[SOLVED] Help with External USB HDD permissions

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

I have an external usb hard disk that is ext3 formatted. When I boot Ubuntu 7.10, the disk icon shows on the desktop. I can open the disk by clicking the icon. When I try to copy a file to it I get the following:

"Error while copying to "/media/disk".
You do not have permissions to write to this folder."

What do I need to do to get permission to write to this disk?

[TeoBigusGeekus]

Post us the result of

sudo fdisk -l

that's -L and tell us which of the results is the external hd.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

The /dev/sdf is the external.

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 32301 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1549f232

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 967 7310488+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda2 * 968 23928 173585160 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 23929 28174 32099760 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 31954 32301 2630880 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 31954 32301 2630848+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdf: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0008c78a

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdf1 1 19457 156288321 83 Linux

[TeoBigusGeekus]

Ok then... If your hd is shown as disk1 in your /media folder, then type

sudo chown -R yourusername /media/disk1

This will make you the owner of the volume, thus giving you write priviledges.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

Ok then... If your hd is shown as disk1 in your /media folder, then type

sudo chown -R yourusername /media/disk1

This will make you the user of the volume, thus giving you write priviledges.

That resulted in the following:

"chown: changing ownership of `/media/disk/lost+found': Read-only file system
chown: changing ownership of `/media/disk': Read-only file system"

I still can't write to the disk. Get same error in original post.

[TeoBigusGeekus]

What happens if you try

sudo mkdir /media/disk/testfolder

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

What happens if you try

sudo mkdir /media/disk/testfolder

I get the following:

"mkdir: cannot create directory `/media/disk/testfolder': Read-only file system"

[TeoBigusGeekus]

Can you write on it in window$?

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

Can you write on it in window$?

Booted into Windows, what a PITA. Windows has been searching for a drive the last 10 minutes. I don't think it is going to find one.

[TeoBigusGeekus]

Just a question... Does this hd have a switch to toggle between read only/read and write mode, which you've forgotten?