I'm having a tough time adjusting the permissions and ownership of my USB3 external hard drives while using Linux Mint 22.3. I own four 4TB drives, and they're all facing the same problem. Here's a rundown of my attempts and the errors I've encountered:
1) When I try to change ownership using the command `sudo chown -R username:username /media/user/4TB_Travel/`, I get a long list of error messages that state "chown: changing ownership of '/media/user/4TB_Travel/': Read-only file system".
Similarly, when I run `sudo chmod -R 777 /media/user/4TB_Travel/`, I receive: "chmod: changing permissions of '/media/user/4TB_Travel/filename': Read-only file system".
2) I checked the disk info and found that it's an EXT4 file system mounted at '/media/USER/4TB_Travel'. I attempted to take ownership through the Disks application but received an error that mentions changing ownership of the filesystem on '/dev/sdb1' was unsuccessful because it's a read-only file system.
3) I also tried to modify the `/etc/fstab` file after confirming the UUID. I created a new mount point and added the line for the USB drive but ended up with errors stating that there were bad options or a bad superblock during the mount attempt. Even after reloading with `systemctl daemon-reload`, I still faced mounting issues.
I'm sure I'm missing something simple, and I'd appreciate any advice or help to resolve this problem!
3 Answers
I dealt with something similar recently. My Mint was remounting drives as read-only due to filesystem errors. Running `dmesg` in the terminal gave me hints about the issues. In the end, I backed up the data, reformatted the HDD, and mounted it again, which resolved the problem without any further issues.
I skimmed through your post, but it looks like you're facing a classic read-only issue with EXT4 on a removable drive. Most distros automatically set up permissions on the mount point, so check if ownership is defined correctly there. You might also want to consider managing your mounts through system settings to avoid manually editing fstab for removable drives.
When it comes to your fstab entry, you're correct that you should keep it simple. You really only need the UUID and `defaults`. The extra options are often unnecessary and can complicate things for removable drives.
So just to clarify, I should only include the UUID and 'defaults'? No need for the directory or specifying ext4?