a member of the plugdev group? Just a guess though, I am in a Devuan system right now...
groups -----> mute dialout cdrom floppy audio video plugdev users netdev scanner bluetooth
erikjan
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Posts: 52
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2015 6:18 am

Re: cannot mount USB hard disk in Mint XFCE

Post by erikjan »

Dear Mute Ant,

thank you for your reaction. I do not dare to change members of system groups, because I do not know the consequences for the system. I solved the problem, or better: worked around it, by removing Mint XFCE and replacing it by Mageia 6 XFCE. Everything works now as expected, and I am able to read/write external hard disks.

Greetings,

Erik Jan.
erikjan
Level 2
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Posts: 52
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2015 6:18 am

Re: [Worked Around] cannot mount USB hard disk in Mint XFCE

Post by erikjan »

It turns out that the problem was not caused by anything in Linux Mint XFCE. After installing Mageia 6 XFCE I got other problems that made me desperate. A sudden brainwave made me boot with the option "diagnostics". The result was a "BIOHD-8 A SMART test failed".

I am glad that my problem had nothing to do with my Mint installation; All my Mint Installations on other computers always worked without a hitch out of the box.

So the real "work around" will be buying another hard disk.

Greetings,

Erik Jan.
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