I've been using Zorin OS and recently ran into an issue with my external drive. It used to work fine—I could access, edit, and save my Dropbox folder without a hitch. However, now all the files on the drive are read-only, and I can't change them. I've checked the permissions, and everything appears to be set correctly for all users. I'm trying to find a solution to restore my write access. Any ideas?
3 Answers
So, I actually found a pretty simple fix for this issue! I needed to use the 'Disks' utility in Zorin. I selected my partition, unmounted it, and then used the 'Repair Filesystem' option. This fixed the read-only access problem and now everything is back to normal! Just a heads up, though—be careful with repairing NTFS under Linux; sometimes it can cause more issues than it solves, and it's best to use Windows for major repairs.
First thing to check is what filesystem you're using on that drive. If it's NTFS, it might need a scan or repair from a Windows system. Sometimes, if a drive is improperly ejected, Linux will mount it as read-only to prevent data loss. So, make sure to safely remove it from Windows before plugging it back into Linux.
You might also want to look at the mount point and your permissions. Open the terminal and run `ls -al` to check who owns the mount point. If you're not the owner, you might need to change permissions using `sudo chmod 777 /mnt/YourMountpoint`. If it's read-only, you can try remounting it with write permissions.
Yeah, good point! `ntfsfix` can handle minor issues, but for anything bigger, you really should use a proper Windows setup. Just be careful when you’re making repairs—following the wrong steps can lead to data issues.