While copying some large file I mistakenly taken out USB pen drive before the copy get completed. Later I again attached the USB pen drive in Ubuntu system but found that the USB pen drive showing read only filesystem message. I was not able to copy, create and delete any file. To solve this issue I followed some steps which I am sharing in this article.
Method Of Fixing Read Only USB Pen Drive In Ubuntu
In this section, we will follow the steps to fix the read only USB Pen Drive.
Disclaimer
- Some of you might be carrying the important data in USB / Pen Drive. In this method, we will format the USB drive. So due to this , the data will be erased and non recoverable.
- This solution works most of the time but in case there is Hardware issue in your USB/Pen drive then this solution won’t work. You should buy new USB/ Pen drive instead.
Find Out The Mounted Path Of USB Pen Drive
Step 1: Attach USB pen drive in system’s USB port. Automatically the Ubuntu will mount the USB pen drive and show icon on Desktop or Menu bar.
Open the terminal and become super user by running below given command
sudo su -
Step 2: First we have to find out in which directory the USB pen drive has been automatically mounted.For this run the df -Th command.
In given below output you can see,in my system the USB pen drive is mounted in /media/linux/C38C-099C ,partition is /dev/sdd1 and filesystem is vfat.
Note: When you run df -Th command in your system,the USB pen drive may mount in different directory and the partition might also be different.Hence the output value which you will get, use the same values in further steps.
root@tuxworld:~# df -Th Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda5 ext4 28G 25G 1.3G 96% / udev devtmpfs 2.0G 4.0K 2.0G 1% /dev tmpfs tmpfs 796M 1.1M 795M 1% /run none tmpfs 5.0M 8.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock none tmpfs 2.0G 528K 2.0G 1% /run/shm none tmpfs 100M 104K 100M 1% /run/user cgroup tmpfs 2.0G 0 2.0G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup /dev/sda7 ext4 9.2G 8.2G 539M 94% /partition7 /dev/sda8 ext3 46G 38G 6.2G 86% /partition8 /dev/sda9 ext3 74G 67G 3.1G 96% /partition9 /dev/sda21 ext4 14G 4.9G 8.3G 37% /partition10 /dev/sdd1 vfat 15G 12G 3.6G 77% /media/linux/C38C-099C
Unmount USB Pen Drive
Step 2: Now unmount the directory in which the USB pen drive is automatically mounted . (As you can see mounted directory path in above ‘Step 1’)
Note: Replace the/media/linux/C38C-099C with the mounted USB pen drive directory path which is showing output in your system after running df -Th command.
umount /media/linux/C38C-099C
Check And Repair
Step 3: As we know the USB pen drive got /dev/sdd1 partition
and filesystem is vfat(see in Step 1). Now we will run dosfsck command to check and repair the filesystem
Note: The dosfsck command check and repair MS-DOS filesystems.Because the filesystem of USB pen drive is vfat hence we are using this command
dosfsck -a /dev/sdd1
Re-Attach USB Pen Drive
Step 4: After the dosfsck command get completed.Remove the USB pen drive from system and then re-attach back to system.Now your USB pen drive should working and it should not have read only filesystem.
Note** After mounting the USB pen drive you may see a new file with extension .REC which was created because of dosfsck command.
Reboot The System
Step 5 Reboot the system after completing all the steps. (This step we have added after receiving lots of suggestion in comments section from our readers around the world. Thank you for providing feedback and sure it will help many people.)
Works like a Charm. Thank you.
Thanks Rajiv,
Appreciate for feedback on this workaround.
Keep reading our blog.
Warms Regards
Sharad
Thank you for this article. I was able to save my files. It’s important to substitute your personal files instead of using the authors. For example, my USB pen drive was mounted in “/media/user/08E7-563B,” the partition was “/dev/sdb1” and the filesystem was “vfat.”
The commands I had to use were:
sudo su –
df -Th
umount /media/user/08E7-563B
dosfsck -a /dev/sdb1
Then all I had to was wait for it to finish, unplug my USB drive when it was done, and plug it back in. Works perfectly now, and it even has the file that failed to copy over and locked my drive up. This couldn’t have been more simple.
Thanks, it works …
Welcome Akash,
The feedback is very helpful for many readers.
Regards
Sharad
I have a 32G USB memory stick with a FAT32 file system that mounts read only
blkid is /dev/sdc1: UUID=”551C-2AA9″ TYPE=”vfat” PARTUUID=”2b71fb4e-01
It mounts on /run/media/saejin/551C-2AA9
I tried installing it in a windows machine and ejecting it. It did not fix the problem.
# umount /dev/sdc1
#mkdosfs -F 32 -I /dev/sdc1
mkfs.fat 3.0.27 (2014-11-12)
mkdosfs: unable to open /dev/sdc1: Read-only file system
# umount /dev/sdc1
#dosfsck -a /dev/sdc1
mkfs.fat 3.0.27 (2014-11-12)
open Read-only file system
It worked… ubuntu 12.04 and the filesystem is vfat. dosfsck found the problematic file.
Thank you Sharad for your help!
Welcome Ricardo,
Regards
Sharad
Thank you Sharad for the details and steps.
Thankyou Nava,
Glad to know it worked for you
Regards
Sharad
Wow! This is wonderful. Works!!! Thank you very much for this.
Welcome Bikash
I don’t this it’s working for me 🙁
root@abhi-dell:~# umount “/media/abhijith/NEW VOLUME”
root@abhi-dell:~# dosfsck -a /dev/sdb1
fsck.fat 3.0.26 (2014-03-07)
open: Read-only file system
root@abhi-dell:~#
After running “umount /media/ubuntu/Ubuntu 14.10 amd64”
I got this output:
umount: /media/ubuntu/Ubuntu: mountpoint not found
umount: 14.10: mountpoint not found
umount: amd64: mountpoint not found
What this means and what should I do to rectify?
Thank you!
Hello Friend,
df -hcommand will help to find mounted partition on system .Just run the command and check if /media/ubuntu/Ubuntu 14.10 amd64 is mounted.
The message itself shows /media/ubuntu/Ubuntu 14.10 amd64 is not mounted on system.
Regards
Sharad
Same output came on “mounted on”
root@Heaven:~# df -Th
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda6 ext4 221G 51G 159G 25% /
none tmpfs 4.0K 0 4.0K 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev devtmpfs 1.9G 4.0K 1.9G 1% /dev
tmpfs tmpfs 385M 1.2M 384M 1% /run
none tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock
none tmpfs 1.9G 160K 1.9G 1% /run/shm
none tmpfs 100M 64K 100M 1% /run/user
/dev/sdb1 vfat 7.5G 638M 6.9G 9% /media/ubuntu/Ubuntu 14.10 amd64
root@Heaven:~# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda6 221G 51G 159G 25% /
none 4.0K 0 4.0K 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev 1.9G 4.0K 1.9G 1% /dev
tmpfs 385M 1.3M 384M 1% /run
none 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock
none 1.9G 160K 1.9G 1% /run/shm
none 100M 64K 100M 1% /run/user
/dev/sdb1 7.5G 638M 6.9G 9% /media/ubuntu/Ubuntu 14.10 amd64
What shall I do?
email has been sent to you, I hope you followed it.
Regards
Sharad
I have tried that too but no result and i have explained how it happened through mail.
Could you help me with that
sure, we are already communicating in email.
Will contact you back.
Regards
Sharad
I did all process but now my pendrive isn’t reconized by any Operational System.
Hello Alessandro,
After attaching pen drive, run
fdisk -lyou may get the disk infoRegards
Sharad