Can't access external usb drive

5 replies [Last post]
GNUser
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Joined: 07/17/2013

I have an external USB drive that currently when I connect to my computer appears as not being mounted, I click it, and it mounts, but when I try to access the folder it says I have not the right permissions. I can only use this as root.

I have tried running sudo nautilus, and navigated to the folder and right click to change permissions
It fails, automatically changes options to what they were.

I ahev tried running chown -R /media/user/diskfolder and it apparently worked but didn't do anything.
I have tried running chmod -R 777 /media/user/diskfolder and it apparently worked but didn't do anything.

How can I get access to it again in regular user not only root?

Thanks.

Fenderbassist
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Joined: 03/24/2015

I'm just curious, did you run

sudo chown -R user /media/user/usbdrivename

to change ownership of the usb drive?

GNUser
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Joined: 07/17/2013

Thanks you! I had run the command the wrong way (I was basically always assigning the drive to root again and again, I wasn't including the user).
However, after running that proper command and being able to change permissions, I see no files at all inside the folder! And if I remove and insert the usb cable again, I am left again with the "no permissions for this folder" thing.
Could I be doing something wrong in the mounting part of the process?

GNUser
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Joined: 07/17/2013

Sorry I have figured it now. The command (as you explained) did the trick. But I was having an issue with my firejail profiles that was preventing accessing some folders in the system, which was causing the issue I mentioned above. All is good now I think. Thank you so much for all the help :)

Fenderbassist
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Joined: 03/24/2015

Very glad I could help, I'm not that technically inclined, but have had this situation arise a lot of times myself.

Happy hacking :)

ADFENO
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Joined: 12/31/2012

I had the same problem one year ago when I did some temporary work as
graphics designer for a company.

The graphics design area of the company shared common resources using an
external USB storage device.

It was so long since I tried this, but I remember having to edit the
"/etc/fstab" file to add an NTFS (or was it "NTFS-3G"?) mount point
under "/media/[Directy name that you would like to call it, without this
brackets and preferably without spaces and quotes.]".

I also installed "ntfs-3g" package, but I don't know if that is
required.

After this, however, I always had to press some key while booting my
copy of Trisquel, because "/etc/fstab" will be read and will probably
result in a message saying that your USB storage device is absent.

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