USB hard drive - mount help

[sultanoswing]

I have a similar issue to other threads: unable to mount a USB hard drive (formatted as NTFS) as non-root. It appears on the file system browser OK, but when I try to open it:

"You Do Not Have the permissions necessary to view the contents of "Backup""

I've tried editing the fstab (/dev/sda1 umount=0222, users etc etc) and removing the line altogether to allow HAL/gnome-mount to do their thing. I even tried hacking the HAL conf and policies according to several threads. The frustrating thing is, it has worked and mounted OK, but intermittently - and I'm not sure what the deal is. I do use the sdrive in XP, so perhaps using it there renders it somehow 'different' when I next boot into Fedora?

PITA, and frustrating, and I'm hoping the frequently mentioned issue of permissions with respect to NTFS USB drives is sorted soon.

(ps: using latest Core, 2122)

[scotta3234]

If you follow this guide: http://stanton-finley.net/fedora_cor...ion_notes.html
and read the part about NTFS support it should work... although you should know you cant "write" to ntsf from linux. It's "read only."

-Edit The only part you should have to do after getting the correct NTSF module for your specific kernel is to edit your fstab, and nothing else. make sure that the /dev/"this part" <-- could be hdb1, hdb2, yours says sda. is it really a SATA drive?

[scotta3234]

I miss wrote my reply originally and thought you just couldn't get the thing mounted but it appears to be mounted fine you just don't have access. if you log in to gnome (at the blue log in screen when you boot your computer) as root and you can view the files you should also be able to right click the mounted volume and change the permissions in the tab to allow other groups/users to be able to have access.

[sultanoswing]

Indeed - it mounts OK, but permissions deny me access to the files. Eventually, I gave up, and just did the following:

If you are on a single user home system and you would like to recover the functionality to mount fixed disk items (such as IDE partitions) from the desktop you can modify the default hal policy. A quick fix to recover the desktop mounting for all fixed disks is

mv /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/99-redhat-storage-policy-fixed-drives.fdi /root/

/sbin/service haldaemon restart

..and then added the disc manually to my fstab, and then have to manually mount it (I must write a startup batch file or something). Oh well - hopefully gnome-mount matures to the point of usability in FC6.

[sultanoswing]

Update:

I placed

"/dev/sda1 /media/usbhd ntfs users,auto,ro,umask=0222" into the fstab.

Now, possibly due to the new kernels (2122, then 2133), the external NTFS USB drive appears automatically on boot up, without any permission problems. Nice.

[scotta3234]

yeah but too bad you can't write to it (well you can but it's highly experimental) That's why i always just convert to FAT32 for thumb drivers and external storage. That way i can use it on any operating system.

[sultanoswing]

I did write to it via a VMware XP machine and Samba, but that's also not recommended

I guess I'll go the FAT32 route at some stage soon!