HD Installer - Read Only Problems

**Jameson** · 09-11-2004, 10:19 PM

"Opened Disk Read Only - You Do Not Have Permission To Write"

On my laptop (a presario 2190US). I keep running into the above error, I've tried mounting/un-mouting hda1 and I've set all the permission to allow everyone to read and write on this disk but no matter what I cannot get it to install to my HD because of this. I figured it might be due to the fact that my HD was formatted in NTSF so I made a 6 GIG partition with ex2 and another 5 GIG with FAT32 but neither soluation worked, could this be a bug in the CD itself? I'm kinda frustraited becuase I've been running knoppix from the CD and have my settings on a thumbdrive but its getting kinda cramped and a bit of extra speed plus my CD drive back would be a great help. Thanks in Advance.

**turbinater** · 09-12-2004, 01:06 AM

It is not a bug, you have to change the mounting permissions in your fstab (ie. /etc/fstab).

For instance, say I wanted to be able to mount my /dev/hda2 partition. Let's say it's an ext3 partition. I would write an entry in my fstab like this:

Code:

/dev/hda2 /mnt/hda2 ext3 rw,exec,noauto 0 0

The rw stands for read-write, exec means you can execute files, noauto means the hard-disk partition will not be automatically mounted on startup, /mnt/hda2 is where it will be mounted to, the first zero is the dump, and the second is the pass.
Got it?

**mzilikazi** · 09-12-2004, 03:06 PM

Originally Posted by Jameson

"Opened Disk Read Only - You Do Not Have Permission To Write"

On my laptop (a presario 2190US). I keep running into the above error, I've tried mounting/un-mouting hda1 and I've set all the permission to allow everyone to read and write on this disk but no matter what I cannot get it to install to my HD because of this.

DO NOT mount a drive prior to running the installer. The installer does this for you. You DO need a partition for Linux. Not FAT32 and not NTFS. Just create a partition and let the installer format it for you.

There is this hddinstall howto but it's very incomplete.

I thought there was a better installation document but I cannot seem to find it. Can someone else can post the link or has it fallen to the wayside like so many other docs in the wiki?

**Jameson** · 09-12-2004, 05:34 PM

Thanks for the followups, I'm pretty comfortable with the KDE desktop so I can get around but... how would I go about writing a fstab entry?

Also, all I need in a parition thats not formatted and Knoppix will do the rest correct?

I'm startin to think I should learn a little more before doin the HD install.

**Jameson** · 09-13-2004, 05:29 AM

Bump

**eco2geek** · 09-13-2004, 06:26 AM

Mz --

I recently installed Kanotix BH7a and noticed that the installer would only let me choose a Linux-formatted partition (i.e. ext2, ext3) to install on, but not an empty FAT32 partition. Is that what you mean -- the installer won't let you choose a FAT32-formatted partition, even if it's empty?

Jameson, mzilikazi is telling you not to mount the partition you want to install Knoppix on before you install it.

**mzilikazi** · 09-13-2004, 12:46 PM

Originally Posted by eco2geek

Mz --

I recently installed Kanotix BH7a and noticed that the installer would only let me choose a Linux-formatted partition (i.e. ext2, ext3) to install on, but not an empty FAT32 partition. Is that what you mean -- the installer won't let you choose a FAT32-formatted partition, even if it's empty?

That is AFAIK normal behavior. When you run the partitioning utility (cfdisk or qtparted) you could either mark your FAT32 part as Linux or simply delete the partition and recreate one in its place again labled as 'Linux'. Just to be clear labling a partition from a partitioning app does not format it.