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In the day, in my work, I have a partner who has a pen, and he wants to give it a new format. But, he tried to make a new format in his laptop (Ubuntu 16.04 Unity), and with Gparted he make a ext4 format in his pen. But then, he tried to copy a file (a video) in his pen and there was a message that says he has not permissions to copy, just read in the device. I know how to quit and format his pen in his laptop, but I cannot use his pc. How can I delete all the pen and create a new format without permissions? I mean, with the app "Disks" I can but, when I connect that pen in my computer, it says that I don't have permissions except to read the files, and it's even if I'm root. (I guess because the root who create the format was my partner in his laptop, not mine of course).

Sorry if I wrote something bad, I write this so fast. Thanks!

PD: I don't think this is important, but I have Ubuntu 18.04 (Gnome).

Noctis
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    AFAIK root should be able to write the file, unless the filesystem is mounted read-only, which would be one of the first things to check (use cat /proc/mounts and see if the FS is marked ro or rw). Otherwise what really counts is the integer id of users, so if you both used a default Ubuntu install, you both have the same ID (1000, normally) and you are both seen as the owner of the files yoru or the other person has written to the disk. – xenoid Oct 01 '18 at 15:30
  • Try according to: How to properly format a pendrive with Ubuntu and have permissions to read/write from any computer. If it does not work, the drive itself might be read-only. You can analyze that problem, and if you are lucky solve it according to: Can't format my usb drive. I have already tried with mkdosfs and gparted – sudodus Oct 01 '18 at 17:14
  • The traditional method to solve this problem is to ask permission. We should not be telling you how to hack a pendrive that is not your own. – C.S.Cameron Oct 02 '18 at 06:10
  • @xenoid is marked as "ro". But then I need to re-write the format in his laptop? I can't do anything in my computer? Because I try to re-write to delete all data and it's impossible in my Ubuntu. Maybe with sudo su I can do something if the ID is the same. – Noctis Oct 02 '18 at 16:12
  • And @sudodus thanks for your answer too, I'm gonna see both posts and let's see if I can do anything with this. Tomorrow I'll publish what I could do. – Noctis Oct 02 '18 at 16:15
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    Not a matter of reformatting IMHO. Something is making it be mounted R/O. Either a system restriction, or some hardware error.... Did you try with another key? Otherwise you can use df to tell what device corresponds to it, and umount it and remount it manually and see if you can override that R/O option (you may get more explicit error messages then). – xenoid Oct 02 '18 at 16:22
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    This looks like a hardware error or a hardware protection. Please feed back on what happens with any other USB pendrive. – Fabby Oct 03 '18 at 19:25
  • Thanks for your answers, I was check by myself with other pen in other computer (xubuntu 16.04) and I can perfectly give it a new format with my Ubuntu 18.04, even with the format ext4 and permissions of the sudo of the other computer. As I see, it can be a error of a pen, but it's strange 'cause he has made the same steps as I was do with the pen, and I just use Disks to reformat it. – Noctis Oct 12 '18 at 15:12
  • PD: I mount and remount the pen of my partner with different ways in the terminal, but it's usefull. But as I said, with my own pen give it a new format in other computer with Gparted and ext4, yeah, I can. – Noctis Oct 12 '18 at 15:18

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