I've been storing some files on a MicroSD formatted to ext4 that I connect via USB.
I tried to move a directory in it to an external hard drive, and I got
mv: error reading ‘/mnt/sd/Directory/xyz.mp3’: Input/output error.
I tried to chmod -R 777 the mount point of the sd (as root), and I got
chmod: changing permissions of ‘sd/Directory/xyz.mp3’: Read-only file system.
I never did anything to make the filesystem read-only, and I've had no trouble with it before. The only thing that I can think of that's changed is the SD is usually /dev/sdb1, and it was /dev/sdc1 this time.
Running Arch Linux in Virtualbox on a Windows 7 host.
Best Answer
The default action of any mounted device when getting a serious I/O error, unless changed at mount time, is to drop out from its normal R/W mode to Read ONLY mode. It does this to allow you to attempt to access what you are doing and also to prevent any further serious damage to the device filesystem formatting.
You can check your logs to detemine what the error specifically is usually.