I need help, just trying to mount a USB stick to copy files

[MikeS_inFL]

A little help please?

I switched to Linux about 6 years ago after being so fed up with Windows, but it's getting so I can't even do basic things on Linux any more.

What's going on?

This used to be a simple operation, but now every time I attempt to insert a USB stick to copy files, I'm told that I'm not authorized to perform the operation. The stick shows up in the file manager, but I can't eject it or safely remove it or anything.

I've tried going to terminal and gparted to find out what's happening, but nothing is making any sense any more. Whenever I try searching the forums, I'm told that I'm using too many words or my words are too small... sigh

Any hints available somewhere?

Thanks

[all41]

How are the usb flash drives partitioned and where do they get mounted?
Open the Disks app and click the usb drive in the left panel.
You will find those answers

[linux-rox]

With the flash drive attached, please open Terminal, click to expand to full screen, and run this command: inxi -SMDP. This will generate a report. Select with your mouse; right-click and select Copy. Paste into your next replay. For bonus point, use code tags

[MikeS_inFL]

all41 - Thanks for replying,
I used Ventoy originally, trying to install Win10 and it partitioned them with an MBR, into 2 parts - 1 bootable NTFS and another EFI FAT 16bit.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'where do they get mounted' but it shows up as /dev/sdxx, if that's close to what you asked.

While I was replying, I saw linux-rox ask for a report:

Code: Select all

$ inxi -SMDP
System:    Host: NUC8i7BEK Kernel: 5.4.0-150-generic x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Cinnamon 5.0.7 Distro: Linux Mint 20.2 Uma 
Machine:   Type: Mini-pc System: Intel Client Systems product: NUC8i7BEK v: K54164-307 serial: <superuser/root required> 
           Mobo: Intel model: NUC8BEB v: J72688-307 serial: <superuser/root required> UEFI: Intel 
           v: BECFL357.86A.0085.2020.1007.1917 date: 10/07/2020 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 945.95 GiB used: 201.54 GiB (21.3%) 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 970 EVO Plus 1TB size: 931.51 GiB 
           ID-2: /dev/sdc type: USB vendor: Kingston model: DataTraveler 3.0 size: 14.44 GiB 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 800.47 GiB used: 201.51 GiB (25.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p5 

[MikeS_inFL]

and -
I also found another hint to try using terminal to start up the disks app ( using 'sudo gnome-disks' ) instead of using the gui.
I was able to 'power off' the stick, which I presume makes it safe to remove, but still unable to come up with a way to mount it.

[motoryzen]

MikeS.... Do you recall how you originally formatted that 16GB thumb drive? exFat? Or NTFS only from within Windows?

Try within terminal to unmount it first after you've confirmed you left it plugged in for a good 30 seconds or so and you confirmed via that inxi command linux-rox had you use before that it's still showing up in /dev/sdc....using the command below

umount '/dev/sdc'
If the above command doesn't make a difference add sudo at the beginning

sudo umount '/dev/sdc'

Then run that same inxi command of inxi -SMDP and confirm if that same /dev/sdc is showing up. If not, that would indicate to me it unmounted ( aka digitally ejected imo ) cleanly...then unplug it. wait 5 seconds..plug it back in. And open a Nemo window and see if it shows up on the left side for you to be able to click on and deal with.

Once you are able to get whatever needed data off of that 16GB drive, if you're planning to be able to use it to and from back n forth between Linux and Windows worlds...I recommend you format it to exFat . I've never had a problem using any exFat drive between Windows 10, 8.1, and 8 as well as 7 and back in forth to and from Linux Mint 17 onwards. ....be it formatting the drive to exFat from within Linux....OR from within Windows.

[linux-rox]

Code: Select all

           ID-2: /dev/sdc type: USB vendor: Kingston model: DataTraveler 3.0 size: 14.44 GiB 

Is this the flash drive we're discussing? Or did it not make the list? Also, any idea what are being assigned sda and sdb?

[MikeS_inFL]

Thanks for the ideas/leads - Sorry I've been away for a bit. I'll get on this as soon as finished with some jobs here. Everything happens at once, it seems...

[billyswong]

I used Ventoy originally, trying to install Win10 and it partitioned them with an MBR, into 2 parts - 1 bootable NTFS and another EFI FAT 16bit.

Ventoy is for creating one USB stick for multiple bootable images, or for an bootable/installation stick that can also store other personal files. When you say "trying to install Win10", do you mean trying to create a Win10 installation stick? If you mean you are installing a Windows 10 onto the USB stick, in the sense that the stick is the Win10 C drive, then Ventoy is not helpful here. Else if you just mean a Win10 installation stick, there is no point to create NTFS partition through Ventoy, as NTFS is not a native partition format in Linux.

[MikeS_inFL]

I originally formatted the thumb drive by letting Ventoy do it with the defaults. It came out with 1 NTFS and 1 EFI partition that looks like it says fat16.

After waiting for much longer than 30 seconds, it doesn't appear in the file manager ( Nemo 5.0.5 ) now, but it does show up in GParted and when using the INXI command. In the same terminal window, I tried to unmount it but it said it's not mounted. Then I noticed that the thumb drive shows up as /sdc and /sdb in the INXI tool. When I tried to unmount /sdb the reply was: "No such file or directory"

My original intention was to use Ventoy to install Windows 10 on a new laptop but there were drivers missing. So, I was going to copy the drivers onto that thumbdrive so I could browse to find them during the installation and wound up here asking for help.

I had read that Ventoy is supposed to be a preferred tool for making a bootable drive from which to either install Windows or use it to run from the drive.
At this point, I'm going to give up and just reformat the thumbdrive. Maybe it had a glitch during formatting or writing the Windows ISO or something...

I'm beginning to think the problem isn't with my misunderstanding how to use Linux (still very newbish, tho) but the thumbdrive is just messed up.

Thank you all!
( if my next attempt at installing Windows 10 with Rufus has the same troubles, I'll be coming back for more help. Fingers crossed! )

MikeS.... Do you recall how you originally formatted that 16GB thumb drive? exFat? Or NTFS only from within Windows?

Try within terminal to unmount it first after you've confirmed you left it plugged in for a good 30 seconds or so and you confirmed via that inxi command linux-rox had you use before that it's still showing up in /dev/sdc....using the command below

umount '/dev/sdc'
If the above command doesn't make a difference add sudo at the beginning

sudo umount '/dev/sdc'

Then run that same inxi command of inxi -SMDP and confirm if that same /dev/sdc is showing up. If not, that would indicate to me it unmounted ( aka digitally ejected imo ) cleanly...then unplug it. wait 5 seconds..plug it back in. And open a Nemo window and see if it shows up on the left side for you to be able to click on and deal with.

Once you are able to get whatever needed data off of that 16GB drive, if you're planning to be able to use it to and from back n forth between Linux and Windows worlds...I recommend you format it to exFat . I've never had a problem using any exFat drive between Windows 10, 8.1, and 8 as well as 7 and back in forth to and from Linux Mint 17 onwards. ....be it formatting the drive to exFat from within Linux....OR from within Windows.

[billyswong]

The last time I tried Ventoy I used the VentoyGUI.x86_64 to run it. And I got a exfat partition show up in file manager (Caja 1.26) as result.