Why my external drive sometimes won't let me write to it

[gilado]

I have two machines running pclos 2009 and one external usb harddrive with ext3

When I plug the harddrive to machine #1 it works fine and i can read and write to it.

When I plug it to machine #2 I can't write to it. I changed the permissions on the directory I want to write to to 777; i tried to write while running as root. nothing works.

Longer story: I am trying to copy the content a few data cds to the harddrive.  the cds mount and are readable on machine #2 but would not mount on machine #1.

So here I am with two machines, each working half a** and am not able to copy from a cd to a ahrddrive.

Now my question: why wouldn't the harddrive be writeable on one machine but is writeable on the other?

[GOTHBITES]

So here I am with two machines, each working half a** and am not able to copy from a cd to a hard drive.

Now my question: why wouldn't the hard drive be writable on one machine but is writable on the other?

OK  question. Were you ever able to perform this function before or was this first time you have done this on  that machine  and what repo are you using right now

when did your machine started acting Half A**ed and  about how long ago