Seagate freeagent desk 1.5 TB locked to read only

Why is your backup drive being made at risk, makes no sense at all???

Does the drive detect in BIOS?
If you run:

sudo fdisk -l; lsb_release -a; uname -a

What is output?

Thanks

Disk /dev/sda: 100.0 GB, 100030242816 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12161 cylinders, total 195371568 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000ebfed

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 193294335 96646144 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 193296382 195371007 1037313 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 193296384 195371007 1037312 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 1500.3 GB, 1500301908992 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 182401 cylinders, total 2930277166 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5a4e52e5

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 63 2930272064 1465136001 8e Linux LVM

Disk /dev/sdc: 8004 MB, 8004304896 bytes
19 heads, 5 sectors/track, 164562 cylinders, total 15633408 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000de021

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 2048 15632383 7815168 b W95 FAT32
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 11.10
Release: 11.10
Codename: oneiric
Linux douglas-Satellite-A105 3.0.0-19-generic #33-Ubuntu SMP Thu Apr 19 19:05:57 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
douglas@douglas-Satellite-A105:~$

Then you can mount those partitions and access the data, the /dev/sdb is 1.5Tb so sounds like your drive

Sounds like the 1.5TB drive is getting mounted as read only. We will need more information to help. With the drive mounted please tell the output of the following command...

sudo mount ; cat /etc/fstab ; id

Thanks

douglas@douglas-Satellite-A105:~$ sudo mount ; cat /etc/fstab ; id
[sudo] password for douglas:
/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro,commit=0)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
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)
none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880)
none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/douglas/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=douglas)
/dev/sdc1 on /media/scandisk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uid=1000,gid=1000,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,showexec,flush,uhelper=udisks)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/FreeAgent Drive type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions)
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=42798daa-5b5b-425c-bd8a-111d25f92736 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=6a29db4b-5b2c-403b-a40b-4698379876e9 none swap sw 0 0
uid=1000(douglas) gid=1000(douglas) groups=1000(douglas),4(adm),20(dialout),24(cdrom),46(plugdev),116(lpadmin),118(admin),124(sambashare)
douglas@douglas-Satellite-A105:~$

I ran check and repair on Gparted and it seems to have done the trick. I can write but can not change the permissions on the exe files

The drive is certainly being mounted as read/write so that does not appear to be the issue. I suspect it has to do with ownership. I suggest checking the ownership and permission.

Also you may want to consider changing the Volume label for that drive. It appears that the Volume label contains a space character. The label looks like "FreeAgent Drive". You can change the Volume name with the e2label command. I suggest removing the space character. Sometimes the additional space can cause unexpected problems.

Hope this helps

douglas@douglas-Satellite-A105:~$ e2label /dev/sdb1 freeagent
e2label: Permission denied while trying to open /dev/sdb1
Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.
douglas@douglas-Satellite-A105:~$ e2label dev/sdb freeagent
e2label: No such file or directory while trying to open dev/sdb
Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.
douglas@douglas-Satellite-A105:~$ # e2label /dev/sdb freeagent
douglas@douglas-Satellite-A105:~$ e2label /dev/sdb1
e2label: Permission denied while trying to open /dev/sdb1
Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.
douglas@douglas-Satellite-A105:~$ dev/sdb
bash: dev/sdb: No such file or directory
douglas@douglas-Satellite-A105:~$ # e2label /dev/sdb
douglas@douglas-Satellite-A105:~$ # e2label /dev/sdb1
douglas@douglas-Satellite-A105:~$

the drive seems to have a fixed name by the drive

Error changing fslabel: helper exited with exit code 1: helper failed with:
Volume is scheduled for check.

managed to change the label

it will not allow me to change permissions on the files the drive

Are you running the command as superuser with sudo before the command
Ex.
sudo chown $USER /path/to/file/or/directory
sudo chmod 777 /path/to/file/or/directory

No just file manager or home folder

Some how Root has now taken ownweship of all my files on freeagent drive and I can not change the files

I tried both of your suggestion codes

sudo chown -R $USER /media/FreeAgent

and

sudo chmod -R 777 /media/FreeAgent

neither of these codes take back ownership of the folders and files and changed the permission to read only

Those commands should allow you to take ownership and permission.

The other way permission are set are linux is when a drive is mounted. I reviewed the output of you sudo fdisk command and I can see that the partition is a linux LVM. Unfortunately I don't have any experience working with these partition types so I am not familiar with mounting them.

Normally, I would try manually mounting the partition with the mount command using options such as UID=1000,GID=1000. Once I find a mount command that works properly, I put an entry for this in /etc/fstab to have it automount at boot time.

You can try doing something like this on your own, or maybe someone with more experience dealing with LVM's will chime in.

Hope this helps pointing you in the right direction
Wyatt

Ir is a USB seagate NTFS formatted drive

It allows me to write to the drive but will not allow me to change or update any of my backup files. as Root has taken ownership of the files and set the files to read only. .

douglas@douglas-Satellite-A105:~$ sudo mount ; cat /etc/fstab ; id
[sudo] password for douglas:
/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro,commit=0)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
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)
none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880)
none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/FreeAgent type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/douglas/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=douglas)
/dev/sdc1 on /media/scandisk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uid=1000,gid=1000,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,showexec,flush,uhelper=udisks)
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>

proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
#Entry for /dev/sda1 :
UUID=42798daa-5b5b-425c-bd8a-111d25f92736 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
#Entry for /dev/sdb1 :
UUID=5288BFD688BFB737 /media/FreeAgent ntfs-3g defaults,nosuid,nodev,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0
#Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=6a29db4b-5b2c-403b-a40b-4698379876e9 none swap sw 0 0

uid=1000(douglas) gid=1000(douglas) groups=1000(douglas),4(adm),20(dialout),24(cdrom),46(plugdev),116(lpadmin),118(admin),124(sambashare)
douglas@douglas-Satellite-A105:~$

douglas@douglas-Satellite-A105:~$ sudo fdisk -l; lsb_release -a; uname -a
[sudo] password for douglas:

Disk /dev/sda: 100.0 GB, 100030242816 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12161 cylinders, total 195371568 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000ebfed

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 193294335 96646144 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 193296382 195371007 1037313 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 193296384 195371007 1037312 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 1500.3 GB, 1500301908992 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 182401 cylinders, total 2930277166 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5a4e52e5

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 2930276351 1465138144+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Disk /dev/sdc: 8004 MB, 8004304896 bytes
19 heads, 5 sectors/track, 164562 cylinders, total 15633408 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000de021

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 2048 15632383 7815168 b W95 FAT32
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 11.10
Release: 11.10
Codename: oneiric
Linux douglas-Satellite-A105 3.0.0-19-generic #33-Ubuntu SMP Thu Apr 19 19:05:57 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
douglas@douglas-Satellite-A105:~$

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>

proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
#Entry for /dev/sda1 :
UUID=42798daa-5b5b-425c-bd8a-111d25f92736 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
#Entry for /dev/sdb1 :
UUID=5288BFD688BFB737 /media/FreeAgent ntfs-3g defaults,nosuid,nodev,locale=en_US.UTF-8, UID=1000,GID=1000,umask=1000 0 0

#Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=6a29db4b-5b2c-403b-a40b-4698379876e9 none swap sw 0 0

this does not work

douglas@douglas-Satellite-A105:~$ sudo mount ; cat /etc/fstab ; id
/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro,commit=0)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
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)
none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880)
none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/FreeAgent type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/douglas/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=douglas)
/dev/sdc1 on /media/scandisk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uid=1000,gid=1000,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,showexec,flush,uhelper=udisks)
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>

proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
#Entry for /dev/sda1 :
UUID=42798daa-5b5b-425c-bd8a-111d25f92736 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
#Entry for /dev/sdb1 :
UUID=5288BFD688BFB737 /media/FreeAgent ntfs-3g defaults,nosuid,nodev,locale=en_US.UTF-8, UID=1000,GID=1000,umask=1000 0 0

#Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=6a29db4b-5b2c-403b-a40b-4698379876e9 none swap sw 0 0

uid=1000(douglas) gid=1000(douglas) groups=1000(douglas),4(adm),20(dialout),24(cdrom),46(plugdev),116(lpadmin),118(admin),124(sambashare)
douglas@douglas-Satellite-A105:~$

This line sorted it in Fstab

/dev/sdb1 /media/FreeAgent ntfs nls=iso8859-1,umask=000,sync,utf8,gid=douglas,user,dirsync,uid=douglas 0 0