back up

Can you connect the drive and run this command in the Terminal? Then post the output for us! Thanks!

lsb_release -a; mount

hi thanks for your help
here is the info

lsb_release-a: command not found
/cow on / type overlayfs (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755)
/dev/sdc1 on /cdrom type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/loop0 on /rofs type squashfs (ro,noatime)
none on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (rw)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880)
none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /run/user type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=104857600,mode=0755)
none on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw)
systemd on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,none,name=systemd)
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/999/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=ubuntu)
/dev/sda1 on /media/ubuntu/e01772eb-efc3-4e30-b597-4faf0e599a74 type ext4 (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks2)

this is an example of the message I am getting.

This location could not be displayed.
You do not have the permissions necessary to view the contents of “Dropbox”.
I can not change the permissons in the properties..

Thank you for your help.
Neil

I suggest you copy and paste any commands you are given here: it reduces the chances of typing errors

You missed a space in the first command it should be

lsb_release -a

Note the space before the dash

Which version of Ubuntu are you using?

Where is "Dropbox" is it a directory on your flash drive?

I'm guessing here but if you are trying to backup by just copying and pasting files in the file manager and assuming you are using Ubuntu rather than one of other variants such as Kubuntu or Xubuntu.

You could try opening a terminal by pressing CTRL+ALT+T and typing

    sudo -i; nautilus

Do not close the terminal. This runs the file manager as root so you can either change the permissions so you can backup as a normal user or just copy the files

Once you are done you can close the file manger and the terminal window.

If I'm barking up the wrong tree here and your trying to do something else such as backup with a backup program then please provide more details so we can advise further.