Take Ownership of Newly Installed Hard Drive

[ai4kn]

I recently installed a new 2.0 TB hard drive on by Ubuntu 11.04 system. I have visibility of the drive on Nautilus, but can't write to it. Owner shows as "root". How do I take ownership of this drive?

[howefield]

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InstallingANewHardDrive


sudo chown -R USERNAME:USERNAME /media/mynewdrive

replace USERNAME with your user name and mynewdrive with the name of the drive.

[JohnPta]

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InstallingANewHardDrive


sudo chown -R USERNAME:USERNAME /media/mynewdrive

replace USERNAME with your user name and mynewdrive with the name of the drive.

Ok I did as your suggested with "ai4kn" but this is my result:

root@jan-desktop:~# sudo chown -R USERNAME:Jan /media/Samsung
chown: invalid user: `USERNAME:Jan'
root@jan-desktop:~# sudo chown -R Jan: /media/Samsung
chown: invalid spec: `Jan:'
root@jan-desktop:~# sudo chown -R Jan. /media/Samsung
chown: invalid user: `Jan.'
root@jan-desktop:~# sudo chown -R Group:Jan /media/Samsung
chown: invalid user: `Group:Jan'
root@jan-desktop:~#

Regards Jan

[Elfy]

Try jan - not Jan

Linux is cAse sensitive

If not logout of the root session and use whatever it says at the prompt - eg

hobgoblin@hobgoblin

mines hobgoblin

[coffeecat]

One useful little shortcut that doesn't seem to be well known. If you omit the group name, but leave a trailing colon, as in:


sudo chown -R yourusername: /media/mountpoint

... the chown command will apply whichever your default group is. Saves a few keystrokes and it works with chmod too.

[JohnPta]

One useful little shortcut that doesn't seem to be well known. If you omit the group name, but leave a trailing colon, as in:


sudo chown -R yourusername: /media/mountpoint

... the chown command will apply whichever your default group is. Saves a few keystrokes and it works with chmod too.

Thanks, that works however when I switch of or reboot the computer I have to go through that whole exercise again. Is there no way that one can change this to a permanent situation/setup.

Thanks.

[coffeecat]

Thanks, that works however when I switch of or reboot the computer I have to go through that whole exercise again. Is there no way that one can change this to a permanent situation/setup.

Thanks.

Interesting. It sounds as though the -R (recursive) option may not be affecting the ownership of the root of the filesystem in the external drive - just all the folders and files in it.

Whenever I want to own a Linux filesystem on an external drive or an internal partition, I run the chown command without the -R switch. Although this might appear to be chowning the mountpoint, it doesn't - it takes ownership of the filesystem itself. And it sticks. So try:


sudo chown yourusername: /media/mountpoint

Substituting yourusername and mountpoint as appropriate.

[Leppie]

Nesxt time try the following, it should be just copy & paste:

sudo chown -R $USER: /media/Samsung

What filesystem is the drive?

[user sam]

Um, this may be a stupid suggestion, but why not just start Nautilus as root using gksu and then browse to your hard drive, right click, go to properties and change the permissions from there?

gksu nautilus

[JohnPta]

Interesting. It sounds as though the -R (recursive) option may not be affecting the ownership of the root of the filesystem in the external drive - just all the folders and files in it.

Whenever I want to own a Linux filesystem on an external drive or an internal partition, I run the chown command without the -R switch. Although this might appear to be chowning the mountpoint, it doesn't - it takes ownership of the filesystem itself. And it sticks. So try:


sudo chown yourusername: /media/mountpoint

Substituting yourusername and mountpoint as appropriate.

Yes you are right. When I take the mount point as "/media" it sticks, thanks anyway.:biggrin:
My wife asks me why I am still fighting with Linux instead of planting roses at my age. Well I told her because it is there and it keeps my brain busy. ;)

[coffeecat]

My wife asks me why I am still fighting with Linux instead of planting roses at my age. Well I told her because it is there and it keeps my brain busy. ;)

And Linux doesn't impale you with thorns! Well - only metaphorical ones. :)

Good luck!