Help writing to new SATA drive

[decatur-linux]

I am running Kubuntu v6.06 on a Pentium 4 computer with 1Gb of memory and a 30Gb IDE drive. I have recently installed a 200Gb SATA drive for data storage. But I cannot write to this drive except as root.

Here is what I did--
1. Using GPARTED as boot disk, partitioned a VFAT and a EXT3 partition, both 200Mb, on the SATA disk, as a test.
2. Under Kubuntu the VFAT partition appeared as SDA1 and the EXT2 partition appeared as SDA2.
3. Edited /etc/fstab to add the following lines at the end of the file--
/dev/sda1 /media/vfat auto rw,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/sda2 /media/sata auto rw,user,noauto 0 2
4. Created the following directories in /media for mount points--
vfat
sata
5. Rebooted computer; partitions did NOT mount automatically, but DID mount when I clicked on their icons.
6. The permissions on the IDE drive where Kubuntu is installed is as follows:
Owner: Can view and modify content
Group: Can view content
Others: Can view content
7. The User and Group of the / volume are root.
8. The permissions, User, and Group on the SATA drive are the same as the IDE drive above.
9. The /etc/fstab entry for the system disk is
/dev/hda1 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1

The problem I am encountering is this--
1. I cannot copy/save [write] to the SATA disk as my user login.
2. I cannot drag-and-drop or cut-and-paste as my user login.
3. I can do the following as root--
a. cd /media/sata
b. sudo cp /home/<username>/<filename> .
c. the permissions [-rw-r--r--] of the file successfully written to the SATA disk remain the same but the owner/group change from <username>/<username> to root/root in /media/sata.

It appears that I need to change something in the /etc/fstab entry for the SATA drive to be able to write to it as user.

Someone help me out, please.

[penguin.ch]

Re: Help writing to new SATA drive

You may try the following set of options (replacing "rw,user,noauto"):

- VFAT: auto,users,rw,umask=000
- EXT3: auto,users,rw

[decatur-linux]

Re: Help writing to new SATA drive

Thanks for the suggestion, UnicornRider, but that didn't work.

I did not change the options on the fstab entry for the vfat partition since that is working fine. It loads under WinXP as drive E: and I can read and write to that partition with no problem. I can edit the entry to automatically mount that partition if I decide to do so.

I did change the options on the fstab entry for the ext3 partition and rebooted, but I got the same response as before: Access denied. Could not write to /media/sata/<filename>

It did automatically mount the partition for me, though.

Any other suggestsions?

[penguin.ch]

Re: Help writing to new SATA drive

the vfat partition [...] is working fine

Which, in turn, means that not the SATA drive but one of the partitions is causing trouble.

Access denied. Could not write to /media/sata/<filename>

Then let us have a look at the mount process and mount point for that specific partition ...

[sudo] more /etc/fstab | grep sda2
[sudo] more /etc/mtab | grep sda2
[sudo] ls -l /media | grep sata

[decatur-linux]

Re: Help writing to new SATA drive

Here are the results of the commands you suggested--

george@Omega:~$ sudo more /etc/fstab | grep sda2
/dev/sda2 /media/sata auto auto,users,rw 0 2

george@Omega:~$ sudo more /etc/mtab | grep sda2
/dev/sda2 /media/sata ext3 rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0

george@Omega:~$ sudo ls -l /media | grep sata\
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2007-07-20 15:35 sata

Thanks so much for your help.

[penguin.ch]

Re: Help writing to new SATA drive

george@Omega:~$ sudo ls -l /media | grep sata\
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2007-07-20 15:35 sata

Which means that root is the only user allowed to write to the mount point (read: file system).
You may try to change this misbehaviour e.g. by issuing sudo chmod 777 /media/sata ... (?).

[decatur-linux]

Re: Help writing to new SATA drive

Thanks, UnicornRider, running the chmod command did the trick. I can now drag-and-drop and save-as to the sata partition. However, looking at the complete listing of /media [see below] I noted how the cdrom and floppy are set up, with the link to the device having full permission, while the device itselft is limited, if I am reading it right. I may try something like that with my SATA drive.

george@Omega:/media$ ls -l
total 16
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 2006-07-16 01:56 cdrom -> cdrom0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2006-07-16 01:56 cdrom0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 2006-07-16 01:56 floppy -> floppy0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2006-07-16 01:56 floppy0
drwxrwxrwx 3 root root 4096 2007-07-24 09:30 sata
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-07-19 20:09 vfat
george@Omega:/media$

Thanks again for your help.

[penguin.ch]

Re: Help writing to new SATA drive

I may try something like that

What for? A link is only a link (read: merely "forwarding" requests).