[DESKTOP] Saving A writer Document to a USB Drive

[anonprivate]

I am posting this topic here because I don't think it fits anywhere else.

I can't seem to save a Writer document directly to a USB drive.

When I click 'Save As' I see the hard drive, but not the inserted USB dive.

When I use 'Disks' (utility), I see the hard drive and the USB drive.

Advice please.

Thanks

[Snowhog]

When you insert/plug in a USB drive, you have to 'mount' it. When first plugged in, the device notifier appears giving you the opportunity to mount the drive. If you don't, you can open Dolphin and click on the device to mount it. Then it is available to be used.

[anonprivate]

Thank you for responding.

I tried both of the suggested methods.

In the former, I received the message 'Cannot mount device - removable media'. In the latter, the USB drive, although visible in Dolphin, is still not visible in Writer.

[NickStone]

If you cannot mount the device you may have a problem with the file system on that device. Do you know if the device has been formatted? If so what file system has it been formatted to?

Have you tried to connect another USB storage device and does that mount successfully?

[anonprivate]

Thank you for responding.

I have two USB sticks, and neither can be mounted.

Both sticks have Linux operating systems installed that can be run if I boot from the USB drive.

I use the spare space on these sticks for storing personal files.

From what you have said, perhaps these operating systems are preventing any mounting.

I can copy and read files from the USB sticks. In every other way they work well

Best wishes.

A

[NickStone]

If you only have 2 USB sticks and both have Linux live disks installed on them with a persistence file for storing files, you cannot use these as normal storage disks for your PC installed Kubuntu Linux, which is why you cannot mount them in Kubuntu from your PC.

When you boot up using one of these sticks, if you can then access your home partition on hard disk then i would then copy the file over to the stick that way. Otherwise create the file whilst running Linux from the stick and save it to the stick that way.

[anonprivate]

Thank you for replying

I usually run Kubuntu from the hard drive and sometime use the pendrives for storage.

I note that I can access the pendrive for storage when booting form the hard drive by using the following path

/media/andrew/install/myfiles

where install is the name of the pendrive.

What is the advantage of being able to mount a pendrive?

Thanks

[oshunluvr]

I note that I can access the pendrive for storage when booting form the hard drive by using the following path

/media/andrew/install/myfiles

where install is the name of the pendrive.

This is normal and expected.

What is the advantage of being able to mount a pendrive?

You can't access files on it unless it's mounted.

A little explanation might help you:

The space on a storage device (hard drive, pendrive, SSD, whatever) must be partitioned.
The space can be divided up by several partitions or may be a single partition.
You cannot access a partition for file storage, you must format it first.
Formatting is the act of placing a filesystem on a partition.
A filesystem cannot be accessed for file storage unless it is mounted.

So:

When you insert a pendrive that has a filesystem on it (it has been partitioned and formatted) it should pop up in the Device Manager widget. You must mount the filesystem before you can write to it or read from it. Selecting "Open with File Manager" will cause it to be mounted under /media/andrew/ and open a Dolphin window with the files displayed. If you click the little icon to the right of the device description in the Device Manager widget, it will be mounted as above, but Dolphin will not automatically open.

As Nick pointed out, if you have made both of these pendrives bootable devices, they won't be accessible for normal storage. You must re-format them.

I would suggest if one of them is large enough - partition it into 2 partitions and use the first partition for a bootable install and the second for file storage.

[anonprivate]

But I can store and read files via /media/andrew/install/myfiles.

Is this not normal storage?

[NickStone]

These two documents might help you to understand how USB live disks work.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/24824...-on-a-live-usb

and

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD/Persistence

[oshunluvr]

Mine here is not writable by my regular user, but is using sudo. Weird...