I’ve recently been getting the “you are not privileged to mount volume” message when I’ve been trying to access either my USB stick or external hard drive from Ubuntu Hardy Heron.
The first thing that might cause this is that you really don’t have privileges – yeah, I know, shocking. Try going to System->Administration->Users And Groups. Wait for the User Settings dialog to pop up and then pick the user having the trouble (probably your own). Once you have selected the user click Properties. Now click the User Properties tab at the top and look at the top checkbox on here called Access external storage devices automatically. Normally this will be checked by default, if it is not: Go back to the front page of the User Settings dialog and select your user again and this time select Unlock – you can now edit the user’s settings.
That could really do with some screenshots, couldn’t it?
Now, if your user does have Access external storage devices automatically selected then it is probable that the OS simply cannot mount the drive and is giving you a slightly confusing and wrong error message.
What happened to me was that I had not cleanly shut the disks down when using Windows XP and for some reason Ubuntu could not mount them. The force parameter to the mount command came to the rescue, like so:
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /media/disk2 -o force
Your command will vary because your device name and mount name will be different. You’ll have /dev/<something> and /media/<something>. You may also need to change ntfs-3g to your drive’s type. But the important thing here is the -o force parameter – this tells the system to ignore the warning that stopped it mounting before and to bally well get on with it.
If you don’t know how to find out which device and mount point your system is using for your drive then keep your eyes peeled for a tutorial on here. You might even get a screenshot or two thrown in for good measure.
I need to get with the screenshot thing. If you read this far then reward yourself with a nice cup of tea and a sit down.
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