FAT32 partition randomly becomes read-only

**morrna** · August 30th, 2011

I'm having a maddening problem with a FAT32 partition on my laptop. When I start it up it runs fine at first, then all of a sudden I get messages like this:

Code:

rm: cannot remove `anyfile.txt': Read-only file system

This has never happened before today. The really bizarre thing is that things work fine when the system first starts, and I haven't pinpointed what the trigger is yet.

In case it matters, I'm running 10.10 Meerkat. Here's the line for the filesystem in my fstab:

Code:

/dev/sda7       /home/morrisng/shared   vfat    users,rw,dmask=022,fmask=022,uid=morrisng,gid=morrisng  0       0

It's a FAT32 partition so that I can have a workspace that's accessible from both Ubuntu and Windows 7 (I dual boot). Could this be part of the problem? I really don't know where to look for the error, so any help on things to try or look for is appreciated.

**searchfgold6789** · August 30th, 2011

It sounds like a problem with the disk or filesystem to me. Try checking the file system, and the SMART status of the drive.

**morrna** · August 30th, 2011

Thanks for the ideas. I did do fsck from a live cd, and that didn't seem to make any changes. I didn't know about the SMART status, though, I'll have to look up more about that.