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USB drive permissions unable to be determined

  • 14-10-2009 08:38AM
    #1
    sparky360
    Closed Accounts Posts: 358 ✭✭


    Hi guys,

    As the title says, whenever i try to transfer files from my desktop to my USB hard drive, it tells me:

    Error opening file '/media/disk-1/4276.jpg': Read-only file system

    So when I go into the properties of the device it says the permissions are unable to be determined

    I'm not sure what I can do. It seems to let me transfer off my sisters windows based laptop

    Any advice would be appreciated

    PS. Using Ubuntu by the way


Comments

  • #2
    DeepBlue
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,694 ✭✭✭DeepBlue


    Not sure if it's the same thing but occasionally USB keys and SD cards that I mount in Xubuntu can become read-only if they are unmounted incorrectly.

    The solution that works for me is to connect them to a Windows PC *cough* and run chkdsk on them.
    I haven't used that solution with a USB hard drive though.


  • #3
    anfirrua
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29 ✭anfirrua


    What is the filesystem of your external harddrive?
    My guess is that it is NTFS and you do not have NTFS write enabled for your distro
    Get a root prompt and type
    'fdisk -l' while drive is attached and it should reply back with what filesytem it is.
    If it is NTFS and you want to write to NTFS(insert NTFS linux write warning here) then do a quick google with your distro name and NTFS write


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