External HDD Read Only

[gdp1989]

I have borrowed a hdd from a friend of mine too copy some files. They use windows and i'm on Mint so at first i thought it was the formatting but it's showing as FAT32.

Tried copying as Sudo, didnt help.

I have tried this:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/333287/ ... -read-only

but it fails at the step.

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sudo mount -o rw,uid=1000,gid=1000,user,exec,umask=003,blksize=4096 /dev/sdc1 /media/toshibaHDD

with this:

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb1,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error

In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so.

Any ideas?

[silvatech]

Do you need anything off the drive?

What is the error when you try to mount it?

[gdp1989]

Do you need anything off the drive?

What is the error when you try to mount it?

I cant format it no, It works fine for my friend and i don't want to wipe their files. It mounts fine if I just plug it in with no errors. Just read only.

[gm10]

Easiest is probably to let it auto-mount, then

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sudo chmod 777

the mount point (somewhere in /media).

[gdp1989]

Easiest is probably to let it auto-mount, then

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sudo chmod 777

the mount point (somewhere in /media).

Sorry don't quite understand, run the command from the mount point? just running it gives:

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tim@tim-HP-EliteBook-8460p ~ $ sudo chmod 777
chmod: missing operand after ‘777’
Try 'chmod --help' for more information.

[gm10]

Sorry don't quite understand, run the command from the mount point? just running it gives:

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tim@tim-HP-EliteBook-8460p ~ $ sudo chmod 777
chmod: missing operand after ‘777’
Try 'chmod --help' for more information.

No, something like

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sudo chmod 777 /media/user/externalHDD

Replace the /media part with the actual mount point of your external HDD. To explain, the mount point is the location where the device is made accessible to your file system. If you open the device in your graphical file manager it will be path shown at the top (you didn't say what version and flavour of Mint you are on so I can't be more specific). You can also type mount in the terminal after plugging in the drive, it will be the last entry.

[gdp1989]

Sorry don't quite understand, run the command from the mount point? just running it gives:

Code: Select all

tim@tim-HP-EliteBook-8460p ~ $ sudo chmod 777
chmod: missing operand after ‘777’
Try 'chmod --help' for more information.

No, something like

Code: Select all

sudo chmod 777 /media/user/externalHDD

Replace the /media part with the actual mount point of your external HDD. To explain, the mount point is the location where the device is made accessible to your file system. If you open the device in your graphical file manager it will be path shown at the top (you didn't say what version and flavour of Mint you are on so I can't be more specific). You can also type mount in the terminal after plugging in the drive, it will be the last entry.

Ok, I've done that. The command worked with no errors. Still read only though.
Using 18.3 Cinnamon 64 Bit, Cinnamon version 3.0.7

[gm10]

Ok, in that case the only reason I can think of why it wouldn't work is that the file system is damaged and thus it did get remounted as readonly, which is the default setting in case of errors. If you start the Disks app from the menu you can select the drive on the left side and then on the right if you click the cog icon you can check and repair the file system. You can also change the mount options there.

[gdp1989]

Ok, in that case the only reason I can think of why it wouldn't work is that the file system is damaged and thus it did get remounted as readonly, which is the default setting in case of errors. If you start the Disks app from the menu you can select the drive on the left side and then on the right if you click the cog icon you can check and repair the file system. You can also change the mount options there.

Already ran FSCK on the hdd and fixed any issues. I might try plug it into a windows laptop and see what happens.

[gm10]

Already ran FSCK on the hdd and fixed any issues. I might try plug it into a windows laptop and see what happens.

You said it was a FAT32 drive, you'd need to use fsck.fat for that. If errors were the reason for the read-only mount then you could also force it to mount writeable by changing the mount options (set errors=continue rather than remount-ro). Do that at your own risk though, you said your friend still had files on that.

[silvatech]

Ok, in that case the only reason I can think of why it wouldn't work is that the file system is damaged and thus it did get remounted as readonly, which is the default setting in case of errors. If you start the Disks app from the menu you can select the drive on the left side and then on the right if you click the cog icon you can check and repair the file system. You can also change the mount options there.

Already ran FSCK on the hdd and fixed any issues. I might try plug it into a windows laptop and see what happens.

theirs a command to force it if its what I think it is, but better to not risk loosing data on windows run chkdsk /f that should unflag it as a bad partition (if this is the case.)