USB devices showing as read only

Question

I am using Ubuntu 14.04.

I have an 8gb FAT32 USB stick and a 500gb FAT32 HDD; both of these have suddenly become read only devices.

I've tried deleting the directory inside /media and then creating it again, renaming it, then giving that directory full permissions. However, this didn't work.

Results of mount:

$ mount
/dev/sda5 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro) 
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) 
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) 
none on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (rw)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw) 
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw) 
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755) 
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620) 
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755) 
none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880) 
none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /run/user type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=104857600,mode=0755) 
none on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw) 
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
systemd on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,none,name=systemd)
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=simon)

Results of sudo parted -l:

Model: ATA ST9500325AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End    Size    Type      File system     Flags
 4      1049kB  500GB  500GB   extended
 5      2097kB  496GB  496GB   logical   ext4
 6      496GB   500GB  4238MB  logical   linux-swap(v1)


Model: Verbatim STORE N GO (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 8028MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
 1      24.6kB  8028MB  8028MB  primary  fat32        boot

Results of lsblk:

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 465.8G  0 disk 
├─sda4   8:4    0     1K  0 part 
├─sda5   8:5    0 461.8G  0 part /
└─sda6   8:6    0     4G  0 part [SWAP]
sdb      8:16   1   7.5G  0 disk 
└─sdb1   8:17   1   7.5G  0 part /media/simon/LYDIA
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom

USB write test:

$ cd /media/simon/LYDIA
$ touch newfile001
touch: cannot touch ‘newfile001’: Read-only file system

Results of dmesg:

[  159.366772] FAT-fs (sdb1): Volume was not properly unmounted. Some data may be       corrupt. Please run fsck.
[  159.383252] FAT-fs (sdb1): error, fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 0)
[  159.383258] FAT-fs (sdb1): Filesystem has been set read-only
[  159.383571] FAT-fs (sdb1): error, fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 0)
[  159.384251] FAT-fs (sdb1): error, fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 0)
[  159.384319] FAT-fs (sdb1): error, fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 0)
[  159.475111] systemd-hostnamed[2966]: Warning: nss-myhostname is not installed.
Changing the local hostname might make it unresolveable. Please install nss-myhostname!
[  159.480141] FAT-fs (sdb1): error, fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 0)
[  159.480224] FAT-fs (sdb1): error, fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 0)
[  159.480497] FAT-fs (sdb1): error, fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 0)
[  159.480516] FAT-fs (sdb1): error, fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 0)
[ 2893.091767] wlan0: deauthenticating from c0:3e:0f:31:21:05 by local choice   (reason=3)

chown it, when mounted? How do you mount it? As root? Auto-mount with the file manager's automount? — davidbaumann, Dec 20 '14 at 20:03
I normally plug the usb sticks in and then either the window pops up or it's available for me to open and drag and drop files into. I don't normally use the terminal for any copying or anything like that. — oodles2do, Dec 20 '14 at 20:09
Don't mean to sound stupid, but what exactly do you mean? What code shall I put into the terminal? If that's what you mean to do it in. Thanks! — oodles2do, Dec 20 '14 at 20:13
Oops, here it is
simon@simon-VPCEH1L8E:~$ mount /dev/sda5 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro) proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) none on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (rw) — oodles2do, Dec 20 '14 at 20:22
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw) none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw) none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw) udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620) tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755) none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880) none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev) — oodles2do, Dec 20 '14 at 20:22
none on /run/user type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=104857600,mode=0755) none on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw) binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) systemd on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,none,name=systemd) gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=simon)
It wouldn't let me submit it all in one go — oodles2do, Dec 20 '14 at 20:23
You might want to add the results of sudo parted -l and lsblk too, too see what's on what drive. And were the problem devices mounted at the time you ran the mount command? Only see sda5... — Xen2050, Dec 20 '14 at 20:42
Thanks, this is from sudo parted -l
Model: ATA ST9500325AS (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 500GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 4 1049kB 500GB 500GB extended 5 2097kB 496GB 496GB logical ext4 6 496GB 500GB 4238MB logical linux-swap(v1)

Model: Verbatim STORE N GO (scsi) Disk /dev/sdb: 8028MB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 24.6kB 8028MB 8028MB primary fat32 boot — oodles2do, Dec 20 '14 at 20:45
this is from lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT sda 8:0 0 465.8G 0 disk ├─sda4 8:4 0 1K 0 part ├─sda5 8:5 0 461.8G 0 part / └─sda6 8:6 0 4G 0 part [SWAP] sdb 8:16 1 7.5G 0 disk └─sdb1 8:17 1 7.5G 0 part /media/simon/LYDIA sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom — oodles2do, Dec 20 '14 at 20:46
Is there any way I can edit the original post? The formatting isn't great in the comments — oodles2do, Dec 20 '14 at 20:46

score 298 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 06 '18 at 01:25

298

See this bug.

Run this command to kill Nautilus (Files):

killall nautilus

edited Jan 06 '18 at 01:25

wjandrea

14,236
4
48
98

answered Sep 09 '17 at 21:11

wayofthefuture

3,901

56

Wow, I cannot believe that worked – JeD Oct 22 '17 at 19:52
14

I'll be damned, this works haha – Tek Nov 25 '17 at 00:00
1

As the only answer I tried that worked, this should probably be considered the legitimate answer. Thanks. – Gnaural Dec 20 '17 at 18:22
@PlenusFranckly As helpful as this is, it doesn't fix the same issue that OP is reporting, since in OP's case, the issue affects CLI programs too. – wjandrea Jan 06 '18 at 01:31
Uf! It works!!!!! – tatojo Jan 12 '18 at 15:27
12

I'm using nemo, so I did killall nemo and it works. – Oki Erie Rinaldi Jan 27 '18 at 04:19
1

ok, so after killall nautilus, then what? I reopen nautilus and try to copy a file into the mounted usb and it gives the same error – travelingbones Feb 06 '18 at 22:01
Then this solution doesn't apply to you I guess... Good luck. – wayofthefuture Feb 07 '18 at 20:24
22

It's sad that still works in 2018 (Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS) – Andrew Feb 17 '18 at 19:09
4

Give this man a medal – Pavan Jadda Jun 05 '18 at 19:01
2

What a strange fix! – Edwin Diaz Jun 08 '18 at 21:55
4

Strangest fix I've seen. Still works on Ubuntu 18.04 – CodeMonkey Jun 13 '18 at 18:19
Yeah... I went back to Windows. Enough of pulling my hair out. – wayofthefuture Jun 14 '18 at 04:04
+1 my dude, would not have assumed that was the issue – While-E Oct 08 '18 at 14:52
Wow, amazing it worked!! – Ishtiaque05 Dec 08 '18 at 16:06
1

On Trisquel GNU/Linux it will be killall caja (Caja is a Nautilus derivative). – Márton Tamás Feb 01 '19 at 12:49
1

I couldn't believe this worked, my god thank you. for people using Mate instead of Gnome the command should be killall caja (caja is forked from nautilus). – Ismail Sensei Apr 05 '19 at 21:07
1

I'm on Xfce and just closing all Thunar windows and reopening them worked. I can't believe I had to google that but here I am. – marcus Apr 11 '19 at 01:48
2

This worked for me too. I had lost all sudo access due to being an idiot, and was going to backup some stuff. Cancelled a copy mid-progress, and didn't umount before detaching. Mounted it back in, and was stuck with read-only permissions. killall Thunar fixed it. – mazunki Jun 16 '19 at 19:03
After reading this solution and everyone saying that it works, it became so much funnier reading the comments on that linked bug thread where people are saying they were installing Thunar for a workaround and it works fine, but then also having the original problem on Thunar and installing Nautilus for a workaround :D – Digital Ninja Aug 31 '19 at 17:51
1

List of problems with nautilus is long enough to dedicate a shortcut key to such a command (CTRL+ALT+N I'm using). – Xaqron Nov 03 '19 at 17:02
1

For me it did not work – ubuntuUssser May 15 '20 at 06:01
1

Wow, it is magic!! – Vitor Luiz da Silva Jun 13 '20 at 09:04
Worked for me too :) – M.Bioinfo Sep 21 '20 at 07:18
1

worked on Jun 17 '21, Ubuntu 16.04 – RNA Jun 17 '21 at 07:07
Didn't work for me with Ubuntu 18.04 and neither did dosfsck, but fsck did resolve it. – Jeffrey Ross Jul 23 '21 at 23:04
I am astounded that this bug has been known since 2012 and still occurs. Approaching 12 years and not fully fixed, only a workaround (although it appears to be intermittent and does not occur in all circumstances, perhaps why it has been hard to fix and faced less pressure to fix it.) I just experienced it under 22.04 and this workaround fixed it. – cazort Mar 22 '24 at 20:12

score 109 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 05 '18 at 14:55

109

When you attach your USB key to your laptop:

run sudo -i (so that you won't type your password all the time)
run df -Th(to see where your USB stick is mounted)
unmount your USB stick
run dosfsck on the device you saw from your previous command. Example: dosfsck /dev/sdc1
remove and reattach your USB stick

Problem should be solved now.

Now, for your HDD, please follow the answer to this question. It is about an external HDD but it is the same thing for your case.

edited Jan 05 '18 at 14:55

Community

1

answered Dec 20 '14 at 20:28

1

Thanks for your help! I tried to do what you said, is typing umount /dev/sdb1 correct for unmounting my usb stick? Also, I don't know how to use dosfsck. Thanks for the link too – oodles2do Dec 20 '14 at 20:35
3

@SimonBremford if your USB is mounted in /dev/sdb1 of course your command is right. For your other question, just type: dosfsck -a /dev/sdb1 – Dec 20 '14 at 20:37
26

Thanks for your help, however it didn't work. The usb stick is read only still. I think it's an issue with Ubuntu rather than the usb stick itself, seeing as it was so sudden. And the fact that it's affected more than one usb device at the same time. – oodles2do Dec 20 '14 at 20:40
1

This answer helped me, tnx @PleaseDeleteMe Also I think you should edit the question by adding explanation from the comment for dosfsck command! – Davidenko Feb 09 '16 at 21:10
3

Sometimes the easiest thing to do is to restart – Gayan Weerakutti Feb 19 '16 at 05:35
1

This answer in addition with that http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/45820/how-to-umount-a-usb-drive helped me. – Adam Mar 21 '16 at 21:16
Worked like a charm! – vestlen May 18 '16 at 23:22
1

On 16.04 running dosfsck /the/mount/point says open: No such file or directory. I unmounted with umount. – Nateowami Dec 29 '16 at 06:38
does not work for me – Yasser Sinjab Mar 03 '17 at 12:25
I tried, but failed to resolve. – Tejaskumar Tank Mar 15 '17 at 07:05
2

It would be useful to add to the answer that a reboot is indeed needed. – Artem Pelenitsyn Jul 25 '17 at 22:03
5

In my case, the problem is due to usb stick not unmounted earlier properly. Command dosfsck reset the dirty bit and after a few corrections, it could be auto mounted in read/write mode and the problem was solved. – mvsagar Oct 22 '18 at 11:55
2

This solution worked for me. The first answer in the list did not apply, because I couldn't work on the USB disk with the console either. Two things to note: 1. The dosfsck stated that the "dirty bit" was set and asked whether to remove it. I said "Yes". 2. There was a directory which "points to root" which was deleted. This resulted in the free cluster count needing to be corrected. – Achim Schmitz Jul 28 '19 at 09:08
Make sure you aren't cd'd into the drive when you try to umount it. – GlenPeterson Aug 20 '19 at 19:23
dosfsck didn't work for me with Ubuntu 18.04 but fsck did resolve it (FAT32 partition vfat file system). – Jeffrey Ross Jul 23 '21 at 23:06
dosdsck did not work since unmounted disk causes "No such file or directory". I remounted and ran dosfsck to clean dirty bit. Issue resolved with no reboot or remount. Ubuntu 18.04 with nautilus – A.Teator Oct 12 '22 at 14:17

score 24 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 30 '21 at 19:51

24

I had this problem too. I got an error while copying to my USB stick. I am using Mint 17.1 Cinnamon, with the 3.13.0-43 kernel with and Caja as the file manager.

When I looked at the media directory using this terminal command:

dir /media

I saw that the layout had changed. Normally, you expect to see the drives listed here, but now they are listed under your username, and guess what? That username has only ROOT permissions.

What I did was to run:

sudo chown [username] /media/[username]

and:

sudo chgrp [username] /media/[username]

where I replaced [username] with my username. After that I removed the USB stick, waited and then put it back in. The problem was solved, I can now write to it!

edited Mar 30 '21 at 19:51

BeastOfCaerbannog

14,585

answered Jun 07 '15 at 09:23

hillsongperth

243

For me sudo chown [username] /media/[username] worked fine. I even did not have to take the usb stick out and in (nor did I need chgrp - I am on Xubuntu 16.04) – Nicolas Apr 04 '17 at 09:14
1

Thanks for your answer.. this should be the accepted answer, since there is not really a problem with the media itself but with the mounting point. – agim Apr 09 '17 at 09:27
chown can change the group too, chown [username]:[groupname] files is equivalent to running chown and then chgrp. See man chown – Xen2050 May 05 '17 at 02:44
1

@Xen2050, even better is chown [username]: files since `chown`` will default to the users login group. – Lucas May 05 '17 at 03:23
@Lucas thanks that is better. It's cleverly hidden in the man page, but visible in the info page [would be really nice if man & info pages matched...] – Xen2050 May 05 '17 at 03:41
I love spending all day banging my head cause Ubuntu can't even write to a USB stick. Unbelievable. – wayofthefuture Sep 09 '17 at 20:43
This works perfectly. – Charlie Mar 17 '22 at 13:59

score 20 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 07 '16 at 20:11

20

I got the same error when using GParted to set partition table and format my USB stick.. after that all USB drives went to "read-only".

But under root copying worked fine...

Issue was gone after machine restart. So I guess that this problem may occur when using GParted.

answered Nov 07 '16 at 20:11

Koyot

201
2
2

See the working solution below posted by Serrano and my comment about it. As well for me the origin came from using GPated ... – Antonio Mar 23 '18 at 14:14

score 19 · Answer 5 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:14

I've been having the same problem on Ubuntu, and none of the answers given here so far worked for me. Here's what I tried:

Format the device using GParted. I even tried re-creating the partition table, without success.
Check the device with fsck. No issues were found.
Fixed the permissions of the mount point. Turns out that the mount point was root owned, but even after making myself the owner, I could only write to the device from the command-line (I still could not create files from the GUI).

When I connect a USB stick, it gets mounted under /media/<username>/<label>/, where <username> is my username and <label> is the label of the USB stick or storage device.

I looked again at the permissions:

$ ls -ld /media/<username>
drwxrwx---+ 2 <username> <username> 4096 Mar  4 18:32 /media/<username>

Notice the + at the end of the permissions. That's new to me and I never noticed it before. It means the directory has extended permissions called Access Control List (ACL) (see this related question). I listed the ACL details for this directory:

$ getfacl /media/<username>
# file: <username>/
# owner: <username>
# group: <username>
user::rwx
user:<username>:r-x
group::---
mask::r-x
other::---

As you can see, there is an additional entry user:<username>:r-x for my username, which only gives me read access. I fixed this with a simple command:

setfacl -m u:<username>:rwx /media/<username>

I detached my USB devide, attached it again, and the problem was solved.

OK. Thanks, this was the solution. However at the end you need to restart your computer in order to have full access to the mounted USBs. Another point worth it I believe, this problem occured after creating a new gpt partition table on a USB stick with GParted. Subsequently all of my USBs were affected. Definitely the guys at GParted should behave differently ... — Antonio, Mar 23 '18 at 14:11

score 9 · Answer 6 · edited Jan 07 '18 at 20:50

9

I formatted using Gparted. That wiped all data in the disk and it turns out it also fixed the problem.

edited Jan 07 '18 at 20:50

Community

1

answered Jul 07 '16 at 14:48

Adrian Lopez

291
1
4
13

1

Yeah, that works. You must create a new partiton table as msdos type, and then create a one big parititon with fat32. – vskubriev Dec 12 '16 at 13:17
1

I think this answer is a stub. Please, expand it. – Léo Léopold Hertz 준영 Jan 28 '17 at 12:49

Xen2050 · Answer 7 · 2014-12-21T19:18:23.810

7

When you ran mount only sda5 (your /) was mounted, and it was read-write (rw) so you should be able to write to it. Normally, most of the directories like /sys, /bin are only writeable by root (you'd need sudo first), but your home folder should be writeable to your regular user.

Can you create any files in your home folder? Maybe your gui file manager is stuck thinking they're read-only, if you try in a terminal does it work? For example, do these commands work?:

cd ~
touch newfile001
echo stuff >> newfile001
cat newfile001

If those work successfully then you can write to your HD (sda5).

For the USB drive, after it's plugged in and mounted, look at mount to find it (the /dev/sdb1 ... line) and see if the mount option in the ()'s is rw (read-write) then you should be able to write to it. If it's ro (read-only) try this and see if it changes:

sudo mount -o remount,rw /dev/sdb1 /media/simon/LYDIA

If the filesystem (fs) has errors it may get mounted as ro, there should be messages about it in dmesg & /var/log/syslog too. This is what your logs show:

[  159.366772] FAT-fs (sdb1): Volume was not properly unmounted. Some data may  
be corrupt. Please run fsck.
[  159.383252] FAT-fs (sdb1): error, fat_get_cluster: invalid cluster chain (i_pos 0)
[  159.383258] FAT-fs (sdb1): Filesystem has been set read-only

That includes a clue to how the fs could have gotten corrupted - "not properly unmounted", you should always unmount before unplugging anything. Most file managers have an "eject" to help with that.

The dmesg log also say how to fix it: fsck can try to fix fs errors, it attempts to pick the right check program, or you can pick one explicitly with fsck.vfat or fsck.[other] pressing TAB after fsck. should list options.

For a FAT system (often have to run it twice, doesn't always fix all errors the first time)
- fsck.vfat -vaV [device] should work automatically (-a) & display more info (-v) & do a "verification" pass (-V), or just:
- fsck.vfat -a [device]

NOTE: This will not guarantee that the filesystem will stay fixed, it could get corrupted again & it may be impossible to know exactly why. Always unmount / "eject" before removing USB drives.

Note if a fs mounts as rw, but then errors are seen & it gets automatically remounted as ro, the mount command may still report it's mounted rw. Looking at this file with less /proc/mounts should usually show more reliable information (see man mount).

If something is mounted rw but you still can't add/delete/edit files on it, you may not be the owner of the files. In some fs's you can chown to become the owner, but a FAT32 fs like on sdb1 doesn't have those permissions; they're set when it mounts with the mount option uid=value (value is your userid, learn it with echo $UID or id -u) then you can try this & see if it works afterwards:

sudo mount -o remount,rw,uid=[userid] /dev/sdb1 /media/simon/LYDIA

Note: Sometimes, you may need to restart your gui file manager to get it to "notice" the mount change that lets you write to the filesystem/drive, but a terminal should always work.

Or if the above doesn't work, try sudo su to "become" root, to see if anything can write to files on the USB (with touch, echo, etc)?

edited Dec 21 '14 at 19:18

answered Dec 20 '14 at 21:19

Xen2050

8,705

Thanks for your answer, I did the newfile001 commands and I got "stuff" as a response. Also, from the mount command there is rw in the bracket for the usb stick, so I should be able to read-write to it. I just tried the commands at the end of your answer but it hasn't worked, it's still a read-only device. – oodles2do Dec 20 '14 at 21:40
At least the HD is working... USB should be writeable... if you cd into a USB folder, can you write any files with echo stuff >> newusbfile or similar? Or echo stuff | sudo tee newusbfile? Or first run sudo su to "become" root, then the echo, cat, etc? – Xen2050 Dec 20 '14 at 21:47
How do I do the cd commands into the USB folder? I think I just did it into /media/simon and it worked, but the USB is /media/simon/LYDIA – oodles2do Dec 20 '14 at 21:58
If the USB isn't mounted, then the /media/simon/LYDIA is just an empty folder (if it's even there). After it's mounted you can see where it's mounted folder is with mount or lsblk, then cd mounted_folder and try writing files, mkdir, etc... and as sudo su to see if you can write as root too... – Xen2050 Dec 20 '14 at 22:30
Thanks for all your help, I just tried to write a file into the usb file but it didn't work, it says it's a read only file system. I've added the code to the question so you can see what I did. – oodles2do Dec 21 '14 at 09:42
read-only FS, probably mounted ro (or FS errors preventing rw, or a non-writeable FS like iso9660/cd format). See answer, check mount & try sudo mount -o remount,rw, maybe check logs/dmesg? – Xen2050 Dec 21 '14 at 11:37
I entered dmesg and I've posted section of it, relating to sdb1. I also tried sudo mount /media/simon/LYDIA -o remount,rw. It seemed to do something, the symbol on the memory stick in media/simon changed from a padlock to a usb stick. However, I still can't drop any files in to it! This is so annoying!! – oodles2do Dec 21 '14 at 13:46
It looks like the usb's filesystem is corrupted - I had that happen often when I used FAT and didn't always umount and wait a few seconds before unplugging. Switching to ext3 seems to have stopped corruption (probably writes a little more though) but maybe there's just something about USB that makes it easily get errors, maybe dirty plugs get worn out easy. Anyway, see the answer about running fsck. And if my answer helps out, select it as correct / check mark it :) – Xen2050 Dec 21 '14 at 15:42
Thanks for helping me, it still hasn't worked though. It probably doesn't help I don't really know what I'm doing. Do you think I should uninstall Ubuntu and reinstall it again to sort this out? – oodles2do Dec 21 '14 at 20:07
I think the HD was ok (if it's sda5 with Ubuntu), as a regular user you're not "allowed" to write to every file, maybe a review of Linux filesystems might help (they're generally confusing compared to windows ;) But it could be the USB keeps having problems, maybe fat, and getting remounted read-only too (I added a note about mount might not see changes to ro, but /proc/mounts and dmesg should). Reinstalling Ubuntu probably won't help with the USB, but could always try a different "distro", Xubuntu, Mint (my fav) they might handle usb's different from regular Ubuntu, try some live? – Xen2050 Dec 21 '14 at 20:37
There must be a way to fix this, I just tried sudo chmod 777 /media/simon/LYDIA. The response was: chmod: changing permissions of ‘/media/simon/LYDIA’: Read-only file system – oodles2do Dec 21 '14 at 22:03
I also tried chmod 666 – oodles2do Dec 21 '14 at 22:04
I don't know if it matters but on both of my FAT32 usb devices in the properties option in the file window it says: Filesystem type: msdos. I thought that it would have said FAT32? – oodles2do Dec 21 '14 at 22:13
msdos is fat, fat12/16/32. see man mkfs.fat They don't save owner/permission info so chmod won't work. if it were formatted as ext3 that might be easier – Xen2050 Dec 21 '14 at 22:20
Thanks for the sudo mount -o remount,rw /dev/sd... command, that's EXACTLY what I needed! – Robin Sep 09 '22 at 10:49

score 5 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 21 '17 at 21:46

5

Goto Disks.

Select your USB drive.

Click on Additional partition options and select Format Partition.

Then select erase Overwrite existing data with zeroes(slow) and type FAT.

I have tried many things after searching on internet but this worked for me.

answered Jan 21 '17 at 21:46

astinaam

61

2

This'll erase all data on the drive. – cst1992 Jul 21 '17 at 21:30
1

What if I need NTFS? The same for NTFS did not work for me. – Vadim Kotov May 28 '18 at 12:19

Pritesh Gohil · Answer 9 · 2019-12-08T23:44:21.663

This worked for me

sudo su -
df -Th
umount /media/username/USBdriveName
dosfsck -a /dev/sdb1

It should end with the message like this.

fsck.fat 3.0.28 (2015-05-16)
0x41: Dirty bit is set. Fs was not properly unmounted and some data may be corrupt.
 Automatically removing dirty bit.
/.Trash-1000/files/yolo
 Start does point to root directory. Deleting dir. 
Reclaimed 2109 unused clusters (69107712 bytes) in 817 chains.
Free cluster summary wrong (95371 vs. really 94567)
  Auto-correcting.
Performing changes.
/dev/sdb1: 3633 files, 154405/248972 clusters`

Then goto your USB drive and delete all the .REC files.
Remove your USB stick and plug it back. Now you should be able to use it.

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Sep 27 '19 at 09:51

Run the following commands on the terminal(ubuntu) to give write permission to a Pendrive.

df -Th
umount /media/madusanka/KINGSTON
- "/media/madusanka/KINGSTON" is "Mounted on" value that is given by the first command
sudo dosfsck -a /dev/sdb1
- "/dev/sdb1" is "Filesystem" value that is given by the first command.
Enter your password
Check the Pendrive by pasting or creating a new file.

score 1 · Answer 11 · edited Nov 22 '22 at 14:50

1

I came up with this:

hdparm -r /dev/sda1  ### to check the read-only flag
hdparm -r0 /dev/sda1 ### to make read-only 0 (to turn it off)

edited Nov 22 '22 at 14:50

Jeff Schaller

310

answered Nov 22 '22 at 12:24

Gray Hat

11

score 1 · Answer 12 · edited Dec 05 '17 at 22:01

1

As like in wayofthefuture's answer above when you're using Nemo (like me, if you use the Cinnamon desktop environment) try:

killall nemo

edited Dec 05 '17 at 22:01

Eliah Kagan

117,780

answered Dec 05 '17 at 21:08

C12Z

11

score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Jul 26 '18 at 18:03

0

try below strategies

edit /etc/fuse.conf as superuser

change #user_allow_other to user_allow_other
enable write support for external devices
- sudo apt-get install ntfs-config
- sudo ntfs-config

answered Jul 26 '18 at 18:03

Oshan Wisumperuma

131
6

score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Jan 03 '19 at 19:39

This is because your file system is NTFS and it is in an unsafe stat, maybe you are using your disk in windows, one of the reasons is that you hibernated the windows or fast restarted it., so use one of these steps:

unmount the media using the below command, go to windows (maybe Dual boot mode or maybe in an another computer) and shut down the windows completely, not hibernate or fast restart,

sudo umount /media/"your media label"

then come to Linux again and mount your media using this command:

'sudo mount -o rw,mount /your media'

if you are using macOs , plug your media to your mac device and use this command:

'sudo /usr/sbin/diskutil disableJournal /Volumes/name-of-media'

Mahendra Pratap · Answer 15 · 2019-07-15T11:46:36.957

0

All you need is following 3 commands.

df -Th

result -

umount /media/user/KINGSTON (this is mount on path)
dosfsck -a /dev/sdb1 (this is Filesystem path)

edited Jul 15 '19 at 11:46

answered Jun 28 '19 at 10:07

Mahendra Pratap

101
3

score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Mar 20 '20 at 05:15

When you attach your Pendrive to your laptop:

1. run sudo -i (so that you won't type your password all the time)
2. run df -Th(to see where your USB stick is mounted)
3. unmount your USB stick
4. run dosfsck on the device you saw from your previous command. Example: dosfsck /dev/sdc1
5. Run above command again and again until you get this response

fsck.fat 4.1 (2017-01-24) /dev/sdb1: 4 files, 170684/976272 clusters

6. Mount device now

Now try to remove or add more files

score 0 · Answer 17 · answered Aug 04 '20 at 18:45

I have the same bug with Thunar (Xubuntu 16.04-18.04). Killing it wouldn't be an option as sometimes I already have opened Thunar windows that I need. I discovered a workaround. First, we need to turn off automount: Settings => Removable Drives and Media => Turn off first two options. Second, after inserting the USB medium, right-click on it and choose "Connect". Or disconnect then connect using the right-click.

It is sad, that the workaround usually works with FAT, but doesn't always work with EXT4. :(

score 0 · Answer 18 · answered Mar 29 '22 at 20:42

One thing I find unique regarding Ubuntu users is that you guys find these ubiquitous problems, and solve them by trial and error. FAT file systems don't have acls, so changing those (chown, chmod, etc) won't be preserved. The changes are made in system memory and applied to the file systems with pointers.

FAT wouldn't work with Linux if not for the pseudo-acls. It makes Linux think they're there, but they're just for compatibility. Ubuntu and most other *NIXs remount ro on file system errors. So if you run dosfsck on a file system that won't mount rw, and unplug and replug, it should mount rw.

UDEV controls automounter, so depending on the way the rules are written, that can cause mount to switch to ro. You just have to look in the rules' files and figure out what it's doing in /sys`.

But it really looks pretty good, lots of solutions. Thanks everyone!

score 0 · Answer 19 · answered May 11 '22 at 18:08

0

What did it for me was plugging it in a different USB port on my machine; possibly a USB 1.0 or 2.0 one.

answered May 11 '22 at 18:08

solstinger

101

Thamme Gowda · Answer 20 · 2017-06-07T15:33:17.053

0

Quick fix methods:

Method 1

Sometimes we can accomplish the task from bash without trouble I usually do (no sudo required)

mkdir /media/$USER/mydrive/myfolder
cp -r src/ /media/$USER/mydrive/myfolder

However, sometimes, when I need to use file browser,

sudo nautilus /media/$USER/mydrive/

Note: this is a quick fix, use it only if you get frustrated because no other answers above worked

Method 2

Reboot OS

edited Jun 07 '17 at 15:33

answered Jun 07 '17 at 15:12

Thamme Gowda

583
4
7

USB devices showing as read only

20 Answers20

Quick fix methods:

Method 1

Method 2

Linked

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