I hope someone can help…
I previously was running 11.4 +KDE with no problems with the external HD. But After installing Opensuse 12.1 + KDE, my 500 Gb external HD (which I use for storage and backups) I am unable to save files into it.
Format of Disk is NTFS format
The disk mounts ok, I can see and open files already stored, but can’t add anything into it. >:(
The disk mounts and reads as a Windows “D:” drive. (In 11.4, it correctly read as Simpletech’s“Simple Drive” within suse’s Media directory and worked just fine.
When attempting any changes, warning says: “Access denied. Could not write to /windows/D/name of file
ADDITIONAL INFO that may or not help::
System is set up as dualboot w/Windows XP, which I never use.
When starting up the machine I get the following boot options:
Desktop –openSUSE 12.1 – 3.1.10-1.16
Failsafe – openSUSE 12.1 – 3.1.10-1.16
windows 1
windows 2
The “windows 2” seems odd and did not exist when 11.4 was running.
Might give us a look at your fstab file. I normally use the simple mount option called defaults, which would allow anyone to write to a NTFS formatted partition. To edit this file or to copy and post it here in a message (using the advance message editor and placed between code # tags:
Alt-F2: kdesu kwrite /etc/fstab
Here is a typical entry from my fstab file. Mine is different from yours, but you can see the options I use:
Hello James! Thank you very much for your reply and please forgive my absence and lack of response over the weekend. Following your suggestion and instruction about my fstab file, I get the following results:
Windows/D is the problem, whereas in 11.4 it just mounted under opensuse’s “media” directory. If your second suggestion applies, I am unaware about how to change the setting to “default”.
Thank you very much!
First off, anytime we post information like your fstab file, it should be posted, using the advanced message editor and placed into a Code # field like so:
I have aligned the different fields and put it inside of Code # tags. Now have a look using my suggested defaults setting for NTFS hard drive partitions:
Hello again!
Thanks again for your kind help and sorry for posting the fstab un such horrible format. (Not sure how to do it nor what the advanced message editor is…) :embarrassed:
However, I just went to my fstab, replaced the 2 lines with “default” just as you said, and voilá!!! The HD is now fully functional!! I can copy, delete, paste etc…!!!
BIG THANKS jdmcdaniel3 !!! I was in growing need to get back my disk’s full functionality and really, really appreciate it!!!:good:
Now, I don’t know if it really matters but I am still wondering why I get a “windows 1” and “windows 2” options at start up, and why the external drive appears as “windows D”, when none of this occurred in the previous os version…
I am happy to hear you can use your Windows partitions properly now. The openSUSE 12.1 installer seems to have no logic to determine which Windows partition actually boots Windows and so its not uncommon to get more than one Grub OS selection entry. Normally, the first selection is the one that works. Windows 7 will create a small bootable partition and a larger main partition where most of Windows is loaded. You boot from the first and if indeed the first one works, you can use the YaST bootloader option to remove the Windows 2 entry or just ignore it. As for the entries in your fstab, you can call them anything you want. IN openSUSE, the first NTFS partition will be mounted to the folder /windows/C while the second found is /windoiws/D. If /windows/C is the small boot partition, I most likely would remove the whole line from my my fstab and I might then rename the /windows/D to /windows/C in the fstab file. Consider that as a root user, you can create any folder name you want, like /Windows for instance, then edit say /windows/D to be /Windows in the fstab file, reboot your computer and now the main Windows partition can be found at /Windows, but the names really don’t matter all that much except the folder must already exist before the fstab file can mount the hard disk partition there.
When you were installing 12.1, you left your USB drive plugged in. So the installer took it to be part of the install. Thus it added an “fstab” line to mount it, and it added a “windows2” line to boot it.
If you want to get the system back to the way it was with 11.4, then:
Comment out the “fstab” line for “/windows/D”. Just insert ‘#’ as the first character. Then, on the next boot, the disk should mount under “/media” as before.
If you want to get rid of that “windows2” line for booting, you can get into Yast
Thanks again jdmcdaniel3 and thanks nrickert for joining in to share your knowledge. I will gladly follow your advice promptly, but now I am encountering another problem:
Everything went well last night, until I came this morning to turn my computer on, boot took much longer than usual and cannot login to the machine.
After about a minute, I am greeted with a screen showing the ongoing boot processes, ending with the following message (manually typed from my pc screen to my laptop:
Started /home OK ]
11.541335] ALSA via82xx.c:591 codec_read: codec 0 is not valid [0xfe0000]
11.552311] ALSA via82xx.c:591 codec_read: codec 0 is not valid [0xfe0000]
11.568750] ALSA via82xx.c:591 codec_read: codec 0 is not valid [0xfe0000]
11.576408] ALSA via82xx.c:591 codec_read: codec 0 is not valid [0xfe0000]
Dependency failed. Aborted start of /windows/D ABORT ]
Welcome to emergency mode. Use “systemct1 default” or ^D to activate default mode.
Give root password for login;
- I entered my root password, then got:
linux-hrmj: ~ #
- I then pressed an arrow key to just keep monitor on and got:)
Display all 3599 possibilities? (y or n)
As you can see I am not too savvy with internal works of linux and I have never even used safe mode before.
I now can’t even login to my computer! What can I do?
At that point, try “vi /etc/fstab” or “nano /etc/fstab” - which ever editor you are familiar with.
Insert ‘#’ in front of the line for “/windows/D” in “/etc/fstab”. Save the modified file.
Then: shutdown -r now
to reboot.
You seem to be having problems with that one file system. The trick is to not mount it at boot. Then you should be able to boot normally, and investigate if there is a problem with that file system.
Thanks and hello again. Was away so unable to stay tuned.
By “vi /etc/fstab” I am accessing the fstab, but I am unable to edit anything. I mean I am unable to introduce any changes even before saving any change. When I press a key nothing seems to happen, just the arrow key for skimming through the lines.
Sorry for my ignorance in this manner, but is there some key combination or something prior to typing changes? Is the file read only?
If I am finally able to edit the file, where exactly must the “#” be inserted?
Now I really need to access the system.
Thank you!