Ubuntu

Cannot see external drives from second user

Asked by Joe

I am running Ubuntu 10.04, with all updates. I have created a second user "Chris" as an Administrator. I have two external hard drives: FreeAgent and MYBOOK. When I am logged in as "Chris", these external hard drives are not displayed. They are displayed when I am logged in a "Joe" (main user). If I attempt to manually mount either of these external drives as "Chris", I receive the following error: 'device /dev/sdb1 is already mounted on <mountpoint>." I launched "gconf-editor" as both "Joe" and "Chris", and verified that the Apps->nautilus->preferences->media_automount value is set. What do I need to do to have these external hard drives to display under user "Chris"?

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Joe (jgsylvesterjr) said : 		#1

I also went to System-Administration->Users and Groups. I selected the user "Chris" and verified under Advanced settings, User Privileges, that the field "Access external storage devices automatically" is checked.

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delance (olivier-delance) said : 		#2

Which file system use your external disks : FAT32 or one of Unix?

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Joe (jgsylvesterjr) said : 		#3

FreeAgent is NTFS, while MYBOOK is FAT32.

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delance (olivier-delance) said : 		#4

As MYBOOK is FAT32, it's has no right management.
Between two users, do you unmount the external storage (or do you reboot) ?
If I remember, when an external storage is mounted, it takes the ownership of current user, preventing following users to use it (for example when you do "Log out" or select directly a new user).

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Joe (jgsylvesterjr) said : 		#5

For this question, I have just been logging out/logging in between the two users. I have not unmounted the drives before I log out. If I reboot to the user "Chris", both drives are mounted at reboot for "Chris.". So are you saying that not seeing the external drives between users is a "feature", not an issue?

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Best delance (olivier-delance) said : 		#6

Yes, it's a "feature".
"User" is firstly a security concept. And one user has not to access to resources to another one, but if this last one want it.
So you probably have to configure automount. But I failed to see anything in Google.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Mount/USB#User%20Privileges can you check rights ?

I have the same problem at work with a RedHat 5.

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Joe (jgsylvesterjr) said : 		#7

Thanks delance, that solved my question.

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Joe (jgsylvesterjr) said : 		#8

I re-verified that under System->Administation->Users and Groups, under Advanced settings, User Privileges, that the field "Access external storage devices automatically" is checked. also, under Lucid there is no item "Removable Drives and Media" under System->Preferences.