External Hardrive Issues. I JUST DONT GET IT =*(

[slybrew]

Maybe this should be on the Beginners forum i don't know.

I am running YDL 6.1 on my PS3
I used to be able to write on my external Hard drive but not anymore
I am under the root user
The Hard drive is mounted and its fat32 format
When i go to the properties i see
owner: root
Folder Access: Create and delete files
File Access: --- ( <---- i always try to change that to read and write but it goes back to --- )

I can not create folders on my external hardrive
i can view file on my external hardrive
sometime i see little lock symbols on the top right corner of my folders
when i type "mount" and i check the part relevant to the hd, this is what i get:

/dev/sda1 on /media/UNTITLED 1 type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,shortname=winnt,uid=o)

It says that i have permission, yet i cant write. what do i do? Please be detailed because i suck at Linux, so step by step would be nice thank you!

[Zeroangel]

Try adding umask=000 to the options part (rw,nosuid,nodev,shortname=winnt) of /etc/fstab and then reboot. This usually resolves permissions issues.

[slybrew]

Try adding umask=000 to the options part (rw,nosuid,nodev,shortname=winnt) of /etc/fstab and then reboot. This usually resolves permissions issues.

What? How? please note that i am a Linux newbie and i do not know what commands will lead me to that option. Thanks for the help

[devils casper]

Unmount partition of External Harddisk using umount command and mount it again using mount command.
Execute fdisk -l command to check correct device name assigned to partition of External Harddisk :

su -
mkdir /media/external
umount /dev/sdbx
mount -t vfat  /dev/sdbx  /media/external -o defaults,umask=0

Replace x with number assigned to partition.

[Zeroangel]

I'm not sure how YDL is set up anymore since I havent used in a long time, but normally what one would do is open the terminal and type in the command

pico /etc/fstab

Which would then open a file which looks like this

/dev/sda1 /media/UNTITLED vfat rw,nosuid,nodev,shortname=winnt,uid=0 0 1

Spaces are used to seperate the fields (the first one is the device location, the second is the mount point 'media/wardog' the third is the filesystem 'ntfs' and the fourth one is the options)

You will want to add the text 'umask=000' into the options part so it looks like this
/dev/sda1 /media/UNTITLED vfat rw,nosuid,nodev,shortname=winnt,uid=0,umask=000 0 1

That's all you have to do

[devils casper]

You will want to add the text 'umask=000' into the options part so it looks like this
/dev/sda1 /media/UNTITLED vfat rw,nosuid,nodev,shortname=winnt,uid=0,umask=000 0 1

There is no need to add this "rw,nosuid,nodev,shortname=winnt,uid=0,umask=000 0 1"
default,umask=0 0 0 includes all the options and don't use 1 as a value of field. Its fsck value and its not recommended to run it on FAT32 or NTFS filesystems frequently.

[Zeroangel]

Why is that? I have used it regularly on my windows and other NTFS/FAT filesystems for years without problems. I suppose one can use 111 (to make files on the FS non-executable since one typically doesnt run linux programs or shell scripts from these drives anyways)

[devils casper]

You must be lucky or fsck has been improved by time. A few harddisks hosed up in my lab last year and fsck was one of the problem.

I suppose one can use 111 (to make files on the FS non-executable since one typically doesnt run linux programs or shell scripts from these drives anyways)

It your harddisk, data and you can do anything.

[Zeroangel]

fsck hosed my primary linux ext4 partition two weeks ago (which hasnt ever happened in the 7 or so years i've been using linux). I dont think permissions or umask settings are relevant to that since only my NTFS partitions had the umask settings.