Ubuntu – External HDD mounted as read only fat32

fsckhard drivenautilusread-only

My Ubuntu machine has set my external HDD to read only. The drive is a 2TB That I have configured to fat32 so that almost everything can read/write to it. I know that from using the search box on this site one fix is "sudo nautilus." I went to my hdd in the file manager, right clicked , properties. under permissions i tell it to allow read/write, but it says it is a read only file system… I know from some googleing that there is a chance in a fix by unmounting the drive, then forcing it to mount. I heard that this causes a loss in data though, and the content on the drive is important (which is why i just don't reformat the drive). If it helps I just reinstalled Ubuntu, so i don't know if my old profile is the "owner of the drive" under the permissions tab because i made it the same user name…I know that if i go to a windows computer i can tell it to take ownership, where i can then disable read only. is there no way to do this from Ubuntu?

gnomes@gnomes:~$ mount
/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro,commit=0)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
fusectl 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)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/gnomes/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=gnomes)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/THIRSTY 2TR_ type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uid=1000,gid=1000,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,showexec,flush,uhelper=udisks)
/home/gnomes/.Private on /home/gnomes type ecryptfs (ecryptfs_check_dev_ruid,ecryptfs_cipher=aes,ecryptfs_key_bytes=16,ecryptfs_unlink_sigs,ecryptfs_sig=40584e1d6fa2a33e,ecryptfs_fnek_sig=83ad2a5a52a1069e)
gnomes@gnomes:~$ 

Fstab:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    nodev,noexec,nosuid 0       0
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=839b800b-ce92-4d72-ad5b-0e84de7c74be /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
#UUID=e25b3b92-d693-4c93-8e08-2470aa0f5152 none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/mapper/cryptswap1 none swap sw 0 0

I just found this on a possible sister site to this one https://superuser.com/questions/105769/external-hard-drive-is-read-only-how-to-change-owner-ubuntu
I want need to know if this is the solution since my drive is in fat 32 not nfts, and if this will wipe any data on my external

edit- the drive is posted Its name is "THIRSTY 2TR"

I tried sudo mount -o remount,rw '/media/THIRSTY 2TR' and it did nothing… it makes an arrow like ^ but facing right after

me messing around i got this, which looks promising, but means nothing to a noob like me

gnomes@gnomes:~$ sudo mount -o remount,rw '/media/THIRSTY 2TR'
[sudo] password for gnomes: 
gnomes@gnomes:~$ sudo mount -THIRSTY 2TR remount,rw '/media/THIRSTY 2TR'
mount: invalid option -- 'T'
Usage: mount -V                 : print version
       mount -h                 : print this help
       mount                    : list mounted filesystems
       mount -l                 : idem, including volume labels
So far the informational part. Next the mounting.
The command is `mount [-t fstype] something somewhere'.
Details found in /etc/fstab may be omitted.
       mount -a [-t|-O] ...     : mount all stuff from /etc/fstab
       mount device             : mount device at the known place
       mount directory          : mount known device here
       mount -t type dev dir    : ordinary mount command
Note that one does not really mount a device, one mounts
a filesystem (of the given type) found on the device.
One can also mount an already visible directory tree elsewhere:
       mount --bind olddir newdir
or move a subtree:
       mount --move olddir newdir
One can change the type of mount containing the directory dir:
       mount --make-shared dir
       mount --make-slave dir
       mount --make-private dir
       mount --make-unbindable dir
One can change the type of all the mounts in a mount subtree
containing the directory dir:
       mount --make-rshared dir
       mount --make-rslave dir
       mount --make-rprivate dir
       mount --make-runbindable dir
A device can be given by name, say /dev/hda1 or /dev/cdrom,
or by label, using  -L label  or by uuid, using  -U uuid .
Other options: [-nfFrsvw] [-o options] [-p passwdfd].
For many more details, say  man 8 mount .
gnomes@gnomes:~$ 

I got this when i tried to do it anouther way

gnomes@gnomes:~$ sudo mount -o remount,rw '/dev/sdb1 on /media/THIRSTY 2TR'
[sudo] password for gnomes: 
mount: can't find /dev/sdb1 on /media/THIRSTY 2TR in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
gnomes@gnomes:~$ 

I tried this today.

gnomes@gnomes:~$ sudo dosfsck -a /dev/THIRSTY 2TR
[sudo] password for gnomes: 
usage: dosfsck [-aAflrtvVwy] [-d path -d ...] [-u path -u ...]
               device
  -a       automatically repair the file system
  -A       toggle Atari file system format
      -d path  drop that file
  -f       salvage unused chains to files
  -l       list path names
  -n       no-op, check non-interactively without changing
  -p       same as -a, for compat with other *fsck
  -r       interactively repair the file system
  -t       test for bad clusters
  -u path  try to undelete that (non-directory) file
  -v       verbose mode
  -V       perform a verification pass
  -w       write changes to disk immediately
  -y       same as -a, for compat with other *fsck

I try using a suffix, with the command i entered but it just pops up this same list again

Best Answer

I finally solved my problem!!!! I used the disk utility tool in ubuntu 11.10 and tried to check file system. It popped up an error saying that the disk was mounted, cation of loss of data. I then proceeded to cancel and unmount the drive, then scan. After about three min a box appeared that said 240 kb of data was giving an error due to a faulty unmount while writing. I hit ok to delete, now my external is up and running with full read/write capability's!!!

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