USB screw ups

[Snowhog]

It is vfat, and I was heading to your position next. The dmesg statement that the device wasn't unmounted cleanly means that it will be in a 'read-only' state until that issue is fixed. fschk will do so.

[GregM]

Hmmm. Well, if the thumb drive is actually mounted in 'read only' mode, that might account for this. Was this drive used on a Windows machine per chance?

Yes it was.
I have Photoshop on a Win7 machine and I transport files on this thumb drive.
Also I copy to this drive from Kubuntu and walk it in to the Win 7 machine to install them.

I just stuck it in the Win 7 machine and took them up on the option to scan and fix.
It found some stuff that was not there anymore?

[GregM]

And BTW, AFAIK, you won't be able to copy anything to any device showing file system errors. That would be a sure way to corrupt your data.

There was a lot of confusion back there about running FSCK. You're supposed to run it on the thumb drive, not your system drive. Simply insert the USB drive, check dmesg output to determine the device name (/dev/sdc1 for example), then type:

sudo fsck.vfat /dev/sdc1

This assumes vfat and sdc1.

Dirty bit?

greg@greg-OptiPlex-990:~$ sudo fsck.vfat /dev/sdc1
[sudo] password for greg:
fsck.fat 4.1 (2017-01-24)
0x41: Dirty bit is set. Fs was not properly unmounted and some data may be corrupt.
1) Remove dirty bit
2) No action
? 1
Perform changes ? (y/n) y
/dev/sdc1: 15 files, 245/986880 clusters
greg@greg-OptiPlex-990:~$

[Snowhog]

Now, redo the commands I gave you in post #27. MAKE SURE YOU ARE IN /media/greg/3221-4A40

[oshunluvr]

"Dirty bit" is the way the file system is tagged as "needing a file system check."

If you're using Windows, do yourself a favor and stop using Windows turn off drive caching for removable devices. This is why Windows always corrupts (or tags as corrupt) thumb drives. No one in their right mind would cache writes to a removable device except the morons over at Microsoft. I believe with Windows 10, someone at that digital cesspool finally figured out that drive caching should by OFF be default instead of on.

[GregM]

greg@greg-OptiPlex-990:~$ cd /media/greg/3221-4A40
greg@greg-OptiPlex-990:/media/greg/3221-4A40$ ls -la
total 944
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 16384 Dec 31 1969 .
drwxr-x---+ 3 root root 4096 Dec 2 15:43 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 267995 Nov 26 09:17 'Dove Creek 1.jpg'
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 244380 Nov 26 09:18 'Dove Creek 2.jpg'
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 181921 Nov 26 09:19 'Dove Creek 3.jpg'
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 2 08:18 FOUND.000
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 241015 Dec 2 08:22 snow.jpg
greg@greg-OptiPlex-990:/media/greg/3221-4A40$ sudo chown greg:greg *
[sudo] password for greg:
chown: changing ownership of 'Dove Creek 1.jpg': Operation not permitted
chown: changing ownership of 'Dove Creek 2.jpg': Operation not permitted
chown: changing ownership of 'Dove Creek 3.jpg': Operation not permitted
chown: changing ownership of 'FOUND.000': Operation not permitted
chown: changing ownership of 'snow.jpg': Operation not permitted
greg@greg-OptiPlex-990:/media/greg/3221-4A40$

[GregM]

The thing is that I have many thumb drives as well as a camera card.
Nothing I hook to the USB inputs on this computer allows me to write to it anymore.
It sounds like there is a hardware switch that is thrown the wrong way?

[Snowhog]

I honestly doubt that. Do you have a thumb drive that has never been used on a Windows PC that you can plug in?

[GregM]

I just tried my CompactFlash camera card and it won't let me copy to that either.
If I could format a thumb drive on Kubuntu I would do that but I'm not finding any programs that will do it.

[Snowhog]

KDE Partition Manager is installed. Use it.

[GregM]

Well I hooked up a different drive with Kubuntu 18.04 on it and it has the same problem. Something is up

[Snowhog]

Well, as odd as it would be, it might be possible that all of your USB ports are somehow 'not quite right' anymore. How? No clue. But what you are experiencing 'on that PC' is weird!

[oshunluvr]

greg@greg-OptiPlex-990:~$ ll -R /media
/media:
total 44
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ./
drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4096 Dec 2 12:51 ../
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 45 Sep 8 16:07 .directory -> /etc/kubuntu-default-settings/directory-media
drwxr-x---+ 2 root root 4096 Dec 2 13:33 greg/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 42 Sep 8 16:07 .hidden -> /etc/kubuntu-default-settings/hidden-media
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 Dec 1 10:12 usb -> usb0/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 usb0/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 usb1/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 usb2/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 usb3/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 usb4/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 usb5/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 usb6/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 usb7/

/media/greg:
total 8
drwxr-x---+ 2 root root 4096 Dec 2 13:33 ./
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ../

/media/usb0:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ./
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ../

/media/usb1:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ./
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ../

/media/usb2:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ./
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ../

/media/usb3:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ./
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ../

/media/usb4:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ./
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ../

/media/usb5:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ./
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ../

/media/usb6:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ./
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ../

/media/usb7:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ./
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Dec 1 10:12 ../
greg@greg-OptiPlex-990:~$

This might be part of the problem. NONE of that should be in there and it should not be root owned. For example, here's the results of that command on my system:

stuart@office:~$ ll -R /media
/media:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 12 Nov 9 08:26 ./
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 268 Nov 23 08:50 ../
drwxr-x---+ 1 root root 0 Nov 24 09:08 stuart/

/media/stuart:
total 0
drwxr-x---+ 1 root root 0 Nov 24 09:08 ./

Nothing plugged in - nothing listed. Here's the output with a USB drive plugged in:

stuart@office:~$ ll -R /media
/media:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 12 Nov 9 08:26 ./
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 268 Nov 23 08:50 ../
drwxr-x---+ 1 root root 22 Dec 2 19:41 stuart/

/media/stuart:
total 32
drwxr-x---+ 1 root root 22 Dec 2 19:41 ./
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 12 Nov 9 08:26 ../
drwxr-xr-x 2 stuart stuart 32768 Dec 31 1969 'Samsung USB'/

'/media/stuart/Samsung USB':
total 32
drwxr-xr-x 2 stuart stuart 32768 Dec 31 1969 ./
drwxr-x---+ 1 root root 22 Dec 2 19:41 ../

You haven't been monkeying around with mounting in the media folder, have you?

[GregM]

yes all day, but nothing is working
and I'm about ready to wipe my hard drive and start over

[Qqmike]

For the heck of it, check the BIOS/firmware settings for anything having to do with USB (confirming that nothing got "flipped" on to the "Off" setting & etc.).