Can't create folders in, or copy files to my internal Hard Drive

[lane99]

Open Dolphin.
Select the drive.
When it opens, it will be mounted under /media/ followed by your username.
Still using Dolphin, open /media/ your username and you will see the mount point there.
Then press F4 and a terminal window will open at the bottom of Dolphin and it will be at /media/ your username...

Oshunluvr, when I opened Dolpin and selected (by which I assume you mean CLICK on it) the hard drive, I see:

The path seems to say "target", and not "media". And when I press F4, I see:
(and if I scroll down the terminal window, it continues to:

...I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong, failing to understand your instructions, or whether this has to do with the fact that I'm running Kubuntu from a USB, or...?

[oshunluvr]

Odd, I've not seen Dolphin do that - use "target" as a mount path. That folder exists on my system, but I've never seen it used.

This an Internal hard drive, correct?

I just went through about six file systems on my computer that were unmounted and all of them appeared under /media/stuart after clicking on them with Dolphin as expected.

Regardless, there in the last photo, you're in /target/ where the hard drive file system is mounted. In there in the terminal window type

cd ..

and Enter and to will go up one directory. Then type

ll

(that's lower case L) and ENTER. This will list the /target/ folder and show ownership and permissions.. It will look something like this;

drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 30 Dec 30 11:13 target/

Now you can see it's owned by "root". Now type:

sudo chown kubuntu:kubuntu target

and then "ll" should show:

drwxr-xr-x 1 kubuntu kubuntu 30 Dec 30 11:13 target/

You should be able to modify files/folders on the drive.

[oshunluvr]

Note that this still will not allow you to modify folders/files on the drive that are still owned by root. It looks like this is the installation folder for a failed hard drive installation. Likely only the Home folder will be accessible. Not really sure what you're doing process wise but if you are just going to use the hard drive for storage while running from the USB stick, you'll want to delete the other stuff on there.

Honestly, if you're going to learn Linux you should start by figuring out how to get it installed. Then you won't have as many of these oddball problems.

[lane99]

Note that this still will not allow you to modify folders/files on the drive that are still owned by root. It looks like this is the installation folder for a failed hard drive installation. Likely only the Home folder will be accessible. Not really sure what you're doing process wise but if you are just going to use the hard drive for storage while running from the USB stick, you'll want to delete the other stuff on there.

Honestly, if you're going to learn Linux you should start by figuring out how to get it installed. Then you won't have as many of these oddball problems.

Oshunluvr, hi. YES, it is true that (as I mentioned in my first post) I could not get kubuntu to install on my hard drive for some reason. I have tried several times to install on the hard drive (yes, it's the internal hard drive of the laptop), but I always get an error message. I can't remember if it is the same error message every time or different. I will try again, and note the error message.

Meanwhile I will try what you've suggested in your previous post, and see where that leads me.

[lane99]

... It will look something like this;

drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 30 Dec 30 11:13 target/

Now you can see it's owned by "root". Now type:

sudo chown kubuntu:kubuntu target

and then "ll" should show:

drwxr-xr-x 1 kubuntu kubuntu 30 Dec 30 11:13 target/

You should be able to modify files/folders on the drive.

i) I think I ran the command as you instructed, Oshunluvr. And this is what I saw after I did so:


ii) I then entered "ll' at the command line. But the result didn't show "kubuntu kubuntu". Rather, it still showed "root root". (as per attached photo of):


iii) Is there any hope?

[oshunluvr]

Well it also says "read-only file system" right there. You obviously can't save things to a read-only file system. Go back to the beginning of the thread and try the "remount" command.

I still don't really get what you're trying to do. If you're just trying to access the hard drive to store files you should probably wipe it and start over. If there's stuff on it you want, make a backup of that first.

[lane99]

Yes, oshunluvr, I just want to store files on the hard drive. Windows crashed on my laptop, and I could not get it to re-install. So I took this as a chance to start with Linux. I was able to boot kubuntu from a USB. But when I tried to install it directly on the hard drive, I get an error message each time (and not always the same error message).

So I thought if I can at least get access to the hard drive to store files, I don't mind if i have to run Kubuntu from a USB (as I can't get it installed on the hard drive).

So that is what's behind all of this. I guess I'll go back now and see if the remount command will work.

Thanks for everything.

(p.s. There is nothing that is currently on the hard drive now that I need (I think). So I would be fine to wipe out the hard drive and start over. But I can't even seem to get that to work).

[Snowhog]

Thread getting 'long in the tooth'.

I believe you say that Dolphin 'sees' the HDD, but it is read-only, so you can't do anything, even with sudo.

You said this HDD was in a Windows machine that 'crashed', presumably while the OS was operating. I'll assume that.

Open a konsole and type: sudo fsck -Af -M

[lane99]

Thanks you, Snowhog. Unfortunately that is something I share in common with the thread. Meanwhile, yes, everything you've assumed is correct. I did as you suggested. And this was the result:


Was something other than this supposed to happen?

[Snowhog]

Log out / Log in (not likely you need to reboot), then see if you can write to the drive after accessing it in Dolphin.

[lane99]

Log out / Log in (not likely you need to reboot), then see if you can write to the drive after accessing it in Dolphin.

Unfortunately, still can't write to the drive. Not after logout/login. (Nor after rebooting).

I will go back to the start, and try again all the things that everyone has suggested so far. Maybe I'll get lucky.

[lane99]

Good News

Thank you, jglen490, andystmartin, Snowhog, and, especially, oshunluvr for your generous and patient guidance in dealing with my issue. Based on the info you shared (and some extra groping around I stumbled onto) I finally managed to get at least one of the folders in the internal hard drive to allow me to create/delete files and folders (see photo). That's what I was trying to do, so I'm good now.

I've not been able to install Kubuntu directly onto the hard drive, and still have to run it from a USB stick. But I can deal with that.

Thank you again.