NTFS USB drive mounted read-only

[Ken Sharp]

I have a USB drive formatted to NTFS as it is used in a Blu-ray player which does not (appear to) support ext2+ and FAT cannot handle large files.

I have never had any problems with this but recently I had to do a fresh install of Precise and now it mounts read-only by default.

Nov 22 07:10:07 aspire kernel: [ 5426.445772] usb 1-3: new high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci-pci
Nov 22 07:10:07 aspire kernel: [ 5426.585758] usb 1-3: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=0119
Nov 22 07:10:07 aspire kernel: [ 5426.585771] usb 1-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Nov 22 07:10:07 aspire kernel: [ 5426.585778] usb 1-3: Product: USB2.0-CRW
Nov 22 07:10:07 aspire kernel: [ 5426.585785] usb 1-3: Manufacturer: Generic
Nov 22 07:10:07 aspire kernel: [ 5426.585790] usb 1-3: SerialNumber: 20090815198100000
Nov 22 07:10:07 aspire kernel: [ 5426.588671] scsi3 : usb-storage 1-3:1.0
Nov 22 07:10:07 aspire mtp-probe: checking bus 1, device 5: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.2/usb1/1-3"
Nov 22 07:10:07 aspire mtp-probe: bus: 1, device: 5 was not an MTP device
Nov 22 07:10:08 aspire kernel: [ 5427.586198] scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access Generic- SD/MMC 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
Nov 22 07:10:08 aspire kernel: [ 5427.588006] sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
Nov 22 07:10:09 aspire kernel: [ 5428.257181] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] 31074304 512-byte logical blocks: (15.9 GB/14.8 GiB)
Nov 22 07:10:09 aspire kernel: [ 5428.258490] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is on
Nov 22 07:10:09 aspire kernel: [ 5428.258505] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 03 00 80 00
Nov 22 07:10:09 aspire kernel: [ 5428.260678] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
Nov 22 07:10:09 aspire kernel: [ 5428.260691] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Nov 22 07:10:09 aspire kernel: [ 5428.266289] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
Nov 22 07:10:09 aspire kernel: [ 5428.266302] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Nov 22 07:10:09 aspire kernel: [ 5428.268310] sdb: sdb1
Nov 22 07:10:09 aspire kernel: [ 5428.273120] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
Nov 22 07:10:09 aspire kernel: [ 5428.273133] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Nov 22 07:10:09 aspire kernel: [ 5428.273143] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
Nov 22 07:10:09 aspire ntfs-3g[5059]: Version 2012.1.15AR.1 external FUSE 28
Nov 22 07:10:09 aspire ntfs-3g[5059]: Mounted /dev/sdb1 (Read-Only, label "Blu-ray", NTFS 3.1)
Nov 22 07:10:09 aspire ntfs-3g[5059]: Cmdline options: rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=0077,fmask=0177
Nov 22 07:10:09 aspire ntfs-3g[5059]: Mount options: rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,allow_other,nonempty,relatime,ro,default_permissions,fsname=/dev/sdb1,blkdev,blksize=4096
Nov 22 07:10:09 aspire ntfs-3g[5059]: Global ownership and permissions enforced, configuration type 7

I do not understand the "Write Protect is on" statement as there is no reason why it should be. A file was copied to this drive, then viewed on the Blu-ray player, then the drive has been reinserted into the same computer with the intention to delete the file and copy a new one. If write protection has been enabled then I have not asked for this.

Further on you can see that rw is passed, but then so is ro as mount options, probably because of this write protection.

The end-user experience being that I have inserted a USB drive and cannot write to it. A non-tech-savvy user would simply see this as "broken".

$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sdb: 15.9 GB, 15910043648 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1934 cylinders, total 31074304 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: 0x000d286f

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 2048 31074303 15536128 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

I have tried hdparm -r0 /dev/sdb which claims to disable read-only but mounting the partition again makes no difference, and syslog still claims the drive is write protected.

$ sudo hdparm -r /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
 readonly = 0 (off)

$ sudo mount -o remount,rw /dev/sdb1
mount: cannot remount block device /dev/sdb1 read-write, is write-protected

I have no idea how to resolve this, and it would appear I am not alone:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/373136/micro-sd-card-write-protected-fat32

Using another FS isn't an option as most of the files are >8GB but then the drive is read-only anyway!

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: ntfs-3g 1:2012.1.15AR.1-1ubuntu1.2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-33.48~precise1-generic 3.8.13.11
Uname: Linux 3.8.0-33-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu17.6
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Nov 22 07:15:44 2013
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20130820.1)
MarkForUpload: True
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ntfs-3g
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Ken Sharp (kennybobs)]

Then again this may not be a ntfs-3g problem:

Nov 22 07:10:09 aspire kernel: [ 5428.258490] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is on

The USB drive does not have a read-only switch.
http://www.verbatim-europe.co.uk/en_1/product_store-n-stay-nano-usb-drive-16gb_12881_0_44495.html

[Ken Sharp (kennybobs)]

This has convinced me that it could be a hardware fault:
http://askubuntu.com/a/105332/170177

I'll reopen if I can get any intelligence out of Verbatim.

[Ken Sharp (kennybobs)]

I'm blaming hardware.