[SOLVED] Can't write to external hd

[oldgeek]

Due to a malfunction in my Elements ext. hd I bought a new one, a Toshiba 1-tb. During a time when my computer wasn't working properly, my new ext- hd stopped accepting write commands. I can still read what I managed to get saved before it stopped listening to me, but I can neither add folders are save anything to it. Another thing: the icon does not appear under 'Devices? in the left column of Dolphin. Instead, the icon can be found in the Roots directory, under 'media.' Is this now the norm? Does this affect my ability to write to the hard disk? Is there something I can do, or is the disk probably defective?

I'm using Neon/Kubuntu hybrid, by the way.

[GreyGeek]

Probably its permission changed and only allows root r/w access. All others just r access.
As root (sudo -i) you can change ownership to yourname:yourname using chown.
chown -R yourname:yourname <path/to/root/of/drive>

[oldgeek]

Something must be wrong in my syntax, as I get a no file response. I went to root, typed chown -R then my name as specified, but the direction to the device is not understood. The device is located in root directory, in the media folder, under my name, and written in capital letters. After my name, I typed: /root/media/steve/TOSHIBA EXT, which is how it appears in Dolphin. What did I do wrong?

[Snowhog]

Because there is a space in the device name, you have to ‘escape’ it. So, you would type:

/root/media/steve/TOSHIBA\ EXT

[oldgeek]

Thanks, but I'm still getting a 'no such file' message. Here's what I typed and what I got:

root@steve-desktop:~# chown -R steve:steve /root/media/steve/TOSHIBA\EXT
chown: cannot access '/root/media/steve/TOSHIBAEXT': No such file or directory

[GreyGeek]

You are not escaping properly. The backslash is put in front of the space. It doesn't replace it.

[oldgeek]

Thanks, but still no dice. I did have another mistake, using root as the beginning directory in the file path, since I'm already in root, it doesn't need it again, right? This time it starts to change ownership, then runs into an I/O error on one of the archives I had previously saved. What might be happening?

[GreyGeek]

It's a cli command that I've used often in the past. All I can tell you is consult the man page and examine carefully what you've typed. You have a mistake somewhere.
IF you run Krusader as root perhaps you can use the GUI on that file manager to check the ownership and change it to your name and account.

[vinnywright]

Thanks, but still no dice. I did have another mistake, using root as the beginning directory in the file path, since I'm already in root, it doesn't need it again, right? This time it starts to change ownership, then runs into an I/O error on one of the archives I had previously saved. What might be happening?

how are you accessing the drive ,,,,,plug it in and auto mount ,,,or an entry in /etc/fstab that auto mounts it at boot ?

VINNY

[oldgeek]

I plug it in and auto-mount.

[vinnywright]

I plug it in and auto-mount.

strange ,,,,that usually results in allowing user access.

lets do this ,,,,and bare with me it will take a bit of back and forth,,,,,,,,,Open a konsole and with the external drive plugged in and auto mounted do

cd media && ls -la

post the output...and

sudo parted -l

,,,and post the output .

use the # button over the text input Field hear on your reply and paste the output between the code tags that pressing the # will insert in the text field , each output in separate code tags .

VINNY

[oldgeek]

I did the two commands and got this:

steve@steve-desktop:~$ cd media && ls -la
bash: cd: media: No such file or directory
steve@steve-desktop:~$ sudo parted -l
[sudo] password for steve:
Model: ATA ST3500413AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 106MB 105MB primary ntfs boot
2 106MB 266GB 266GB primary ntfs
4 266GB 500GB 234GB extended
5 266GB 496GB 229GB logical ext4
6 496GB 500GB 4271MB logical linux-swap(v1)

Model: TOSHIBA External USB 3.0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 1000GB 1000GB primary ntfs

I didn't understand what to do with # so I just copied everything directly from the Konsole.

[oldgeek]

One thing: I have USB 2 ports. Does that affect a USB 3.0 hard disk?

[vinnywright]

OK so the drive is formated NTFS .

my bad on the ls command (surprised no one corrected me) it should have been ,,,,,,,

cd /media && ls -la

I forgot the leading / .

as to the code tags ,,,,,when you are typing in this text box ,,,right above it their is a button with # ,,,click it it will insert the code tags ,,you paste the output directly in between them ,,,,CODE]<text goes hear>[/CODE] I skipped the first bracket so you could see it ,,,,,if I did not it would have been displayed like this

<text goes hear>

as to USB-2 ver USB-3 ,,,it will still work ,,,it's just that USB-3 has faster transfer(read/write) speed.

VINNY

[oldgeek]

I redid the first step and got this:

steve@steve-desktop:~$ cd /media && ls -la
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 feb 2 2015 .
drwxr-xr-x 25 root root 4096 dic 7 19:15 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 45 feb 2 2015 .directory -> /etc/kubuntu-default-settings/directory-media
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 42 feb 2 2015 .hidden -> /etc/kubuntu-default-settings/hidden-media
drwxr-x---+ 5 root root 4096 dic 17 14:18 steve
steve@steve-desktop:/media$