Can't access drive partioned and formatted with gparted

Scuzi · 1 Dec 2008 at 21:52

I'm using Ubuntu 8.04 on this system and have had a 120Gb SATA HDD in the computer which until now has been an NTFS drive. I used gparted to partition and format the drive as ext2. for some reason though, I cannot access the drive through any means at all. I cannot paste any files or folders into it despite everything appearing as normal. I also tried formatting it as ext3 in gparted but it made no difference.

My intention is to use the drive purely for data with no intent to boot any OS off it. How can I get it to work>

Thanks

KizZ · 1 Dec 2008 at 21:52

wrong forum n00b

Scuzi · 1 Dec 2008 at 22:10

AndrewP · 1 Dec 2008 at 22:12

Is the drive mounted anywhere? I'd check the drive appears in Computer under File Browser (either as 120 GB Volume or the partition name), double-clicking it should then either mount it if unmounted or just allow you to browse/copy to normally if it's already mounted.

Scuzi · 1 Dec 2008 at 22:16

Yeah it appears as mounted after a reboot and I can navigate to and browse the drive through the file browser but it won't let me move any files to the drive or delete any form it. The only folder on the drive at the minute is the standard "lost + found".

AndrewP · 1 Dec 2008 at 22:20

Attempting to copy files to it in a terminal window might give an error message that would help - e.g. permission problems, mounted read-only etc. - so that would be worth trying

.

Scuzi · 1 Dec 2008 at 22:24

I'm on my laptop at the minute so I cant give you the exact error message but the message thrown up was definitely something to do with permissions. My account has admin privileges and is under the "root" user group so it really should be fine.

DRZ · 1 Dec 2008 at 22:26

can you post up the contents of /etc/fstab ?

Scuzi · 1 Dec 2008 at 22:28

DRZ said:
can you post up the contents of /etc/fstab ?

I'll have to do it tomorrow as I'm in bed now

DRZ · 1 Dec 2008 at 22:30

Pansy

AndrewP · 1 Dec 2008 at 22:36

I suspect the drive is mounted read-only as root/admin can't access it, that usually happens if there are errors detected on the filesystem. With a newly-partitioned drive hardware errors would seem a likely cause. As above, the contents of /etc/fstab will tell you how the system is trying to mount it, the output of the mount command how it is actually mounted and possibly something on startup or the output of dmesg would show any hardware errors - so any or all of those would be useful next steps.

eXor · 1 Dec 2008 at 23:33

Edit : nm

Scuzi · 2 Dec 2008 at 19:39

Here we go...

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# /dev/sda1
UUID=01e5f8f9-106f-44e4-92aa-d7ae5544000e / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /dev/sda5
UUID=8b78c5a2-98ee-428f-b7fa-7737d3ee6ac9 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0

Does that make it any clearer because it means absolutely nothing to me? :
All I can see is that there's no mention of the second HDD (/dev/sdb)

eXor · 2 Dec 2008 at 19:44

Scuzi said:
All I can see is that there's no mention of the second HDD (/dev/sdb)

Man, I hate that UUID nonsense.

Let's see if the disk is detected. Please paste the output from the following command: ( lower case L, not 1 )

Code:

sudo fdisk -l

Scuzi · 2 Dec 2008 at 19:51

Disk /dev/sda: 120 GB, 120031511040 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13995 112414806 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 13996 14593 4795402 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 13996 14593 4795402 82 Linux swap

Disk /dev/sdb: 120 GB, 120031511040 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 14593 117218241 83 Linux

eXor · 2 Dec 2008 at 19:56

Great, it's there.

Now you want to see if it is mounted anywhere : ( Probably not )

Code:

sudo mount

Scuzi · 2 Dec 2008 at 19:57

Looks like it's listed here...

/dev/sda1 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devshm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.24-22-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/blainhead/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=blainhead)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/disk type ext2 (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal)

eXor · 2 Dec 2008 at 20:04

Hmm, interesting.

What happens if you try to create a directory on that drive?

Code:

sudo mkdir /media/disk/blah

Scuzi · 2 Dec 2008 at 20:10

It's letting me make a directory when using "sudo" but when browsing to the folder in Gnome, the options to cut, delete and create folder are all greyed out.

Is it a permissions problem?

eXor · 2 Dec 2008 at 20:15

Scuzi said:
It's letting me make a directory when using "sudo" but when browsing to the folder in Gnome, the options to cut, delete and create folder are all greyed out.

Is it a permissions problem?

Sounds like it. The file browser in Gnome has a setting to display the permissions column. ( Edit-->Preferences IIRC).

Or you can view with:

Code:

ls -lh /media/disk