can no longer mount usb drives, "only root can mount"error!

English Hardware
1

I’m running 11, kde4, and up till now never had a problem with usb devices, memory sticks or usb hard drives, but now device notifier is lacking the eject button, and when i go through dolphin to try to open the drives i get a “only root can mount /dev/sdb1 on /media/disk”
The only thing I’ve added recently is clam antivirus, and ntfs-3g (not sure about the name, it’s called ntfs configuration tool on my menu)

I’ve read a bunch of posts from people who have been having usb problems, but none of the solutions have worked for me so far. I tried modifying /usr/share/policykit/policy/org.freedesktop.hal.storage.policy but still no luck.

This happened the same day as installing clam antivirus and the ntfs config tool. It’s driving me nuts trying to figure out whats changed, I ran updates today but still have the same error.
One thing I noticed, related to another post, is that kded media manager is not present in “service manager>system settings”, but I have no idea how to get it running automatically as it did before. Any help would be appreciated, I have my suse set up the way i like it, and don’t want to have to reinstall. Thanks for taking the time to read this post.

(when I click on the usb drives in device notifier, dolphin opens my home directory, wierd!)

2

Hmmm… similar problem here. I am running 11.1 with KDE4, and have also discovered in the last few days that I can no longer mount usb drives.
Previously the device notifier has worked perfectly, but in the last couple of days it advises that something has been plugged in, and tells me I can open in Dolphin (Dolphin opens my home directory, very slowly, after selecting to open the usb device…), but also there is never an eject button any more.
If I run mount at the command line, the device does not show, if I try and mount the device as root, nothing happens… still works in Vista… :frowning:
I have recently installed VirtualBox and was assuming this was the problem, but have uninstalled and makes no change. Have there been any updates recently (I haven’t worked out how you tell this in 11.1 yet…)
Please help…!

3

If I had to guess, I would guess that the ntfs config tool has caused the problem. After a very brief enthusiasm (when that app first came out), I reversed my opinion and have never liked it since. I now avoid it.

Check that it has not inappropriately modified your /etc/fstab for your usb devices, causing this mounting problem.

4

Thanks for the replies, Although I’ve been using Suse for several years I’m still a little noobish when it comes to manual configuration, I’m not sure what my fstab should look like, I’ve also got another problem, when I try to edit a text configuration file from terminal by invoking SU Kate before the path to the file I need to edit,I enter PW, and nothing happens! my terminal renames itself kate, but no text editor, I have to log in as root to do any editing, which I’m not sure is working correctly.
Anybody have a link to a “fstab for dummys” post?

5

Rather than adopt that approach, why not, with your external drive plugged in, post here the output of:
cat /etc/fstab
df -Th
su -c 'fdisk -l’enter your root password when prompted for a password.

6

Heres my fstab:

/etc/fstab: static file system information.

<file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>

proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD2000JB-00_WD-WCANK8850412-part6 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD2000JB-00_WD-WCANK8850412-part7 /home ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/sdb1 /media/disk ntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=0222,nosuid,nodev 0 0
/dev/sdb2 /media/disk-1 ntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=0222,nosuid,nodev 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD2000JB-00_WD-WCANK8850412-part1 /windows/C ntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=0222,users 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD2000JB-00_WD-WCANK8850412-part5 swap swap defaults 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs noauto 0 0

7

I really need the output of “df -Th” and “fdisk -l” to confirm, but it looks to me that your problem is here. Those two entries are likely causing problems.

8

As you requested, and thanks a million!

paradise@linux-lowj:~> cat /etc/fstab

/etc/fstab: static file system information.

<file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>

proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD2000JB-00_WD-WCANK8850412-part6 / ext3acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD2000JB-00_WD-WCANK8850412-part7 /home ext3acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/sdb1 /media/disk ntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=0222,nosuid,nodev 0 0
/dev/sdb2 /media/disk-1 ntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=0222,nosuid,nodev 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD2000JB-00_WD-WCANK8850412-part1 /windows/C ntfs defaults,nls=utf8,umask=0222,users 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD2000JB-00_WD-WCANK8850412-part5 swap swapdefaults 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs noauto 0 0

paradise@linux-lowj:~> df -Th
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda6 ext3 20G 3.2G 16G 17% /
udev tmpfs 502M 92K 501M 1% /dev
/dev/sda7 ext3 71G 24G 43G 37% /home
/dev/sda1 ntfs 94G 24G 70G 25% /windows/C
paradise@linux-lowj:~> su -c ‘fdisk -l’
Password:

Disk /dev/sda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xde31de31

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 12161 97679360 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 * 12162 24321 97675200 f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sda5 12162 12423 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 12424 15034 20972826 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 15035 24321 74597796 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 1024 MB, 1024966656 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 124 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xca0dca0d

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 124 995998+ 6 FAT16
paradise@linux-lowj:~>

9

It looks to me that you do not need these two lines in your /etc/fstab.

So here are some instructions … In the examples I give, enter root password when prompted for a password.

OK, start your PC with the external drive NOT connected.

copy the following lines into a konsole/gnome-terminal as a work around to have ntfs-3g driver called when you plug in your external drive:
cd /sbin
su -c ‘ln -s mount.ntfs-3g mount.ntfs’

Then, please backup your /etc/fstab by typing:su -c ‘cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab-backup’

then remove the directories /media/disk and /media/disk-1
su -c ‘rmdir /media/disk’
su -c ‘rmdir /media/disk-1’

then in your /etc/fstab file, remove the lines:

/dev/sdb1       /media/disk     ntfs    defaults,nls=utf8,umask=0222,nosuid,nodev    0       0
/dev/sdb2       /media/disk-1   ntfs    defaults,nls=utf8,umask=0222,nosuid,nodev    0       0

if you are using kde, you can launch an editor to edit that file with:
kdesu kwrite /etc/fstab

and if you are using gnome, possible something like:
gnomesu gedit /etc/fstab

once those two lines are removed (and be VERY careful when removing them, as you could mess up your ability to boot if you mess this up) then save the change, and shutdown your PC.

Note, it is VERY IMPORTANT that if you were using your external drive under windows, that it was disconnected properly. If it was not, then Linux ntfs-3g driver will refuse to read it.

So, after you have shut down your PC, and confirmed that with external drive was closed properly under windows (and restart windows and plugin your external drive and remove PROPERLY your external drive under windows if necessary to do this) then restart your PC and boot to Linux (withOUT the external drive connected), and ONLY once restarted, plug in your external drive.

Your drive should now be hot plug mounted. If so, check to see if you can read files on the drive. If that is successful, then test your ability to write to the drive.

10

hornester, note the solution I gave to Florrain is 11.0 specific and is NOT applicable to your 11.1.

11

Florrain, I just noticed you are running kde4. The solution I gave will work with 11.0 kde3.5.9 and gnome, but it may not work with kde4. Note because we backed up the /etc/fstab file, you can always restore it if need be.

12

Thanks alot oldcpu, I’ll try that, incidentally, I’ve removed ntfs-3g, should I re-install it then? I thought you were over this program?

13

Thanks for the suggestions, but have found the answer in another thread (http://forums.opensuse.org/applications/403976-shutdown-problem.html).
It’s (well, my prob) is not hardware or NTFS related, it’s actually caused by the latest Java update… Disabled jexec and all was wonderful again, so back to the drawing board to get a working java with my Firefox… :frowning:
This also created a shutdown/startup prob as well…
John.

14

It turns out that in my case clam antivirus had disabled mounting external usb drives, I uninstalled clam and device notifier became functional again. (I work on alot of windoze machines and wanted the ability to scan drives from my linux box, but I’ll have to come up with another solution.)

Many thanks to Oldcpu for assistance rendered.