USB Drive Mounts Read Only

For some reason now on all my Linux systems but particularly Arch Linux, my USB thunb drive gets auto mounted in Gnome when I plug it in but for some reason it's 'read only'.
[carlos@tuna ~]$ cd /media/usb/
[carlos@tuna usb]$ ls -l
total 3722352
drwx------ 2 carlos users 8192 Feb 11 10:34 files
drwx------ 2 carlos users 8192 Feb 13 20:32 movies
drwx------ 2 carlos users 8192 Jan 31 19:18 music
drwx------ 4 carlos users 8192 Feb 11 10:34 pics
drwx------ 2 carlos users 8192 Jan 28 12:17 tv
-rw-r--r-- 1 carlos users 1564807588 Feb 14 17:40 WELCOM~1.AVI
/dev/sdg1 on /media/usb type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=1000,gid=100,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,showexec,flush)
Both on CLI & through my Gnome file browser (Nautilus), I can't re-name, delete, or create new files. I don't understand what has changed. I then tested this on a spare laptop running Ubuntu 10.10 and it too has the same issue.
Can anyone please explain this to me or help me resolve this problem?

Correct. In both cases (CLI & GUI) I can't remove, add, or change existing files:
[carlos@tuna ~]$ cd /media/
[carlos@tuna media]$ ls -l
total 8
drwx------ 9 carlos users 8192 Dec 31 1969 CORSAIR
[carlos@tuna media]$ cd CORSAIR/
[carlos@tuna CORSAIR]$ ls -l
total 3722352
drwx------ 2 carlos users 8192 Feb 11 10:34 files
drwx------ 2 carlos users 8192 Feb 13 20:32 movies
drwx------ 2 carlos users 8192 Jan 31 19:18 music
drwx------ 4 carlos users 8192 Feb 11 10:34 pics
drwx------ 2 carlos users 8192 Jan 28 12:17 tv
-rw-r--r-- 1 carlos users 1564807588 Feb 14 17:40 WELCOM~1.AVI
[carlos@tuna CORSAIR]$ rm WELCOM~1.AVI
rm: cannot remove `WELCOM~1.AVI': Read-only file system
I can't even change the permissions on the file:
chmod: changing permissions of `WELCOM~1.AVI': Read-only file system

Similar Messages

My external USB drive became read-only

I migrated from a Macbook (black) to a new Macbook Pro (late 2008 model) a week ago. Everything seemed to work fine except that I can't write to an external USB drive (worked fine with the Macbook) from my new Macbook Pro. Disk utility indicated I only have read-only access and didn't give me a way to change the permissions. The drive still works normally (read-write) with the old Macbook.
The drive was formatted as Mac OS extended (journaled.) Both computers are running 10.5.5 when this happened. I have since upgraded my Macbook Pro to 10.5.6 but won't have an opportunity to test it with my drive till January.
I know I can re-format the drive with Macbook pro but I don't want to lose the data. I have no other storage to temporary hold the data (about 450G worth.) I tend to change computers every 6 months or so. This will continue to be a problem for me. I am looking for a nice permanent solution.
Thanks.

Welcome to Apple Discussions:
You probably do not have write access to the drive, if it came from a Mac with another account.
In a terminal run the command
ls -al /volumes
and see what permissions the drive has.
You should see something like
drwxrwxrwx 1 nero nero 16384 Dec 18 13:02 TravelDrive
Where "nero" is the name of the user who has access to the drive. Notice that on my drive, everyone has read, write, execute privileges on the drive.
Message was edited by: nerowolfe

I am connecting an external USB HDD and I can see it on my Apple Macbook Air. BUT this drive is READ only. How can I write to it?

I am connecting an external USB HDD and I can see it on my Apple Macbook Air. BUT this drive is READ only. How can I write to it?

Drive Partition and Format
1.Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

Sanyo Phone always mounts read-only

I recently purchased a Sanyo M1 phone that has a USB mass storage mode.
The phone has 1GB of internal memory that is formatted with FAT16. When connected via a USB cable, a "SANYO" drive appears on the desktop, and is labeled "/Volumes/SANYO".
This drive shows as locked in the finder, and the permissions information says "You can only read."
Going to the command line, shows that it is mounted read-only:
/dev/disk2s1 on /Volumes/SANYO (local, nodev, nosuid, read-only)
If I attempt to remount it as read-write:
Lappy-386:~ greg$ mount -u -o rw /dev/disk2s1
mount_msdos: /dev/disk2s1: Resource busy
Lappy-386:~ greg$ sudo !!
sudo mount -u -o rw /dev/disk2s1
mount_msdos: /dev/disk2s1: Resource busy
I have heard that this may be because Mac OS doesn't react well to devices that don't respond to it's mode sensing. I don't really care about mode sensing, I care about being able to forcibly mount this device as read-write, as it works perfectly well in Windows (even under Parallels) and Linux.
For a platform that prides itself on 'plug it in and it works', not being able to plug in a simple mass storage device is a huge mistake. What's even worse is that there is no option to forcibly mount it as read-write, and there is no error message that tells you why it is mounted read only. The console (in system.log) has:
Apr 18 14:16:46 Lappy-386 kernel[0]: USBF: 691451.613 AppleUSBEHCI[0x4344000]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 253, timing out!
The question is, how do I make this device show up read-write? Who can I contact at Apple to explain this problem? I do have AppleCare.
MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Any ideas...?
MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.6)

[SOLVED] Strange Hard Drive Errors - Read Only Filesystem?

Solution: Discard old laptop, buy new laptop
I have an Acer Aspire 5103WLMi. For about 2 months now, Arch has been running smoothly. Until 2 weeks ago.
It all started when I tried to install and configure autofs on Arch x86_64. On the next reboot, all manner of errors were printed to the screen, to the effect that the internal hard drive was only being mounted read-only, rendering the system unusable. I tried to find a solution, but there were no references to read-only anywhere; fstab, grub etc. None that I could find.
I tried reinstalling. However, x86_64 Arch refused to boot properly first time due to the exact same error; and I *know* that I'm configuring everything correctly. I managed (somehow) to coerce i686 Arch to install, and things "work".
Seemingly out of the blue, during normal operation, all running applications will stop, and spit out error after error to the effect of "Cannot Write to Read Only Filesystem!". Sakura won't load (Input/Output error, apparently), and the only way to shut down the laptop is a hard reset (I can't log in as root or use sudo because it wants to write to the filesystem first, which it obviously can't.
Now, I'm going to be giving the insides of this laptop a good cleanout this weekend, and I'm in the process of backing up all of my data, but I was wondering if anyone else has come across a similar form of misbehaviour; or (with a bit of luck) some potential solutions?
This is very peculiar, because there seems to be no reason why the laptop suddenly loses write permissions to the hard drive. Cheers.
Edit: I think I should point out that my /boot partition is Ext2, and / and /home are Ext3
Last edited by aphirst (2013-03-27 14:51:38)

Smartctl gives me the impression it's my Hard Drive:
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000b 100 100 050 Pre-fail Always - 0
2 Throughput_Performance 0x0005 100 100 050 Pre-fail Offline - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 100 100 001 Pre-fail Always - 1711
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 6194
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 050 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000b 100 100 050 Pre-fail Always - 0
8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0005 100 100 050 Pre-fail Offline - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 092 092 000 Old_age Always - 3291
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0033 223 100 030 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 1218
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 294
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 088 088 000 Old_age Always - 123904
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 34 (Lifetime Min/Max 15/62)
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 17
220 Disk_Shift 0x0002 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 118
222 Loaded_Hours 0x0032 094 094 000 Old_age Always - 2425
223 Load_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
224 Load_Friction 0x0022 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
226 Load-in_Time 0x0026 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 444
240 Head_Flying_Hours 0x0001 100 100 001 Pre-fail Offline - 0
Everything being either Old_age or Pre-fail is not encouraging. Additionally, in the output is what I believe to be records of what caused my strange read-only behaviour:
Error 19 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 3287 hours (136 days + 23 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.
After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
84 51 01 11 18 6a e1 Error: ICRC, ABRT 1 sectors at LBA = 0x016a1811 = 23730193
Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
c8 00 48 c4 17 6a e1 00 04:43:08.023 READ DMA
c8 00 48 14 e3 69 e1 00 04:43:08.022 READ DMA
c8 00 a0 5c e2 69 e1 00 04:43:08.010 READ DMA
c8 00 08 9c e5 69 e1 00 04:43:08.010 READ DMA
c8 00 20 5c e5 69 e1 00 04:43:08.009 READ DMA
Could this truly be referring to my problem, since the 'logs' show that the *exact same* error occurred many times.
Not that this tells me how to fix it...
Well, if anyone knows if there is a solution, I'd love to know. If the only solution is to ditch the Hard Drive, fair enough. Either way: I'm backing up all of my important data ASAP.
Cheers.
Oh, and kclive18, after I noticed that I couldn't get onto my Drive, I reinstalled arch, leaving no trace of /etc/autofs/auto.media.
Additionally, somehow I have now been able to install Arch x86_64, but the problems still occur...

Make a volume mount read-only

Rather than dig for my Mac OS X Server DVD, I find it easier to clone the disc onto a small partition on a hard drive.
However, the volume always mounts read-write, and I always get warnings about low disk space because of it. (I made the partition as small as possible.) Plus, I don't want to have anything mess with my Mac OS X Server "DVD".
I noticed that Mac OS X doesn't use fstab for mounting volumes… is there a way to make a disc mount read-only all of the time? (chmod -R a-w * doesn't cut it for me.)

I don't mean having it mount read-only when booting from it. I mean, while the server is running normally (not booted from the "disc").
For peace of mind, I'd like to have my "disc" always be read-only, just to make sure that it isn't modified unless I explicitly allow it.
On Linux, I could add "ro" to the mount options. Since Mac OS X doesn't use fstab, is there some plist that determines how volumes are mounted? I'd rather not edit the /etc/rc.* files unless absolutely necessary.

"underlying task reported failure..." & "root device is mounted read-only"

My ibook is not starting up. It was having problems loading up and getting in interminable spinning ball fits as I tried to use the computer for basic things like surfing internet, word processing, itunes. I ran disk repair several times, and the problems would resume. Finally I left it on, afraid to turn it off, but my boyfriend unplugged it, and it eventually ran out of juice. Now I hear it power up, but it doesn't start up all the way (it's gotten to different points in start-up process after I took each step below, but never all the way).
What I've tried so far:
1. I've run disk repair from the start-up disk, and got the "The underlying task reported failure on exit" message.
2. I did the archive reinstall, did not work either. Tried disk repair again and still getting same message as #1.
3. Also tried starting up in single-user mode and running fsck, but getting message "root device is mounted read-only." Not sure what this means. Ran disk repair again after this, gets me same message as #1.
I'm hesitant to do a complete reinstall, as I have documents and music files that haven't been backed up. I have an external hard drive to move files if I could just start up my computer.
My questions:
1) Any thing else I can try short of complete reinstall to fix the problem?
2) Any way I can save my files if I can't get the computer fully loaded?
3) Would a 3rd-party disk repair program allow me to fix the problem without wiping out my files?
4) Why is fsck not running?
Any advice would be appreciated!

Hi, tgt. DiskWarrior would be a good bet to fix the "keys out of order" errror, if things haven't gotten much worse since you saw that message. You can order it direct from its developer, Alsoft, or you can call around to Mac dealers in your area to see if one carries it. If you already have a bootable external hard drive with OS X 10.3.9 or better installed on it, you can boot to the external drive, buy DW from Alsoft via download, install it on the external drive, and use it to therapize the internal drive. If you don't have an external drive with 10.3.9 or better installed, you'll need the DW CD to start up from.
To shut your computer down while it isn't working properly, just press and hold down the power button for a few seconds.

My external hard drive is read only

Hey guys,
I'm just transferring stuff from a windows pc and i had all my music on my external hard drive. Well i set my default iTunes folder back to my external on my new mac but my hard drive is read only so it won't let me download anything after i buy it. How can i change it from read only?
Thanks

If the external drive is formatted NTFS, OSX can read but not write to it.
MacFUSE is supposed to add NTFS write support to OSX
<http://julipedia.blogspot.com/2007/03/ntfs-readwrite-support-for-mac-os-x.html> , but it may be safer to copy the data from the drive, the re-format it to Mac Extended (or FAT32 if you still want to use in on Windows). Re-formatting will erase the disk, so save the data first.

Error says my External backup hard drive is read only

I have a WD External drive that I use for my Time Machine backup. I turned on the computer today and it says it cannot backup because the drive is read only. It appears on the desktop and in the Finder window. When I open Time Machine preferences, it's identified as the backup disk. But when I choose "backup now", I get that message (it's read only).
Do I have to partition this again using Disk Utility or is there a simpler solution? Thank you,

See #C6 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

External Hard Drive Becomes Read Only

I have a LaCie Hard Drive that Time Machine has been backing up to for about 4 days now. All of a sudden, the external hard drive is read only. When I go into Get Info for the hard drive, I can't even change the read/write permissions - it's all grayed out. This is the second time it's happened. The first time was on a Western Digital MyBook. TM fried that drive. At least this drive hasn't disappeared like the last time.
I've now changed the Time Machine backup to my second hard drive on my Mac Pro (which is screaming along, as opposed to the FW800 [!!] backup on my La Cie, whose file transfers are slo-o-o-w).
The idea behind backing up onto the external was so that if I ever needed to leave during a fire or earthquake, I could bring this with me and not worry if my computer was destroyed. Insurance would replace the computer, and I could replace my system.
If it weren't formatted properly, it wouldn't have been backing up for the last few days.
Can anyone help?
Message was edited by: Theresa Mesa

Thank you to everyone who has posted about this issue -- it just happened to me AGAIN this morning (this is my 3rd time), after I installed the 10.5.2 update. The first two times were right after I hooked up my external Iomega 500GB drive to use with Time Machine and I thought it was something I was doing. Then it seemed to work fine for a couple months so I thought the problem was over. Guess not! It is frustrating because I just lost about 2 months worth of backups. So finally I searched Apple's discussion forums and saw that I am not alone. However, no one was really posting a solution other than to say "reformat the drive".
So I did a Google search about this topic and encountered the following article. I have just gone through the steps he outlines and although I won't know for awhile if it works, I figure at this point it can't hurt to try. I hope this proves useful to others as well. (One note -- in his article, he says to skip the Erase tab and go right to the Partition tab. If you don't see the Partition tab, first erase your corrupt Time Machine backup disk and then follow his steps.)
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/apple/leopard-disk-utility-format-issue-screws-with-t ime-machine-but-theres-an-easy-fix-316573.php
Cheers ~
Message was edited by: sneebish

External hard drive becomes "read only" and won't let Time Machine back up

I have an external hard drive for back up, and it has been working fine until recently.
There is a version of 10.6.6 loaded on it also.
The back up will fail every few days. When I do some checking, the back up drive is "read only" but I am not able to switch it to read/write. I cannot repair it with Disk Utility as the repair buttons are grayed out.
I can run DiskWarrior and it will fix it, but it runs super slow and takes all the memory to do it. I can barely use my e mail while it's running.
Anyone know what's going on?

System log says:
3/27/11 8:01:19 AM com.apple.backupd-auto[1559] Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup - time machine destination not resolvable.
It's read only because:
A: I cannot do repairs under Disk Utility, the buttons are grayed out.
B: I right click and "Get Info" and if I click on the lock icon, nothing happens.
C: The disk is not listed in the Time Machine backups.
I will try to take better notes the next time it happens and give you the exact messages.
There is another drive daisy chained to this external drive which holds my music. The music drive does not have a Mac OS installed on it and is only for storage. It works properly.

How do I change permissions on my seagate expansion drive from read only to read and write? Thank you!

I don't seem to be able to change the permissions on my Seagate 1TB Expansion Drive from read only to read and write.
Are there expansion drives compatible with both Windows and Mac as I have a Windows computer at work and use my Mac at home?
Thanks

It is a question of formats. That drive probably is formatted for Windows. You will have to reformat it to ExFAT on the PC, then it will work both on the Mac and the PC.
REFORMATTING ERASES ALL DATA ON A DISK!
There is a software option which will allow you to write to the HDD with reformatting:
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/
Ciao.

TS1550 OSX Upgrade (Mountain Lion) turned external drive to "read-only" and now I can not do back-ups on time machine. How do I fix this?

I recently upgraded to mountain lion, latest version OS and now my external drives are read-only. They are formatted Mac OS Extended and I have been using one of them for Time Machine. How do I fix?
Thanks

http://pondini.org/TM/C6.html

Why is SD Card mounted Read-only?

Hey all. I've had my HTC Incredible for about 6 months. Recently upon starting it up I get the message something like "There is a problem with your SD Card, it has been mounted Read-only". I have taken it out and tried to reseat it with no change. Any idea? Thanks.

I have had the HTC thunderbolts for about a month now and I got this problem today. I was on the phone with tech support for a while and was not able to fix it (due to I do not want to loose my pictures on my sd card) so I have to go into a store tomrw and see a tech person...idk what happen, but my phone did this on its own mid day.

All USB drives mount as read only for user

I have searched a bunch and thee results I find seem to be irrelevant to my situation. Most relate to a single USB media that is a problem and won't read or write.
On a new Arch install on a new computer (my third base system install). Running Gnome.
All USB mass storage devices mount as read only for the logged in user. Root has write permissions and I can mkdir no problem. It is not an issue with the USB drive itself as this occurs with multiple USB media (I've tested several SD cards on a reader and at least two drives, all the media works correctly on my existing installations)
I'm posting the contents of my /etc/group file in case there's an obvious error there I don't see, and my dmesg output upon plugging in the drive. User name is changed in the group file posted to "archie"
This is a single-user system.
/ect/group
root:x:0:root
bin:x:1:root,bin,daemon
daemon:x:2:root,bin,daemon
sys:x:3:root,bin
adm:x:4:root,daemon
tty:x:5:
disk:x:6:root
lp:x:7:daemon
mem:x:8:
kmem:x:9:
wheel:x:10:root,archie
ftp:x:11:
mail:x:12:
uucp:x:14:archie
log:x:19:root
utmp:x:20:
locate:x:21:
rfkill:x:24:
smmsp:x:25:
http:x:33:
games:x:50:
lock:x:54:
uuidd:x:68:
dbus:x:81:
network:x:90:
video:x:91:
audio:x:92:
optical:x:93:
floppy:x:94:
storage:x:95:
scanner:x:96:
power:x:98:
nobody:x:99:
users:x:100:archie
systemd-journal:x:190:
archie:x:1000:
avahi:x:84:
polkitd:x:102:
rtkit:x:133:
gdm:x:120:
brlapi:x:999:
kvm:x:78:
ntp:x:87:archie
dmesg output
[ 968.044188] usb 4-3: new high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci-pci
[ 968.170628] usb-storage 4-3:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[ 968.171435] scsi7 : usb-storage 4-3:1.0
[ 969.174450] scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access Generic USB SD Reader 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
[ 969.175068] scsi 7:0:0:1: Direct-Access Generic USB MS Reader 1.03 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
[ 969.939417] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] 15572992 512-byte logical blocks: (7.97 GB/7.42 GiB)
[ 969.941028] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 969.941037] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
[ 969.944664] sd 7:0:0:1: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 969.945509] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
[ 969.945517] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 969.952682] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
[ 969.952693] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 969.956396] sdb: sdb1
[ 969.965003] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
[ 969.965011] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 969.965015] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
I'm sure I'm just missing something in user management, but I can't find what.
Last edited by hooya (2014-04-27 03:10:49)

I am also having the same problem. Root can read and write to automounted drives, but my user cannot. I've tried with a variety of drives, I am assuming they are being automounted by root instead of the logged-in user somehow. (I am running x directly, and am not using a display manager, if that has anything to do with it).
When I look at how it is mounted it is as follows:
/dev/sdc1 on /run/media/myuser/drivename type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=0022,dmask=0077,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,showexec,utf8,flush,errors=remount-ro,uhelper=udisks2)

USB Drive Mounts Read Only

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