Hdd semi working

xxRoinxx

New Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2026
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Credits
47
Hi
I just installed linux mint 22.3, I was on using windows since early 2000 and have no experience with linux.
so far i have installed linux on m2 new drive fresh out of the box.
I have 2 more drives on my pc.
1- r- games ssd. only for game to be installed there, i formatted it after booting linux and it works fine no problems
2 2tb hdd that has bunch of stuff from windows. its ntfs format I think and I dont want to format it.
linux can see the content and interact with it run the music and open videos and photos but when I want to copy files and paste there it gives me error of "destination read only"
under properties and permissions all grey and at the bottom its written "you are not the owner, so you cannot change these permissions"
is there easy way to fix it ? I am aware of the terminal, can use it, but understand nothing yet, but willing to learn.
 

Attachments

  • issue.jpeg
    issue.jpeg
    26.3 KB · Views: 48


G'day Roin, Welcome to Linux.org

When you have that drive open, right click in an empty space and select 'open as root'....click on that.

Fill in your password, hit enter

You should now be able to paste to there.

Someone else here will likely be able to advise further re using Terminal to achieve that as well etc
 
G'day Roin, Welcome to Linux.org

When you have that drive open, right click in an empty space and select 'open as root'....click on that.

Fill in your password, hit enter

You should now be able to paste to there.

Someone else here will likely be able to advise further re using Terminal to achieve that as well etc
Thank you.

Ive tried what you suggested and got same result :(
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot from 2026-02-17 21-11-04.png
    Screenshot from 2026-02-17 21-11-04.png
    806.2 KB · Views: 47
You need to mount sdb1, not sdb. The error message tells you the problem. The instructions are flawed.
face palm moment.
Thx for the help, you were right, i did the sdb1 and could continue but still got an error some windows file apparently still active on the drive and will not allow to read and write, so ill just painfully transfer 1 tb of data to external hdd and then put all back after formatting it.
thx for the help
 
Linux is all about permissions.
Being able to MOUNT partition is not same as being able to ACCESS it.
If you can mount it - "sudo su" - which will elevate your rights. With root(admin) account - you should be able to go into mounted partition and create/delete files. If this is the case - you need to fix your mount permissions. Probably you will need to allow your specific user to access or mount said partitin with read right permissions. Be carefull with fstab - this has some serious chances of making your machine non bootable later on, which is non trivial to recover to non initiated.

If you go this route, make sure to make ntfs disk non critical for start up in fstab, if you add it there.
May be its not bad idea, if you have flash drive, format it with ntfs and experiment with it first.

"ls -lahtr" is your friend.
so is "mount"
 
Linux is all about permissions.
Being able to MOUNT partition is not same as being able to ACCESS it.
If you can mount it - "sudo su" - which will elevate your rights. With root(admin) account - you should be able to go into mounted partition and create/delete files. If this is the case - you need to fix your mount permissions. Probably you will need to allow your specific user to access or mount said partitin with read right permissions. Be carefull with fstab - this has some serious chances of making your machine non bootable later on, which is non trivial to recover to non initiated.

If you go this route, make sure to make ntfs disk non critical for start up in fstab, if you add it there.
May be its not bad idea, if you have flash drive, format it with ntfs and experiment with it first.

"ls -lahtr" is your friend.
so is "mount"
Thank you for the advice
I will probably will have to practice it and be able to overcome this in the future but for now i found another solution, my wifes 5tb external hdd witch is ntfs but with no issues connected mounted and I am able to transfer all my stl files for 3d printing so I can continue print and download more. unfortunately i dont have much free time during the week and 3d printing keeps me going.
backup and format feels like faster solution then try to understand what causing the issue and how to fix it as 5 days old linux user this feels a bit over my head for now.

I appreciate your time and effort to help

Best
 


Follow Linux.org

Staff online


Top