Can't write to usb external hd

[houndhen]

I did some searching the forum but didn't find anything that looked like it actually worked.

I have a IDE external USB connected hard drive formated as fat32. I am wanting to use this drive as my backup using Ark. I saw something about changing 'user' to 'users' in the fstab file and did that and then re-booted but nothing changed.

When the drive is mounted I check permissions and the owner can view and modify content. Group can view content and Others can view content. I, the user, am listed as the user and root is listed as the group. In properties the drive is referred to as sdb1.

Is there a way to change the permissions permanently so that I can write to this drive each time it is mounted? (I only plan to mount this drive when I do a backup.)

I don't have a problem using the command line but man pages examples don't seem to address my situation.

Here is my fstab file.

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>  <type> <options>    <dump> <pass>
proc      /proc      proc  defaults    0    0
# /dev/sda14
UUID=76328e0e-c48b-4b08-9bf9-0be3fc3050e7 /        ext3  relatime,errors=remount-ro 0    1
# /dev/sda15
UUID=78877541-f4c0-4e61-b8a5-3f94ff8b1215 /home      ext3  relatime    0    2
# /dev/sda10
UUID=015e44d3-6974-458c-9a6c-79692aec37f7 none      swap  sw       0    0
# /dev/sda13
UUID=c42ded5a-c431-4cc1-be5e-5ebeba3ed863 none      swap  sw       0    0
# /dev/sda6
UUID=a8014bac-a64c-422e-87ec-6431811146e7 none      swap  sw       0    0
# /dev/sda9
UUID=0286a863-6aac-4ab6-9669-d3c8e106e952 none      swap  sw       0    0
/dev/scd0    /media/cdrom0  udf,iso9660 users,noauto,exec,utf8 0    0
/dev/fd0    /media/floppy0 auto  rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0    0

Thanks,
Harold

[Troberg]

Re: Can't write to usb external hd

I don't have a solution, but I have the same problem. I havn't got around to fixing it, as it's not something I need, but a fix would still be nice.

If it's any help, for some reason it looks like it detects my 80GB disk as a CD.

[houndhen]

Re: Can't write to usb external hd

I am also running Mepis 7.0 and backup and permissions was not problem with it.

Maybe someone more knowledgeable will come along with a solution that we can understand and implement.

[dibl]

Re: Can't write to usb external hd

Regarding your /etc/fstab file, you have three more swap partitions than you need. :P

However that's completely irrelevant to mounting your external drive.

I don't know the answer for certain. Here are some thoughts on it:

1. With the drive connected and running,

lsusb

will show you how the drive is recognized on the USB interface, and

sudo fdisk -lu

will show you how it is identified as a storage device (looks like you've already done that).

2. If it is not to be mounted automatically at each boot, then you don't want to attempt to add it to /etc/fstab.

3. What happens if you turn on the drive, let it spin up, and then plug in the USB connector (give it 2 or 3 minutes)? If nothing, then you're probably stuck mounting it manually each time you need to use it. ("sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /media/backup" is not exactly an onerous CLI command ....). But maybe the USB automount capability will catch it. There's a recent post on this forum on the subject of USB automounting -- you might want to review that.

HTH

[houndhen]

Re: Can't write to usb external hd

2. If it is not to be mounted automatically at each boot, then you don't want to attempt to add it to /etc/fstab.

It is not a problem with mounting automatically. It mounts fine. It is just that I can't write to it using Ark. I get told I don't have permissions. I was trying to find out how to reset them to where I could write to it with my backup.

[dibl]

Re: Can't write to usb external hd

With it running and connected, you might take a look at the settings for it in KMenu>System Settings>Advanced>Disks & Filesystems. Some folks have had luck adjusting permissions and ownership of USB devices there.

[houndhen]

Re: Can't write to usb external hd

With it running and connected, you might take a look at the settings for it in KMenu>System Settings>Advanced>Disks & Filesystems. Some folks have had luck adjusting permissions and ownership of USB devices there.

With it running I took a picture of disks and filesystems and attached it. I noticed that neither the /dev/sdb1 or /dev/sda13 are enabled.
I have looked around but am unsure of what to edit and how to go about it.

Is the swap partition supposed to be mounted at boot?