No write permission to files on external HDD (USB)

[Sagi (Sergey) Shnaidman]

Binary package hint: udisks

External HDD (WD) with USB connection was successfully connected in Karmic.
Immediately after upgrade to Lucid was mounted as "/media/usb0" and not as his label. Has no write permissions, belongs to "root".
"sudo chown" doesn't work:
$chown: changing ownership of `/media/usb1': Operation not permitted

$mount:
/dev/sda1 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
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)
none on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
none on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
none on /var/lib/ureadahead/debugfs type debugfs (rw,relatime)
/dev/sdb2 on /media/usb0 type vfat (rw,noexec,nodev,sync,noatime,nodiratime)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/usb1 type vfat (rw,noexec,nodev,sync,noatime,nodiratime)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/myuser/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=myuser)

$ ls -ld /media/usb1
drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 16384 1970-01-01 03:00 /media/usb1

I suspend something was broken when upgraded.. Is there any workaround to get wirte permissions back?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: udisks 1.0.1-1build1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-22.33-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-22-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: i386
CustomUdevRuleFiles: 10-vboxdrv.rules 40-basic-permissions.rules.dpkg-bak 45-libnjb5.rules
Date: Sun May 9 01:07:03 2010
MachineType: Lenovo INVALID
ProcCmdLine: root=UUID=2a63d9f8-913f-4bce-805d-c55a71aa11de ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: udisks
Symptom: storage
Title: No permission to access files on storage device
dmi.bios.date: 09/09/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: Lenovo
dmi.bios.version: 10CN36WW
dmi.board.asset.tag: Lenovo Assert TAG
dmi.board.name: INVALID
dmi.board.vendor: Lenovo
dmi.board.version: 10CN36WW
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: Lenovo Assert TAG
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Lenovo
dmi.chassis.version: 10CN36WW
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLenovo:bvr10CN36WW:bd09/09/2008:svnLenovo:pnINVALID:pvrLenovoIdeaPadY530:rvnLenovo:rnINVALID:rvr10CN36WW:cvnLenovo:ct10:cvr10CN36WW:
dmi.product.name: INVALID
dmi.product.version: Lenovo IdeaPad Y530
dmi.sys.vendor: Lenovo

[markling (markling)]

This is a perenial problem. I think it is intentional. The idea is that permissions make it so hard for anyone to copy files to a USB drive that its data security is second to none. No leaks! No industrial espionage! No nothing!

 I formatted a USB. Couldn't copy to it, as usual. So looked up the PAAP (pain in the ass permissions), as usual. Faithfully followed the instructions to chmod and chown, as usual. So I had rw permissions for the drive and it was not owned by some other group (as it had been given by default - some other group, that is). But it still won't copy. This is not usual. Sometimes it works.

Here's the permissions of the drive I cannot currently write to:

# stat /dev/sdd1
  File: ‘/dev/sdd1’
  Size: 0 Blocks: 0 IO Block: 4096 block special file
Device: 5h/5d Inode: 75108 Links: 1 Device type: 8,31
Access: (0666/brw-rw-rw-) Uid: ( 1000/ user) Gid: ( 1000/ user)
Access: 2013-08-29 09:18:16.791966758 +0100
Modify: 2013-08-29 00:57:45.986852171 +0100
Change: 2013-08-29 15:47:32.943582691 +0100

Anyone will tell you, to write a file you need write permissions. It's not actually true. As you can see above. The drive has write permissions. So why can't I write to it? That's a rhetorical question. I'm not here for technical support. I'm here to protest about linux PAAP. Let's face it. It's rubbish. By one recent estimation, 20 per cent of all words written on the entire internet were messages of help from people trying to get their USB working with linux. Have you tried searching for an answer? You meet a lot of other lost souls on that road, I can tell you. But you won't get an answer. You see why it has also been said that another 20 per cent of words on the internet were published by people cutting and pasting the same unhepful answers to these unanswerable questions. It is as though nobody really knows at all. It has meanwhile been said that 20 per cent of all Google searches were made by people searching in vain for a straightfoward and comprehensive guide to getting your USB working with linux. Late at night, you can hear their howls.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.