USB Hard Drive still not working properly

[penguin.ch]

Re: USB Hard Drive still not working properly

chmod: changing permissions of `/media/usbdisk': Read-only file system

That's an interesting one

Remount the disk with umask=000 and give it another try:

sudo mount -o remount,umask=000 /media/usbdisk

(For details, please refer to man mount.)

[rothchild]

Re: USB Hard Drive still not working properly

Good skills UnicornRider! that seems to have done it! (although I do need to be root to write to the drive) this is better than it was.

I ran the umask command and then ran chmod again which went through ok and now I can write to the drive as root, so once again thank you for your efforts.

Where does this mean that the problem is though? I certainly want to pursue this bug further as to my mind this is something fundamentally broken, the whole point of *ubuntu is that you should never have to use the cli if you don't want to. This system (plug in usb drive, pop window asking what you want to do and it would be mounted and user accessible straight off) was working well under Dapper yet it has been broken in the last 2 releases.

Cheers
Child

[penguin.ch]

Re: USB Hard Drive still not working properly

that seems to have done it

We're not finished yet

Inside the FAT partition, create a new folder as follows, then try to access this one as regular user:

sudo mkdir /media/usbdisk/user_data
sudo chmod 777 /media/usbdisk/user_data

[rothchild]

Re: USB Hard Drive still not working properly

Heh, ok (getting ahead of myself!)

I had to re-run umask and chmod to be able to create the directory, I've created it and chmod'ed it but it is still not writable by the user :-(

Child

[penguin.ch]

Re: USB Hard Drive still not working properly

still not writable by the user

Mumble, mumble ... time for "Plan B" then (not neat, but effective):

http://www.penguin.ch/dokuwiki/doku....ab#usb_tacking

For your FAT, I'd recommend an entry containing i.a. the following:

vfat auto,users,rw,umask=000 0 0

[rothchild]

Re: USB Hard Drive still not working properly

Sorry this is plainly my ignorance with fstab bear with me:

desktop:~$ hwinfo | grep 'usb' | grep 'sdb'
Device Files: /dev/sdb, /dev/disk/by-id/usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SW063425780-0:0, /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:1f.4-usb-0:2:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0
Device Files: /dev/sdb1, /dev/disk/by-id/usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SW063425780-0:0-part1, /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:1f.4-usb-0:2:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1

desktop:~$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/usb-Seagate_External_Drive_*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 2007-07-21 11:47 /dev/disk/by-id/usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SW063425780-0:0 -> ../../sdb
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2007-07-21 11:47 /dev/disk/by-id/usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SW063425780-0:0-part1 -> ../../sdb1

So if I'm understanding right /dev/disk/by-id/usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SW063425780-0:0-part1 -> ../../sdb1 is the device I want to mount to /media/usbdisk

so I've added this line to fstab:
/dev/disk/by-id/usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SW063425780-0:0-part1 -> ../../sdb1 /media/usbdisk vfat auto,users,rw,umask=000 0 0

but when I then do:

desktop:~$ sudo mount -v /media/usbdisk
[mntent]: line 16 in /etc/fstab is bad
mount: can't find /media/usbdisk in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab

I've borked something in fstab I guess but I'm at the limit of my knowledge here so don't know what to look for?

Cheers
Child

[penguin.ch]

Re: USB Hard Drive still not working properly

/dev/disk/by-id/usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SW063425780-0:0-part1 -> ../../sdb1

Nice try it is, however, supposed to look more like

[device] [mountpoint] [options et al.]

or, in your case, somehow similar to the following:

/dev/disk/by-id/usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SW063425780-0:0-part1 /media/usbdisk vfat auto,users,rw,umask=000 0 0

[rothchild]

Re: USB Hard Drive still not working properly

Ooh so near yet so far!

Ok Fstab now fixed:

desktop:~$ mount -v /media/usbdisk
/dev/sdb1 on /media/usbdisk type vfat (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,umask=000)

looks good, try to copy file across in Konqueror not working, try with kdesu konqueror not working

desktop:~$ sudo chmod 777 /media/usbdisk
chmod: changing permissions of `/media/usbdisk': Read-only file system

I'm starting to get a bit dizzy now ;-)

Child

[penguin.ch]

Re: USB Hard Drive still not working properly

so near yet so far

Mumble, mumble ... and what happens if you just plug it "in & out" ...?

[rothchild]

Re: USB Hard Drive still not working properly

Turned drive off and on again nothing, ran mount -v /media/usbdisk it gets mounted and I can write to the 'user_data' folder we created earlier but not to the other folders.

Then I've rerun the umask command and it seems to mean I can now write as a user to all folders, it seems I have to run the umask command each time I want to try to copy something and it's having a hard time (i.e. not doing it at all) copying large folders with many subfiles.

Child

[penguin.ch]

Re: USB Hard Drive still not working properly

Turned drive off and on again nothing, ran mount -v /media/usbdisk it gets mounted and I can write to the 'user_data' folder we created earlier but not to the other folders.

Hmmm ... update the mount options as follows (provided you're using the default account), then try again (as usual ...):

auto,users,rw,umask=000,uid=1000,gid=1000

[rothchild]

Re: USB Hard Drive still not working properly

Yup updated fstab line now reads:
/dev/disk/by-id/usb-Seagate_External_Drive_SW063425780-0:0-part1 /media/usbdisk vfat auto,users,rw,umask=000,uid=1000,gid=1000

turned on drive, nothing ran:
desktop:~$ mount -v /media/usbdisk
/dev/sdc1 on /media/usbdisk type vfat (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,umask=000,uid=1000,gid=100 0)

(note the drive assignment has changed from sdb to sdc?!)

Tried dragging a file in, not having it. So tried:

desktop:~$ sudo chmod 777 /media/usbdisk
chmod: changing permissions of `/media/usbdisk': Read-only file system

so tried: sudo mount -o remount,umask=000 /media/usbdisk

low and behold I can copy a file across, try to copy a folder, no go remount with umask again and now I can copy a folder so it's kinda working but I have to remount the drive each time?

cheers
Child

[penguin.ch]

Re: USB Hard Drive still not working properly

Grrr ... looks as if they had changed the relevant code again > sorry for that ... but maybe you should revert to as well as settle for "Plan A" and forget about the rest (read: remove the added entry from the "fstab" ...).

--

Add.: I just checked my "Gutsy" test system (current as of yesterday), and there "plug & pray" works (again) as expected

[rothchild]

Re: USB Hard Drive still not working properly

Thanks UnicornRider.

This is a fully updated gutsy system and I am not getting plug and pray (well I get it for my pendrive but not the hard-drive) maybe I've been excommunicated?! ;-)

I guess I'm actually going to move to plan c which is to reinstall dapper and take the eyecandy hit!

Thanks again for all your input on this one, I'll be keeping and eye out hoping that someone can fix this showstopper so that I can rejoin the update cycle and have new toys every once in a while!

Child