Asus Eee with Linux won't read a USBs 1

[GwydionM]

I've just got this new machine, which I was planning to use to take notes and transfer them to another machine.

When I plug in a brand-new USB Flash Drive, it tells me I do not have permission to read it. The same device can be read fine on a Windows XP machine and should have no security because it contains nothing that would interest anyone except me.

On the file manager, the normal files have 'Owner' as 'user' whereas the USB has 'root'. That seems a clue, but I've no idea what to do next. Can anyone help?

I'm new to Linux. I got a Linux machine because I supposed it was OK for ordinary usage, even if you do need more knowledge for something like a Server.

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An old man who lives in the UK

 

[zeland]

From the top of my head, this problem might be related to the USB Flash Drive being formatted with a NTFS filesystem. Although Linux can read & write to NTFS, you need to hack around with the permissions. The best solution would be to format the USB Flash Drive with a FAT32 filesystem.

--== Anything can go wrong. It's just a matter of how far wrong it will go till people think its right. ==--

 

[stefanwagner]

If not needed with Windows, ext3 or reiserfs should be the first choice for linux-file-system.


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[GwydionM]

Thanks for the advice. The USB was formatted as 'FAT', I changed this to FAT32 and got the same answer, it denies I have permission for my own drive.

I do need something that can be read by Windows as well as Linux. In any case I can't get the Linux machine to accept it at all, not even to reformat.

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An old man who lives in the UK

 

[sleipnir214]

Are you logging in as root, or as a non-root user?

What are the permissions on the mount point of the USB drive?

When modern Linuxen automount a drive, they often by default assign permissions to root only.




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[GwydionM]

Thanks for replying. It gives me no options, or none that I can see.

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An old man who lives in the UK

 

[sleipnir214]

When Linux mounts your USB drive, it mounts it somewhere. It might be somewhere in /mnt or /media and it depends on your distribution and how old it is. I need to know what the permissions are on the mount point.

When you've plugged the device in and it has been automounted, I'd like to know the contents of your /etc/mtab file.




Want to ask the best questions? Read Eric S. Raymond's essay "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way". TANSTAAFL!

 

[GwydionM]

It places it as /home/user/Removeable Disk. Does that help?

I'm going to complain to the vendor - mail order, but via Amazon so it should be reputable. Don't worry for now, unless you see something obvious.

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An old man who lives in the UK

 

[sleipnir214]

I wouldn't take this to Amazon, as I sincerely doubt there's anything wrong with the flash drive. I very strongly think there is something screwy with the way your machine is mounting the drive.

Please answer some questions.

What Linux distribution are you using?

Does the drive actually get mounted? If you go to a command prompt and issue the command [tt]mount[/tt], do you seen an indication that the drive has been mounted?

If the drive was mounted, what are the permissions on the place in the filesystem where the OS mounted the drive?




Want to ask the best questions? Read Eric S. Raymond's essay "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way". TANSTAAFL!

 

[GwydionM]

I've done nothing except plug in a USB flash drive into a brand-new machine. it ought to be able to handle that and instead it locks me out of my own hardware.

If the machine is "screwy" it must have been shipped that way, since I had no interest in changing its settings.

It keeps me away from the useful controls, as far as I can see, though I have never used Linux before.

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An old man who lives in the UK

 

[geirendre]

You might like to check this Eee-forum:

http://forum.eeeuser.com/

See if this thread gives you some clues:

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=12870

HTH

 

[GwydionM]

Thanks, useful forum (if I keep the machine)

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An old man who lives in the UK