Permission Denied on External Hard Drive

[goodlukeing]

I have recently bought a new laptop, installed my first linux OS on it (Ubuntu 9.10) and an external hard drive with 500GB on it for backup. For the first few days my external hard drive was working fine, but then eventually it wouldn't let me copy/move/delete stuff to and from it. So I kept trying to change the permissions but it wouldn't let me.

I figured this would be a very very common problem, so I looked up some forums to try out the methods but they didn't work. So I thought I would ask you guys for help because I am pleased with the support. I wouldn't think this would be a hard problem to solve.

PS: I would prefer a more GUI-driven approach, but if not well I guess I can't argue.


BTW: First impressions of Ubuntu (not including trying to get windows programs to work through wine) are very high.

[drs305]

I have recently bought a new laptop, installed my first linux OS on it (Ubuntu 9.10) and an external hard drive with 500GB on it for backup. For the first few days my external hard drive was working fine, but then eventually it wouldn't let me copy/move/delete stuff to and from it. So I kept trying to change the permissions but it wouldn't let me.

What type of formatting are you using on the new drive? The external drive should mount automatically.

If you post the results of the following we may be able to figure out what is happening, or if not, construct an fstab entry that should make you the owner.

sudo blkid
cat /etc/fstab
mount # with the drive connected

Also tell us the mountpoint/name you would like for the drive if we have to make an fstab entry.

[goodlukeing]

The external drive does mount automatically. But as far as format I don't know, so here is what came out for the external drive:

/dev/sdc1: LABEL="My Passport" UUID="4A75-97DA" TYPE="vfat"

I'm guessing that means fat32 format or something?

[BkkBonanza]

Normally you should be a member of the usbfs group to have use of usb filesystems. Type the command "id" and check the groups listed to be sure you are.

It sounds like something related to permissions has been messed up because in a default install you should have no problems with permissions on an external usb drive.

The output of your /etc/mtab file would indicate if there were unusual filesystem options on that device.

While the drive is mounted,
cat /etc/mtab

[goodlukeing]

When I typed "id" there was no usbfs listed anywhere. What am I looking for when I do "cat /etc/mtab"?

All I know is when I click on properties when in the drive and go to the permissions tab it says:

Owner: luke - Luke
Folder Access: Create and Delete Files
File Access: ---

Group: luke
Folder Access:
File Access:---

Others:
Folder Access: None
File Access:---

[BkkBonanza]

Assuming your username is "luke" then that appears to be normal.

Usually the id command would output a list including "groups=" and a bunch of group names. On my system usbfs(1001) is one of the groups. I'm not sure that is the default but I think it may be. In which case the easiest way to for you to fix that in the gui would be to use menu item System, Administration, Users and Groups and select Manage Groups and find the usbfs in the list and add your name to that group.

For /etc/mtab it will list the various current mounted filesystems. You should see one in the list for your external drive. On that line there will be details of the mount like type=vfat and options=... this info may be useful in figuring out if it was mounted incorrectly.