[SOLVED] Cannot mount usb external disk

[scutiform]

I have set up an external hard drive to use for archiving files. I keep getting a message "Cannot mount volume. You are not privileged to mount this volume"

Can you tel me what I have done wrong?

[scutiform]

Forgot to mention, it mounts on my laptop, but it's not mounting on my desktop. I would like the disk to be used to transfer files etc. to any computer including the dreaded windoze. The disk is formated as fat 32.

[devils casper]

Plug-in disk and execute this in Terminal

sudo fdisk -l

Post output here.

*Its small L in fdisk -l.

[scutiform]

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000c94a6

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 14263 114567516 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 14264 14593 2650725 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 14264 14593 2650693+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 100.2 GB, 100256292864 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12188 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00024f87

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 11861 95273451 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 11862 12188 2626627+ 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 11862 12188 2626596 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdc: 4327 MB, 4327464960 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 526 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000e67f6

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 1 526 4225063+ 1 FAT 12
brian@brian-desktop:~$

[devils casper]

According to output of fdisk, you have three harddisks and one has FAT 12 filesystem.
Is there any reason for using FAT12 filesystem? Its for Floppy or very small Hard disks ( 16MB max ).

Try this

sudo mkdir /media/sdc1
sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdc1  /media/sdc1 -o defaults,umask=0
ls /media/sdc1

[scutiform]

Yes it's only 4gig. I set that up under fdisk when I was playing around. GParted set up fat32 and I will go back to that when I get the problem sorted

[jmadero]

Did Devil Caspers instructions work out for you? You may have to change permissions of the folder mounting to as well:

sudo chmod 777 /media/sdc1

[scutiform]

Devils Casper's instructions gave access to the disk until I tried to unmount it and the message was "You cannot unmount this disk You are not privileged to unmount this volume" The desktop icon is then stuck on the decktop until I re-boot and then I can't mount it. I have tried re-formatting the disk, but I'm still stuck with the same problem. Strangely, The laptop mounts it no matter what I do and my desktop won't.

[jmadero]

sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdc1 /media/sdc1 -o defaults,users,rw

try that out

if you want it to mount every time the same way you can do a few things. Easiest:

go to gparted, system -> administration -> partition editor

if you don't have it open a terminal

sudo apt-get install gparted

make sure your flash is in before you open gparted, open it up

Select your flash drive from the drop down menu

Select the partition you wish to mount by right clicking on it. If mounted, unmount it. Now right click again and go to Label, name it something (anything you want I believe).

From now on it will mount automatically at /media/NAME (name being the Lable you gave it). If you do not have permissions make sure to sudo -R chmod 777 /media/NAME

Post if you have any problems. From this point on that specific partition will mount on that folder. The benefit of this is that if you have a few external drives (flash drives, hard drives, etc...) you won't have different partitions mounting to different folders (when you put in your third flash it automatically sees that as /dev/sdc1 so any flash would mount at /media/sdc) but with the method described above it uses UUID which is specific to each device

[D-cat]

sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdc1 /media/sdc1 -o defaults,users,rw,umask=0

Jmadero's right, I'm just adding the umask=0 to ensure that the user has full read/write access too.

Also, using sudo umount /dev/sdc1 should aleviate permission issues when unmounting (though the "users" option is supposed to do that too).

We can define these parameters permanently in the fstab so as to make mounting work easier (so just mount /dev/sdc1 would be enough)

sudo nano /etc/fstab

add the line:

/dev/sdc1 /media/sdc1 vfat defaults,users,rw,auto,umask=0 0 0

Press Enter (fstab must end with a blank line), Then [Ctrl + x] , y to save the file.