Subject: USB Drive "The location could not be displayed"

From: "Alan E. Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 11:20:54 -0700

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_

---

From: Johann Spies <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2016 09:16:33 +0200

> took a good deal of work, though, to get it set up on an iMac with a
 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)