MP3 Players permissions changing in Win7 after Linux Use

[SkittleLinux18]

I'm not sure if I am in the right section, so hopefully a mod will kindly move the thread if it is not.

I bought a Sony MP3 player last week. When I hooked up it up in Windows, I could browse the files and rename files and folders that were stored on it.

I hooked it up to see if it would work in Linux, which it did. I had both read/write privileges.

However, now anytime I plug into Windows, I only have read privileges. I can copy files/folders to the device, but once the files/folders are on the device, I can't rename them or delete them. I could previous do all these things prior to the first time I hooked the device up to Linux.

Interestingly enough, I still have those privileges in Linux.

This has happened to me before with flash drives. It's as if Linux is somehow changing something on these drives that is changing how Windows reads/recognizes the devices.

1) How can I restore the prior privileges to the device for windows (assuming this has to be done via Linux); and 2) how can I prevent this from happening in the future?

By the way, my friends and I have a $20 bet on this thread.

[Jonathan183]

By the way, my friends and I have a $20 bet on this thread.

... who get the $20 when someone says that's OK just use Linux

in Linux what do mount and ls -l report for the root of the device?

[SkittleLinux18]

in Linux what do mount and ls -l report for the root of the device?

Hey Jonathan. How you been, man?

Mount shows:

root@kev-TA760G-M2:/media/WALKMAN# mount
/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro,commit=0)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none 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)
none on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
none on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/WALKMAN type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=1000,gid=1000, shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,showexec)

ls -l shows:

root@kev-TA760G-M2:/media/WALKMAN# ls -l
total 25360
-r--r--r-- 1 kev kev 5603 1980-05-24 16:13 capability_00.xml
drwx------ 2 kev kev 16384 1980-01-01 02:31 DCIM
-r--r--r-- 1 kev kev 28 1980-01-01 02:31 DeviceInfo.txt
drwx------ 5 kev kev 16384 2011-04-04 01:11 Install
drwx------ 2 kev kev 16384 1980-01-01 02:31 MP_ROOT
drwx------ 59 kev kev 16384 2011-09-01 23:19 MUSIC
drwx------ 2 kev kev 16384 2011-08-24 23:06 PICTURE
drwx------ 2 kev kev 16384 1980-01-01 02:31 PICTURES
-rw-r--r-- 1 kev kev 39900 1980-01-01 02:32 RAMLIST.DAT
-rw-r--r-- 1 kev kev 236 1980-01-01 02:32 SETSTOR.DAT
-rwxr-xr-x 1 kev kev 13739432 2009-08-24 13:32 Setup.exe
-rw-r--r-- 1 kev kev 1052672 1980-05-24 16:15 SSTORE.HDS
-rw-r--r-- 1 kev kev 4194304 1980-01-01 02:31 STDBDATA.DAT
-rw-r--r-- 1 kev kev 228 1980-01-01 02:31 STDBDATA.IDX
-rw-r--r-- 1 kev kev 5636096 1980-01-01 02:31 STDBSTR.DAT
-rw-r--r-- 1 kev kev 1484 1980-01-01 02:31 STDBSTR.IDX
-rw-r--r-- 1 kev kev 1052672 1980-05-24 16:15 STSTORE.HDS
drwx------ 2 kev kev 16384 2011-08-24 23:06 VIDEO
-rw-r--r-- 1 kev kev 296 1980-05-24 16:20 WMPInfo.xml

[Jonathan183]

fine thanks SkittleLinux18 ... what does ls -l of the music folder report ... and is there any difference in folder permissions if you just mount the drive without writing to it?

[SkittleLinux18]

I am sorry it took so long to get back to you. This past weekend was America's Labor Day weekend and I had friends over for a potluck. So I was busy with that.

what does ls -l of the music folder report

When I type that command, I get a list of all the folders within the music folder with the same information preceding every folder, as such...

root@kev-TA760G-M2:/media/WALKMAN/MUSIC# ls -l
total 912
drwx------ 2 kev kev 16384 2011-03-07 04:04 Skynard
drwx------ 2 kev kev 16384 1980-05-24 20:27 Beatles
drwx------ 2 kev kev 16384 1980-05-24 20:06 Zepplin
drwx------ 2 kev kev 16384 2011-03-07 04:14 Stones

...etc, etc. I didn't want a list of 200 folders taking up space.

... and is there any difference in folder permissions if you just mount the drive without writing to it?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this. When I plug the MP3 player in, the drive obviously mounts. Whether I write to it or not, the permissions seem to stay the same: What you see above for Linux, and limited in Windows. The only other way I know to mount a drive is similar to what we do when we mount a drive while using a live cd and mkdir in the console. Somehow, I don't think that's what you're asking me here.

[Jonathan183]

I'm assuming that if you create a folder with information in Windows you can read/write data, unmounting and remounting the drive in Windows without going into Linux allows read/write access in Windows ... is this correct?

Now try manually mounting the partition in Linux read only and check properties for the folder and files you had created in Windows ... is this any different than other files/folders?

Can you still read/write to the folder/files in Windows or does just mounting read only in Linux then prevent read/write access in Windows?

Assuming you still have read/write access in Windows at this point try a mount/unmount in Linux and then check if you still have read/write access in Linux ...

Try to track down exactly which operations stop the read/write access in Windows and then check folder/file permissions and see if they changed.

[SkittleLinux18]

Hey man, I tried everything you suggested. It is sort of working in Windows, just not as well as in Linux. And no, I am not entirely sure if I did it the way you asked in the post. I just know that Linux really sucks most of the time and that if I want to use it, which I do, I just have to live with it breaking randomly and screwing other things up occasionally. Thanks for your help, though.

As my new buddy with a computer science doctorate said, "I love linux, but anybody who knows anything about computers knows better than to make it your only computer."

[Jonathan183]

It is sort of working in Windows, just not as well as in Linux

... I was thinking this may be a permissions thing but tracking down exactly what is going on may take a while. I was thinking a read only mount could reveal differences. My other thought was it could be the way Windows is tracking information on the drive possibly linked to some database ...

As my new buddy with a computer science doctorate said, "I love linux, but anybody who knows anything about computers knows better than to make it your only computer."

that's more a coffee lounge subject ... opinions will vary