Getting "operation not supported" when creating a file on USB disk!

[simonsharry]

Hello,

I have been meticulously applying over-the-Internet Fedora software updates as soon as they have become available. Last time I used my USB disk (about 2 weeks back), I recall I was able to use it without any problems. However, only today I'm discovering that I cannot even create a file on this disk, neither as a non-root user, nor as root.

I suspect something in these updates broke some driver or configuration settings on my earlier fully functional system. Could someone help me understand what is going on here?

/dev/sdb1 is the USB disk in the session below.


Thanks,
/HS

[hxs@box:~]
$ touch /media/USB-DATA/x
touch: cannot touch `/media/USB-DATA/x': Operation not supported
[hxs@box:~]
$ echo $?
1
[hxs@box:~]
$ ls -ld /media/USB-DATA
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8192 2008-06-27 11:14 /media/USB-DATA
[hxs@box:~]
$ ls -ld /media
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2008-08-01 07:49 /media
[hxs@box:~]
$ mount
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 on / type ext3 (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
/dev/sda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
sunrpc on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/hxs/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=hxs)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/USB-DATA type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096)
[hxs@box:~]
$ su -
Password:
[root@box:~]
$ fuser /dev/sdb1
/dev/sdb1: 7364
[root@box:~]
$ ps -ef | grep 7364
root 7364 1 0 07:49 ? 00:00:00 /sbin/mount.ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /media/USB-DATA -o rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,locale=en_US.utf8
root 7550 7492 0 08:16 pts/1 00:00:00 grep 7364

[JEO]

I tried but I can't reproduce the problem on my external USB hard disk:
excerpt from mount:
/dev/sdc2 on /media/WIN_BKUP type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096)

$ touch /media/WIN_BKUP/x
$ ls -ld /media
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 2008-07-31 21:20 /media
$ ls -ld /media/WIN_BKUP
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4096 2008-07-31 21:21 /media/WIN_BKUP
$ ls -l /media/WIN_BKUP
total 512000
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2008-07-30 10:05 backup
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 524288000 2008-07-30 09:47 swapfile
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2008-07-30 08:59 System Volume Information
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2008-07-31 21:21 x
$ touch /media/WIN_BKUP/x
$ ls -l /media/WIN_BKUP
total 512000
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2008-07-30 10:05 backup
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 524288000 2008-07-30 09:47 swapfile
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2008-07-30 08:59 System Volume Information
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2008-07-31 21:33 x

[JEO]

Just another thought, have you tried checking that volume for errors? I would use windows to check an ntfs volume.

[simonsharry]

Originally Posted by JEO

Just another thought, have you tried checking that volume for errors? I would use windows to check an ntfs volume.

I found it working fine on Windows. When I re-plugged it back into my Fedora, lo and behold, it started working there too! So, probably, the power-cycle did the job! I thought 'umount' would be good enough; evidently, it wasn't.

Hey JEO, thanks for your help... for taking the time to respond!

Best regards,
/HS

[simonsharry]

Originally Posted by simonsharry

I found it working fine on Windows. When I re-plugged it back into my Fedora, lo and behold, it started working there too! So, probably, the power-cycle did the job! I thought 'umount' would be good enough; evidently, it wasn't.

Hey JEO, thanks for your help... for taking the time to respond!

Best regards,
/HS

Nope, it's started happening again.
This time I was trying to copy a 326M directory tree to my 233G external USB drive that has as much as 32G available for use! Like before, once I start seeing the the 'operation not supported' error, even file/directory creation on the target device stops working. I am able to create a small number of files once I have deleted the partially copied over stuff (meaning issued the rm -rf command to remove a sizeable portion of the incompletely copied-over stuff). But once again, the same error if the big copy operation is re-attempted.

1. Is there a Fedora tool to check the volume for errors, and if errors are found, to repair them?
2. Any other ideas on what could be going wrong here?

[szaka]

Please see: http://ntfs-3g.org/support.html#filecreate

We are hoping that we can support this scenario too in next NTFS-3G stable release.