all drives set as read only

**rvbcaboose** · 01-12-2006, 10:37 PM

ok, so when i bought my new hard drive i was originally going to move my os from my old hard drive to the new one, so i was going to take the easy way and use my copy of knoppix (not sure which version) to live boot off the cd and move it over to the new drive. now when i figured out that wouldn't work, i just went to plan 2 and installed it fresh onto it instead. now the problem is when i am in windows (i'm not planning to use knoppix or any linux distro as a premanent OS) all my hard drives are permanently set as read only, even after formating them, they are always set as read only, even any newly connected devices like my usb key is set as read only. does anyone know how i can fix this, it has already caused a lot of issues. although i can save things to the drives, but i can't move a read only folder (they are all set read only, and newly created ones are also set to read only automatically) does anyone know how to fix this?

**rcook** · 01-13-2006, 05:35 PM

You might check wether you are logged on with administrative privileges. If so, check the security settings and ownership of the folders and change it if necessary. You should do a google on the problem and check windows forums. This forum is windows centric only as necessary.

**rvbcaboose** · 01-13-2006, 09:48 PM

logged in with admin priveledges with knoppix, or on windows? with windows i started in safe mode and logged on as administrator and i looked at the drive priviledges, and most of them are set as read only even the system ones, but i have no idea what they should be so i left most of them alone...

and when i was in knoppix i was trying to log on with root access, but for some reason i couldn't...

**Harry Kuhman** · 01-13-2006, 10:32 PM

You're telling us almost nothing. What type of partitons are you using? If they are NTFS (the default for XP) then you simply cannot write to them with Linux. If they are FAT then you can, but Knoppix defaults to read-only access for safety and you have to over ride this to write to them (with the mount command from a shell prompt or with he actions ... submenu if right clicking on a partition icon). All documented in the wiki and in these forums many times.

**rvbcaboose** · 01-13-2006, 10:57 PM

oops ya i thought i put that they are all ntfs, but i guess i forgot to type it... and it's weird cause even a drive that hasn't been attached to it before is set as read only as soon as it is connected to the computer...

**Harry Kuhman** · 01-13-2006, 11:06 PM

Linux cannot write to, delete files from, or even rename files on a NTFS partition. If you do manage to write to the NTFS partition you will most likely corrupt it, which may be apparent immidately or may take a little time to show up. A gift from Microsoft who hate Linux and seem to be going to a lot of effort to be sure that Linux can't safely write to NTFS. Windows users frequently need a tool to do this, as sudden failures of XP to boot are well known, but the maker hardly wants users to be able to fix XP's mess with Linux. XP users are advised to always have good backups, as XP is not ready for the desktop. Beyond this there is some advice in the wiki on ways to recover files from a XP system (Knoppix can usually read the files just fine, even when XP can't), but they don't involve writing to the NTFS partition with Linux.

**rvbcaboose** · 01-13-2006, 11:20 PM

well good stuff to know there, but the problem is i'm not trying to recover the files anymore, all my drives are set as read only, i'm not intending to use linux, i am using windows. i need to find a way to make the drives write enabled again, i can write things to the drive, but i can't move folders, as i found out when i tried to move the folder i had to recover. i have tried to go into safe mode and fix it (and i will try it again as i thought of something) but it did not fix my being able to fix the fact that all drives connected to the computer are set as read only. and on my c drive (where windows is installed) i can change it and it will change all the files to not read only, but after i close the properties box it sets tham all back to read only. on the other drives it won't even try to change the files...

*edit i have found that only the folders are read only, all the files are full permissions.

**Harry Kuhman** · 01-14-2006, 02:09 AM

Originally Posted by rvbcaboose

....
*edit i have found that only the folders are read only, all the files are full permissions.

If you manage to edit a file you will likely corrupt the NTFS partition. Again, this might show up right away, or it might let you save a lot of stuff before it punishes you, but it will get you.

If you no longer wish to use windows at all you may want to repartition the drive and format it for Linux. I would actually recommend installing Debian rather than Knoppix; Debian is intended for installing to a hard disk. Knoppix is intended as a Live CD and causes a number of problems when "installed" to hard disk. However, if you do choose to use Knoppix then you could make the partitions either Linux partitions or Microsoft FAT partitions; Knoppix can write to either; but you have to override the default read-only setting for the partitions. And no, you can not change a partition type with files on it with any common tool in Windows or Knoppix. You need to delete the old partitions, create new partitions, and format them in the new file system before you can use them.

**rvbcaboose** · 01-17-2006, 11:36 PM

i am doing this all from windows, i have no want or need to use any kind of linux, i was using it to try and move the windows install. i posted it here hoping someone had something like this happen to someone else and you guys could help me out...

**Harry Kuhman** · 01-18-2006, 01:43 AM

Originally Posted by rvbcaboose

.... i have no want or need to use any kind of linux,..

Good luck with that then. Windows XP is well known to do exactly what it has done to you and recovery tricks that might be done with windows are too complex for me to get into here and usually involve third party data recovery software that is not free. Sadly, all to often the only response one can get from Microsoft or their OEM vendor is to reinstall windows from scratch completely overwriting all the data that is still there. And many computer makers do not even supply the real Windows disk that is needed for some windows based recovery attempts, but rather a special disc that installs all-or-nothing the OEM version of windows for that system with any additional software packages, special drivers, company logos and the like that they configured for that system, and this disc cann't be used to recover files the way a real XP disc might. Even for dedicated XP users it has been found that when Knoppix can boot and see the file system is it a much better way to recover files, assuming that the user didn't configure Windows in some way that would prevent this, such as using a software RAID system that only has a Windows driver or turning on security that will encrypt the files, so we do try to help XP victims with a tool we know will work, even if they are going to go right back to XP when the data is recovered and even though Microsoft appears to be taking steps to make sure that Linux can't write to a NTFS partition even though XP often can't even read from one. If you don't want the benefit of that advice it will not be forced on you.