File Ownership Problem on Dual Boot PC - RESOLVED

[n8oay]

I have installed PCLOS 2011.6 on a computer dual booting with Windows XP. This computer previously was dual booted with Xandros 4.0. I do not have access to any of the data files when logged on as the user. This computer has 2 internal hard drives and 3 external hard drives, one USB and 2 eSATA, and an external USB DVD burner. Each of the hard drives have multiple partitions. FSTAB lists my username for each drive. I did not modify FSTAB manually. The 2 eSATA drivers were internal drives with Xandros. The PC motherboard failed. The replacement has only 2 internal SATA connections, so I purchased a PCI card and external drive enclosures and made 2 of the previously internal drives external.

I have tried using Dolphin (logged in as root) to change ownership for the files and folders on each partition by going to folder properties and changing user and group permissions. When I do this I get a message for each file saying that I do not have sufficient permission to make this change. When I use the chown -R groupname:username /foldername I get a message saying that the folder does not exist. I get the same results trying to change ownership for either entire folders and contents or an individual file.

I assume this problem is a result of the previous Xandros installation, but I am clueless about how to fix it. All help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the help!
Dave

[AS]

I have installed PCLOS 2011.6 on a computer dual booting with Windows XP. This computer previously was dual booted with Xandros 4.0. I do not have access to any of the data files when logged on as the user. This computer has 2 internal hard drives and 3 external hard drives, one USB and 2 eSATA, and an external USB DVD burner. Each of the hard drives have multiple partitions. FSTAB lists my username for each drive. I did not modify FSTAB manually. The 2 eSATA drivers were internal drives with Xandros. The PC motherboard failed. The replacement has only 2 internal SATA connections, so I purchased a PCI card and external drive enclosures and made 2 of the previously internal drives external.

I have tried using Dolphin (logged in as root) to change ownership for the files and folders on each partition by going to folder properties and changing user and group permissions. When I do this I get a message for each file saying that I do not have sufficient permission to make this change. When I use the chown -R groupname:username /foldername I get a message saying that the folder does not exist. I get the same results trying to change ownership for either entire folders and contents or an individual file.

I assume this problem is a result of the previous Xandros installation, but I am clueless about how to fix it. All help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the help!
Dave

Hi,

the correct syntax for chown is : chown -R user:group /foldername, not the inverse.

about folder doesn't exist and /etc/fstab, could you post that file ?

what result when you try the following commands ? The answer should give enough info to understand what's the issue.

ls -l /foldername
blkid
df -T

AS

[n8oay]

Hi,

the correct syntax for chown is : chown -R user:group /foldername, not the inverse.

about folder doesn't exist and /etc/fstab, could you post that file ?

what result when you try the following commands ? The answer should give enough info to understand what's the issue.

ls -l /foldername
blkid
df -T

AS

Thanks, AS. The username and groupname are the same. That was my mistake in the way I typed the chown syntax in my first post on this message. I have the partitions mounted as /home/n8oay/disks/letter same letter as the Windows drive letter to avoid confusion in finding files regardless of which OS I boot the computer to. The partitions are a mixture of FAT32 and NTFS.

Here is the fstab file:

Code:

# Entry for /dev/sdc2 :
UUID=ce40c196-0b28-4ed1-9bf6-d99037539bd8 / reiserfs defaults 1 1
none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sdb1 :
UUID=78AD-1679 /home/n8oay/disks/D vfat defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sdb5 :
UUID=5A20-727C /home/n8oay/disks/E vfat defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sdb6 :
UUID=69F51FC84FB19B54 /home/n8oay/disks/F ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=46DD-BA4F /home/n8oay/disks/G vfat defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sdd1 :
UUID=5989-1063 /home/n8oay/disks/H vfat defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sdc1 :
UUID=2D814EF0081C247E /home/n8oay/disks/I ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sdd5 :
UUID=10AF-CF8F /home/n8oay/disks/J vfat defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sdd6 :
UUID=103F94F64E07F152 /home/n8oay/disks/K ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sdc5 :
UUID=5C6F46409AA2DF86 /home/n8oay/disks/L ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sdc6 :
UUID=D8523DF26E2006E5 /home/n8oay/disks/M ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sde1 :
UUID=972C-372B /home/n8oay/disks/N vfat defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sde5 :
UUID=7519-4324 /home/n8oay/disks/O vfat defaults 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sdc3 :
UUID=4c0a5a26-ad15-4eb5-bd24-c4170a307360 swap swap defaults 0 0

for the ls -l /foldername I will post just the first few lines. I got the same results for every partition on each drive so I won't waste the space to post the entire results.

Code:

[root@localhost ~]# ls -l /home/n8oay/disks/D
total 5280
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 32768 Jul  5  2007 780Programmer/
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 32768 Jul  5  2007 AdvanceParadigm/
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 32768 Jul  5  2007 AmateurRadio/
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 32768 Jul  5  2007 Antennas/
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 32768 Jul  5  2007 AOR_AR8200/

for blkid I got

Code:

[root@localhost ~]# blkid
/dev/sda2: UUID="ce40c196-0b28-4ed1-9bf6-d99037539bd8" TYPE="reiserfs"
/dev/sda3: UUID="4c0a5a26-ad15-4eb5-bd24-c4170a307360" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sda5: UUID="46DD-BA4F" TYPE="vfat"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="78AD-1679" TYPE="vfat"
/dev/sdb5: UUID="5A20-727C" TYPE="vfat"
/dev/sdb6: UUID="69F51FC84FB19B54" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda1: UUID="56FE-80C1" TYPE="vfat"
/dev/sdc1: UUID="2D814EF0081C247E" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdc5: UUID="5C6F46409AA2DF86" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdc6: UUID="D8523DF26E2006E5" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sdd1: UUID="5989-1063" TYPE="vfat"
/dev/sdd5: UUID="10AF-CF8F" TYPE="vfat"
/dev/sdd6: UUID="103F94F64E07F152" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sde1: UUID="972C-372B" TYPE="vfat"
/dev/sde5: UUID="7519-4324" TYPE="vfat"

and for df -T I got

Code:

[root@localhost ~]# df -T
Filesystem    Type    Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 reiserfs     45G  9.0G   36G  21% /
/dev/sdb1     vfat     41G   24G   18G  58% /home/n8oay/disks/D
/dev/sdb5     vfat     81G   36G   45G  45% /home/n8oay/disks/E
/dev/sdb6  fuseblk    113G   54G   60G  48% /home/n8oay/disks/F
/dev/sda5     vfat     99G   55G   45G  55% /home/n8oay/disks/G
/dev/sdd1     vfat     41G   27G   14G  66% /home/n8oay/disks/H
/dev/sdc1  fuseblk     81G   74G  6.8G  92% /home/n8oay/disks/I
/dev/sdd5     vfat     81G   63G   18G  79% /home/n8oay/disks/J
/dev/sdd6  fuseblk    113G   79G   35G  70% /home/n8oay/disks/K
/dev/sdc5  fuseblk     81G   70G   11G  87% /home/n8oay/disks/L
/dev/sdc6  fuseblk    138G  110G   29G  80% /home/n8oay/disks/M
/dev/sde1     vfat     38G   28G  9.6G  75% /home/n8oay/disks/N
/dev/sde5     vfat     38G   16G   22G  42% /home/n8oay/disks/O

[AS]

please try these:

for each vfat/fat32/ntfs partitions:
chown user:group /home/n8oay/disks/D       (without the -R option)
chmod 777 /home/n8oay/disks/D

and change each NTFS fs in /etc/fstab this way:

from:
# Entry for /dev/sdb6 :
UUID=69F51FC84FB19B54 /home/n8oay/disks/F ntfs-3g defaults 0 0

to:
# Entry for /dev/sdb6 :
UUID=69F51FC84FB19B54 /home/n8oay/disks/F ntfs-3g user,umask=000 0 0


for each vfat change this way:

from:
# Entry for /dev/sdb1 :
UUID=78AD-1679 /home/n8oay/disks/D vfat defaults 0 0

to:
# Entry for /dev/sdb1 :
UUID=78AD-1679 /home/n8oay/disks/D vfat rw,umask=000 0 0

note that there no spaces in the mid of the strings: user,umask=000 and rw,umask=000

then reboot to force the new mount options

AS

[n8oay]

I am not getting very far with this. In response to the chown n8oay:n8oay /home/n8oay/disks/letter command I got this response for each partition.

Code:

[root@localhost ~]# chown n8oay:n8oay /home/n8oay/disks/D
chown: changing ownership of `/home/n8oay/disks/D': Operation not permitted

I went ahead and made your recommended changes to fstab and rebooted. Checked permissions in Dolphin. Everything still shows root as owner and group.

[AS]

maybe your old OS was using extended attributes ...

try:

lsattr -d /home/n8oay/disks/D

[n8oay]

Still no go

Code:

[root@localhost ~]# lsattr -d /home/n8oay/disks/D
lsattr: Inappropriate ioctl for device While reading flags on /home/n8oay/disks/D

[AS]

what give you this one ?

ls  -ld  /home/n8oay/disks/D

[n8oay]

Code:

root@localhost /]# ls  -ld  /home/n8oay/disks/D
drwxrwxrwx 167 root root 32768 Dec 31  1969 /home/n8oay/disks/D/

One difference I see is that the folder name is highlighted with a green background. That was not the case the first time I ran this command.

[AS]

Code:

root@localhost /]# ls  -ld  /home/n8oay/disks/D
drwxrwxrwx 167 root root 32768 Dec 31  1969 /home/n8oay/disks/D/

that's the first time in my life I see a file/dir date before 01-01-1970, historically 'the epoch'! 

Supposing you have already added the parameters umask=000 in /etc/fstab and then rebooted/remounted, (it seems yes),
what give you the command:

ls -l /home/n8oay/disks/D

[Old-Polack]

I am not getting very far with this. In response to the chown n8oay:n8oay /home/n8oay/disks/letter command I got this response for each partition.

Code:

[root@localhost ~]# chown n8oay:n8oay /home/n8oay/disks/D
chown: changing ownership of `/home/n8oay/disks/D': Operation not permitted

I went ahead and made your recommended changes to fstab and rebooted. Checked permissions in Dolphin. Everything still shows root as owner and group.

Using the chown command on Windows formatted partitions is useless, they don't understand Linux ownership or permissions. Using the entries suggested by as will still leave the ownership root:root, but the umask=000 should make the partition writable for all users.

[n8oay]

Here is the first few lines

Code:

root@localhost /]# ls -l /home/n8oay/disks/D
total 5280
drwxrwxrwx  3 root root 32768 Jul  5  2007 780Programmer/
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root 32768 Jul  5  2007 AdvanceParadigm/
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root 32768 Jul  5  2007 AmateurRadio/
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root 32768 Jul  5  2007 Antennas/
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root 32768 Jul  5  2007 AOR_AR8200/

Again, the folder names are highlighted with a green background.

[AS]

Here is the first few lines

Code:

root@localhost /]# ls -l /home/n8oay/disks/D
total 5280
drwxrwxrwx  3 root root 32768 Jul  5  2007 780Programmer/
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root 32768 Jul  5  2007 AdvanceParadigm/
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root 32768 Jul  5  2007 AmateurRadio/
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root 32768 Jul  5  2007 Antennas/
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root 32768 Jul  5  2007 AOR_AR8200/

Again, the folder names are highlighted with a green background.

Now the directories appear to be readable, writable and searchable for everyone.
Still you have problem accessing the partition content ?

(the green color is about searchable directories and/or executable files, not a matter right now)

[n8oay]

Everything still shows owner and group as root when I look at permissions in Dolphin. I made a screen shot, but I can't figure out how to attach it to this message.

[Old-Polack]

Everything still shows owner and group as root

What has that got to do with anything? The question asked was whether you have tried, and succeeded, to read, write to, or otherwise access the files and directories on the partitions.