I get this error evry time I try to get to something in a folder on one of my external harddrives. Why is this? Why can’t I see whats in those folders?
… means the file or foldername
Best regards…
It probably means they have not been mounted or the permissions have not been set to allow you to access them.
List the contents of /etc/fstab
More info about the external drive/s - format type, are they usb, how are they displayed currently in suse, where are they mounted in your tree?
The file “fstab” will show mounts for permanent drives and perhaps for some usb drives if you have taken the trouble to mount them permanently.
Please also supply the response you get when you enter this in a console:
sudo /sbin/fdisk -l
That’s letter l not numeral 1)
That will show the partitions and their filesystems.
Additionally please supply the response you get when you enter this in a console:
mount
That will show where/how the external drive is mounted.
John Hudson:
“bash: /etc/fstab: Permission denied”
caf4926:
I have 2 FAT32 drives and 1 NTFS. All are USB. The are displayed in my computer. I don’t know how to see where they are mounted in my tree; how do I see this?
swerdna:
"Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd29ad29a
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 262 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2 * 263 2873 20972857+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 2874 14593 94140900 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x44fdfe06
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 60801 488384001 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)"
“/dev/sda2 on / type ext3 (rw,acl,user_xattr)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=0620,gid=5)
/dev/sda3 on /home type ext3 (rw,acl,user_xattr)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/My Book type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uid=1000)”
Hope this will help you help me. Best regards…
There is an inconsistency here. Perhaps you can help me sort it out.
You said there were two fat32 USB devices and one ntfs USB device. But fdisk, which shows all connected devices, shows only one fat32 device and no ntfs devices. Were the missing devices connected or not connected when you performed “fdisk -l”?
Oh, I’m sorry. I only had one of the FAT32 disks connected. I thought we could solve the problem with that and then aply it on the other disks? Or do you want me to show the result from the other disks to? I thought maybe that would take to much space?
Best regards…
Well let’s add the ntfs – that covers the possibilities
This is the results from the NTFS disk:
"Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd29ad29a
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 262 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2 * 263 2873 20972857+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 2874 14593 94140900 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdb: 203.9 GB, 203928109056 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24792 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Disk /dev/sdb doesn’t contain a valid partition table"
And:
“/dev/sda2 on / type ext3 (rw,acl,user_xattr)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=0620,gid=5)
/dev/sda3 on /home type ext3 (rw,acl,user_xattr)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)”
Hope this will help, best of regards…
The NTFS is a puzzle to me. I can only suggest that you restart it in windows and force a filesystem check. You can try to set it for a filesystem check by executing this command as root:
ntfsfix /dev/sdb1
Otherwise force the check by running windows and R-click on the drive icon –> Tools –> check now –> Automatically fix + Scan recover bad sectors –> set for reboot.
This may not be the problem but there’s a small chance that it is.
Also, re NTFS (and I suppose fat32), what country was the ntfs (and I suppose the fat32) drive purchased in (I’m wondering about the locality code which can play tricks too).
Regarding fat 32 – heres ehat I get when I execute mount:
/dev/sdd1 on /media/USBDRIVE type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,flush,uid=1000,utf8)
here’s what you get:
/dev/sdb1 on /media/My Book type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uid=1000)
The differences lead me to ask which version of Suse are you running?
And while we’re at it, please mount another fat32 and check that it’s the same as your “My Book” line in “mount”, just in case there;s something special about those proprietary “My Book” sealed-case drives.
The answer from the first commando:
“Refusing to operate on read-write mounted device /dev/sdb1.”
Maybe I tested the wrong disk?
I’m going to check the disks on a windows computer but I tried that 2 or 3 days ago and it worked.
All disks are bought in Sweden. I’ve also been wondering about that a little. Can it be a problem with the disks because I use english on my laptop? Should I try to reinstal opensuse with Swedish instead?
The opensuse version I use is 11.0
I would have tested my other FAT32 disk to see if Mybook was the problem but my other FAT32 disk is also a Mybook.
After all bad news a good news is that I’ve got some files to work. I see this as wierd and I can’t figure out the diffrens between the working files and the non-working files but it geves hope.
Thank you realy much for all the help your giving, I can see a solution to this in a near future…
The answer from the first commando:
“Refusing to operate on read-write mounted device /dev/sdb1.”
Maybe I tested the wrong disk?I’m going to check the disks on a windows computer but I tried that 2 or 3 days ago and it worked.
I don’t know what to say to help you there.
All disks are bought in Sweden. I’ve also been wondering about that a little. Can it be a problem with the disks because I use english on my laptop? Should I try to reinstal opensuse with Swedish instead?
I think you might have to mount them with the correct locale. You can see the locale that you are using by entering this command in a console:
locale
AS to re-installing as Swedish – I wouldn’t rush into that at this point because the person advising you (me) is really in a fog about all this. It would be an easier first test to change the “locale” parameter for the existing installation to Swedish from whatever is currently activated.
This is the result from the locale command. Can we do anything with this?:
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE=“en_US.UTF-8”
LC_NUMERIC=“en_US.UTF-8”
LC_TIME=“en_US.UTF-8”
LC_COLLATE=“en_US.UTF-8”
LC_MONETARY=“en_US.UTF-8”
LC_MESSAGES=“en_US.UTF-8”
LC_PAPER=“en_US.UTF-8”
LC_NAME=“en_US.UTF-8”
LC_ADDRESS=“en_US.UTF-8”
LC_TELEPHONE=“en_US.UTF-8”
LC_MEASUREMENT=“en_US.UTF-8”
LC_IDENTIFICATION=“en_US.UTF-8”
LC_ALL=
Thank you very much for all the help…
GOOD news evryone! I know the diffrens between folders and files that will open and those who won’t. All folders and files with the three swedish letters å, ä and/or ö that doesn’t exist in english won’t open and all folders and files without å,ä and/or ö will. I changed my language in opensuse to Swedish to see if this would work but sadly not. Do you think I should reinstal opensuse with Swedish or do you have any other sugestions? It’s so close now.
Thankyou all for helping!
Update:
When I run my external harddrive on a windows machine and change the name of the folers/files, that didn’t work on opensuse, to only english symbols; then I can open those folders/files, that I couldn’t open before, in opensuse to.
Any sugestions of how to solve this problem other than just changing all my folders/files names?
Best regards…
Hello again, I’ve had limited connectivity last two days.
I see from your last two posts that there is language/character sensitivity. I assume you’ve been talking about fat32. Here’s an interesting extract from the man pages “man mount”:
check=value
Three different levels of pickyness can be chosen:r[elaxed]
Upper and lower case are accepted and equivalent, long
name parts are truncated (e.g. verylongname.foobar
becomes verylong.foo), leading and embedded spaces are
accepted in each name part (name and extension).n[ormal]
Like “relaxed”, but many special characters (*, ?, <,
spaces, etc.) are rejected. This is the default.s[trict]
Like “normal”, but names may not contain long parts and
special characters that are sometimes used on Linux, but
are not accepted by MS-DOS are rejected. (+, =, spaces,
etc.)
Your automount function will be using the defaults, including “n”. I suppose this would include the special Swedish characters (maybe). Perhaps you have to mount the drive manually and include in the options the specific change from default “check=n” to “check=r”.
I use this command for manual mount “mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /media/external”. Where shoul i put in “check=r”?
Many of many thanks for your help…
mount -t vfat -o check=r /dev/sdb1 /media/external
I wonder 
---------- Edited typo: changed ‘o check=r’ to ‘-o check=r’ -----------
Sadly that command didn’t work, I came to the mount menu instead.
Best regards.
Apologies. There’s a typo. It was 30 to midnight last thing for the day. Should be:
mount -t vfat -o check=r /dev/sdb1 /media/external