USB Drive "The location could not be displayed"

[Alan E. Davis]

I am using debian stretch and gnome.

When I plug in a usb external drive with four partitions (including ext4, ntfs, fat32) they are mounted automatically, but when I click on any of them in files or dolphin, this message is received: The location could not be displayed.  You do not have the permissions..."

I am able to read these files as root.  Even in the command line, however, a normal user can only see: Permission denied.

Trying to mount by label:

    # mount Label=<label> /mnt/<mountpoint>

   I see "special device <label> does not exist

I am able to mount any of them with a simple "mount /dev/sdcX /mnt/<mountpoint>, and they are accessible.  They are not shown automatically on dolphin, although Iall files are visible when I navigate to the mountpoint and click in files or dolphin. 

I tried changing permissions of /media.  Not solved.

an NTFS partition was not mountable unless dismounted from the automatic mount point; as far as I can see, this is not the case for vfat or ext4 partitions. 

I did copy a udev rule for setting permissions---something above my level of understanding, however.  If anything, the situation was worse.

It has been very frustrating to google for 2 hours on this probably very simple problem.  I think the solution is just to mount them manually.  Still, it would be helpful to automount them, or mount via fstab.  I have not had success mouting by label, and one does not know in advance whether some usb flash drive might preempt these drive designations.

BTW I am pleased to be running a Debian system again after some years.  It took a good deal of work, though, to get it set up on an iMac with a broadcom wifi adaptor!  

Alan Davis

--

[I do not] carry such information in my mind since it is readily

available in books. …The value of a college education is not the

learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.  

          ---Albert Einstein                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

"Sweet instruments hung up in cases. . . keep their sounds to themselves."        

         ---Shakespeare, _Timon of Athens_

[Johann Spies]

On 29 August 2016 at 20:20, Alan E. Davis <lng...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

I tried changing permissions of /media.  Not solved.

an NTFS partition was not mountable unless dismounted from the automatic mount point; as far as I can see, this is not the case for vfat or ext4 partitions. 

I did copy a udev rule for setting permissions---something above my level of understanding, however.  If anything, the situation was worse.

It has been very frustrating to google for 2 hours on this probably very simple problem.  I think the solution is just to mount them manually.  Still, it would be helpful to automount them, or mount via fstab.  I have not had success mouting by label, and one does not know in advance whether some usb flash drive might preempt these drive designations.

BTW I am pleased to be running a Debian system again after some years.  It took a good deal of work, though, to get it set up on an iMac with a broadcom wifi adaptor!  

 What I do (if this is an external disk I will be using regularly) is to specify it in /etc/fstab e.g.:

UUID=c8cb3c35-6b19-40e2-be34-e6e3bde03fa4 /media/1tb_klein  ext4 user,rw,noauto 0 0

the 'user' option allow me then to mount it like this:

mount /media/1tb_klein

and I can read/write there.

If after it is mounted there is a problem with ownership, I change it after the device was mounted:

chown js.js /media/1tb_klein

By the way the packages pmount is useful to mount hogpluggable devices as user.

If the device is for instance /dev/sdb1 and you do as user pmount /dev/sdb1  it will create /media/sdb1 and mount the device there.

Use pumount /dev/sdb1 to unmount.

Regards

Johann

--

Because experiencing your loyal love is better than life itself,
my lips will praise you.  (Psalm 63:3)