NO permission to write to FAT32 partition

smiley_lauf · 02-09-2006, 10:11 PM

This has been tackled before, and I am sorry to bring this up again. I have tried to follow all the instructions to mount and put command in fstab to allow me to read and write to my 2 other FAT32 partitons through Ubuntu.
here is my fstab file:

Code:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
/dev/hda8       /               reiserfs notail          0       1
/dev/hda1       /media/hda1     ntfs    defaults        0       0
/dev/hda5       /media/hda5     vfat    defaults        0       0
/dev/hda6       /media/hda6     vfat    defaults        0       0
/dev/hda7       none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/hdb        /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0


/dev/hda5 /media/winD vfat umask=000 0 0
/dev/hda6 /media/winE  vfat umask=000 0 0

/dev/hda1 /media/winC ntfs umask=0222 0 0

Where am I going wrong? Note I have done
sudo mkdir /mount/winC
sudo mkdir /mount/winD
sudo mkdir /mount/winE

and these directories exist. But they have a yellow lock onthem, which probably means I can read but not write. Right?

I also checked if I could write to disc, and give me errors that I do not have permission to write.

Help much appreciated,
regards,
SL

Edit: I even tried this suggestion from another post here:

===
/dev/hda5 /media/winD vfat users,iocharset=iso8859-15,umask=0,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hda6 /media/winE vfat users,iocharset=iso8859-15,umask=0,codepage=850 0 0

/dev/hda1 /media/winC ntfs users,iocharset=iso8859-15,umask=0,codepage=850 0 0

===

and it does not work even after I rebooted.

gilead · 02-09-2006, 10:30 PM

I'd try changing it to:

Code:

/dev/hda5 /media/winD vfat umask=0000,rw,uid=1000,gid=100,users 0 0
/dev/hda6 /media/winE vfat umask=0000,rw,uid=1000,gid=100,users 0 0

I'm assuming that you have a user with a uid of 1000 and the required group has a gid of 100.

smiley_lauf · 02-09-2006, 10:57 PM

Sweet, worked perfectly!

smiley_lauf · 02-10-2006, 12:09 PM

Just one problem though: pdf files opened in Firefox can'y be saved into these drives. Otherwise all other file types can. Any ideas?

gilead · 02-10-2006, 01:29 PM

That's odd - if the user running Firefox can manually put files there, then Firefox should be able to as well. What error message are you seeing?

smiley_lauf · 02-11-2006, 08:11 AM

My bad!...Remember I had created /mount/hda5..previously? Now I have a new /mount/winD. I was using the old hda5 directory (which now does not exist) and thus failing to save files. When choose winD is works fine. I am trrribly sorry. Thanks otherwise Gilead.

gilead · 02-11-2006, 12:38 PM

No problem - I'm glad it's working now

smiley_lauf · 02-13-2006, 10:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gilead

I'd try changing it to:

Code:

/dev/hda5 /media/winD vfat umask=0000,rw,uid=1000,gid=100,users 0 0
/dev/hda6 /media/winE vfat umask=0000,rw,uid=1000,gid=100,users 0 0

I'm assuming that you have a user with a uid of 1000 and the required group has a gid of 100.

Steve,

I have another laptop also using Ubuntu 5.10 on which I have made a similar partition hda5. I copied your recommended syntax into the /etc/fstabs file, but this time around I do not get permission to write, I can read, but not write. I am sure this is correct, I have even rebooted to check it is the case.

Any idea why this may happen? Could it be a gid or uid issue? what do I do to write to this common FAT32 partition; and by the way, my WIN XP is also FAT32, and I want to write to that too (hda1).

Much appreciated,

SL

gilead · 02-13-2006, 01:17 PM

If you can read the files it means that the dev and mount values are OK, so it sounds like the uid/gid values are wrong. Can you try it again with the values returned by the following?

Code:

grep "^$(whoami)" /etc/passwd | cut -d: -f3
grep "^$(groups | cut -d' ' -f1)" /etc/group | cut -d: -f3

smiley_lauf · 02-13-2006, 02:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gilead

If you can read the files it means that the dev and mount values are OK, so it sounds like the uid/gid values are wrong. Can you try it again with the values returned by the following?

Code:

grep "^$(whoami)" /etc/passwd | cut -d: -f3
grep "^$(groups | cut -d' ' -f1)" /etc/group | cut -d: -f3

For both I get 1000.

gilead · 02-13-2006, 08:42 PM

OK, can you try it with 1000 for the gid value and see if that fixes it?

smiley_lauf · 02-13-2006, 09:56 PM

It worked, thanks. You are a lifesaver; now my wife will be very happy to have access to her documents in winxp.
best wishes,
sl

gilead · 02-14-2006, 12:49 AM

No problem - glad it worked