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**Dawa** · Sep 22, 2007, 12:57 AM

Re: can't access external usb drive!

It seems I can access my HD. I used the info from this post:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...86711#msg86711

Now it works like a charm. I think I was messing around in konsole too much. I know... "not possible!"

well, here's my entire routine, for anyone else who had the same problem:

-MOUNT AN EXTERNAL USB NTFS HARD DRIVE, GRANT ACCESS RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS-

1: Install ntfs3g and ntfs config through adept package manager

2: plug in usb HD

3: go into konsole, type dmesg and look for the "sda" line. mine said "sda : sda1" you want whatever it says after sda. keep this in mind for step 6.

4: type sudo -s -H then enter password

5: type mkdir /media/xhd to make the xhd folder. or name it whatever you want. just remember to type the same folder name in for step 6.

6: type pmount /dev/sda1 /media/xhd

7: close konsole, open "System Settings" from the K Menu (equivalent of the start menu. in case you're totally lost.)

8: click the "Advanced" tab, and then click the "Disk & Filesystems" icon.

9: click the "Administrator Mode" button at the bottom, and enter your password.

10: select your USB device and click the "Modify" Button.

11: In the first drop down menu, "Type:", select NTFS - NT File System. You should get some more options now.

12: under security and safety, click the "Writeable" checkbox, and change the drop-down menus below that to your names. The first menu "user" offered my full name as an option, the second, "group" offered my login name as an option. I also changed "Mount Permissions" to any user can enable/disable.

There you go, twelve steps and you didn't even have to admit to a drinking problem. If I've suggested anything idiotic or completely wrong here, feel free to tell me. This seems to be working great for me, but I'd hate to think that someone would nuke their drive on my account.

Enjoy!

**Dawa** · Sep 22, 2007, 03:58 AM

Re: can't access external usb drive!

well, looks like I'm a big fat liar.

As soon as I tried to move a file to the hard drive, it informed me that I wasn't allowed to do that. I went into properties and tried to change "view" to "view/modify", but I can't do that, either. Tried re-mounting to a new folder in the home folder, where I'm able to create folders and such without giving a password. didn't help.

at this point, I'm going to admit being thoroughly frustrated. somebody help.

**penguin.ch** · Sep 22, 2007, 04:12 AM

Re: can't access external usb drive!

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...77658#msg77658
<plus> http://www.penguin.ch/dokuwiki/doku....fig#ntfs_media

**Dawa** · Sep 22, 2007, 04:47 AM

Re: can't access external usb drive!

it's mounted, and i can access it. I just can't allow write permissions. I did everything i said in my second post, including checking the box for "Writeable". But when I open properties for the drive, and go into the permissions tab, the "Owner" drop-down menu still says "Can View Content". If I change it to "Can View & Modify Content" and click OK, I'm simply told by an info box that it can't be done.

What am I doing wrong?

**penguin.ch** · Sep 22, 2007, 05:27 AM

Re: can't access external usb drive!

Originally posted by Dawa

What am I doing wrong?

Besides making use of unreliable tools (System Settings, ntfs-config)? Good question

For serious: you may want to check ownership and permissions of the mount point - with the file system in question being mounted to it, of course ...

**Dawa** · Sep 22, 2007, 06:08 AM

Re: can't access external usb drive!

heh. I've heard ntfs-config and ntfs-3g aren't the most stable things in the world.

I'm the owner of the mount point, I made sure of that. Something somewhere in the system doesn't seem very convinced of this, though.

I think I'll just take this HD to a friend's house, copy everything to his gargantuan hard drive, format this thing to FAT32, and copy it back. I'm getting the feeling that it will save me a good deal of headaches.

Well, let's end this on a high note. Besides my NTFS troubles, I'm really enjoying Kubuntu. I can't believe I putzed around on Windows for as long as I did.

**opie** · Sep 25, 2007, 12:21 AM

Re: can't access external usb drive!

You can't write to it even as superuser?

For example if you run

kdesu konqueror

you can't copy a file to the drive?

**rankie** · Sep 26, 2007, 11:10 AM

Re: can't access external usb drive!

I have the same problem.
I just searched the forum and it seems I'm not alone with this. Thanks to this thread I can read the drive at least.

Originally posted by opie

You can't write to it even as superuser?

For example if you run

kdesu konqueror

you can't copy a file to the drive?

No. I can't modify the drive and I can't change permissions.

Can anyone help please?

**kevanf1** · Oct 03, 2007, 03:53 AM

Re: can't access external usb drive!

Add another unhappy bunny to this mix

I have done things slightly different to the others in this thread. So, just for clarity, this is what I have done:

First I went into Konsole and opened a super user shell.

I created a mount point for the drive (Maxtor 200gb ntfs formatted) by entering mkdir /media/external

Then I opened up fstab with Kate as su.

I added:

/dev/sda1 auto rw,user,noaoto 0 0

When I then hooked up the drive I got the option to open in a new window or view files with one of the viewing programs (I forget which one). I opted to open in a new window....... ok, nothing happened. I thought about it and then asked my friends on a local LUG. Before any answers came through I realised that it was probably the mount point that was my problem. As su I can type cd /media/external and I then see all the various directories held on this drive. As normal user I can't :-( That's not ideal by a long shot. I don't want to have to log in anywhere if I can help it as su and certainly not to a drive with Windows stuff on it.

This is what I see when I run ls on the /media directory

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 2007-09-20 18:20 cdrom -> cdrom0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-20 18:20 cdrom0
dr-x------ 1 root root 8192 2007-10-01 20:27 external
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 2007-09-20 18:20 floppy -> floppy0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-20 18:20 floppy0

So, next step I thought ok, do chmod on the mount point. I entered, as su through the root Konsole, cd /media then chmod 777 external

Nothing, it still doesn't work. This is the message I got back

chmod: changing permissions of `external': Read-only file system
root@kev-kubuntu-PC:/media# ls -l
total 16
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 2007-09-20 18:20 cdrom -> cdrom0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-20 18:20 cdrom0
dr-x------ 1 root root 8192 2007-10-01 20:27 external
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 2007-09-20 18:20 floppy -> floppy0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-09-20 18:20 floppy0

At this point I should add that I have also tried unmounting and remounting the drive and completely switching off the PC (yeah, I know, Windows behaviour).

So, next step I tried to change owner of the mount point, again in the super user Konsole

chown -R normaluser:normaluser /media/external

I put my normal log in name in place of 'normaluser'

Again, no joy so I then just tried

chown -R normaluser /media/external

Still nothing.

Now the weird part of all this is if I try to mount a bog standard 128mb USB key drive at the same mount point it just works. The difference? It's FAT32 formatted. So, it appears to be something to do with the fact that the 200gb HDD is ntfs formatted. Of course I can, as another contributor to this thread has stated, simply back up the files from this drive then reformat it as FAT32. Surely there must be a way of doing all this without going to that measure? Isn't there?

**myxal** · Oct 03, 2007, 06:49 AM

Re: can't access external usb drive!

I see this problem keeps haunting just about every new user...
Looking at *buntu's bug tracker reveals that pmount is not even used by Kubuntu anymore (and neither by Ubuntu, they have gnome-mount... dunno what's KDE using thou). Here's the topic that solved the problem for me:

So someone on the Ubuntu forums had the solution to my problem. Right click on the drive, go to mounting and uncheck "mount as user" and now my USB ntfs works.

I suggest you also remove the directory completely after setting the above and unmounting (!!!) the external drive - the directories shouldn't even be there when the drive isn't attached...

EDIT: Needless to say, there's no info on USB drives /etc/fstab - this is intended for "permanently mounted" (a.k.a. "fixed") drives!!

**kevanf1** · Oct 03, 2007, 06:52 AM

Re: can't access external usb drive!

A little addition to what I have already stated.

I have another external drive, again a Maxtor this time a 100gb model. This is formatted as FAT32 (vfat). I tried plugging this into my Kubuntu PC. I did not make any configuration changes yet it was found and mounted at the /media/external point that I created and was instantly readable and writable. So, my conclusion is that it is down to some anomaly with the ntfs formatting of the other (original) drive.

I shall continue dabbling...

Oh, I should have mentioned, I am using Kubuntu 7.04 sorry for my forgetfulness.

**myxal** · Oct 03, 2007, 07:00 AM

Re: can't access external usb drive!

umm, did you try the "mount as user" trick I just posted? If you still cannot automount the drive, try to mount it manually in terminal - if you get an error that the drive was not properly unmounted and that you need to mount it to a windows machine, which will fix it, than this is your way out - mount it to windows and SAFELY REMOVE it (this is one of the reasons I keep windows virtual machine at hand...)

**kevanf1** · Oct 03, 2007, 07:00 AM

Re: can't access external usb drive!

Originally posted by myxal

I see this problem keeps haunting just about every new user...
Looking at *buntu's bug tracker reveals that pmount is not even used by Kubuntu anymore (and neither by Ubuntu, they have gnome-mount... dunno what's KDE using thou). Here's the topic that solved the problem for me:

So someone on the Ubuntu forums had the solution to my problem. Right click on the drive, go to mounting and uncheck "mount as user" and now my USB ntfs works.

I suggest you also remove the directory completely after setting the above and unmounting (!!!) the external drive - the directories shouldn't even be there when the drive isn't attached...

EDIT: Needless to say, there's no info on USB drives /etc/fstab - this is intended for "permanently mounted" (a.k.a. "fixed") drives!!

Well I wouldn't mind but I've mounting and using external drives for years on Linux. I'm certainly no expert but that's why I knew my way around the fstab

we had to do it this way before... but, times change

Anyway, many thanks for the input myxal I'll try your suggestion this afternoon. I'll post back the results... fingers crossed

**kevanf1** · Oct 03, 2007, 07:02 AM

Re: can't access external usb drive!

Originally posted by myxal

umm, did you try the "mount as user" trick I just posted? If you still cannot automount the drive, try to mount it manually in terminal - if you get an error that the drive was not properly unmounted and that you need to mount it to a windows machine, which will fix it, than this is your way out - mount it to windows and SAFELY REMOVE it (this is one of the reasons I keep windows virtual machine at hand...)

Nope, not yet

I've only just finished my dinner (it's just after 1:30pm here in the UK). As soon as I've finished this cup of tea I will give it a whirl, again, thank you

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