Write permission on HFSplus drive

healey guy · #1 28th February 2012, 12:55 PM

Hi Everyone,
I'm trying to delete some files and write more on an HFSplus mac usb drive. Seems I only have read privilages. Trying to figure out the mount command got my head spinning. Can anyone give me the syntax and a step by step to impliment mounting this drive as read/write? I'm running F15 64bit with KDE. Looks like the drive in question is named sdf3.

Thanks,
Greg

EvilRedHorse · #2 29th February 2012, 12:43 AM

# first get/copy the UUID for the partition
blkid /dev/sdf3
# If you want it to mount on boot you will need to add a line in /etc/fstab
vim /etc/fstab
# nano /etc/fstab # if you like nano
# gedit /etc/fstab # if you like gedit

# fuse might currently be mounting the hfsplus partitions so you might need extra utils
yum -y install hfsplus-tools hfsplusutils

# Note: I am using a UUID for a btrfs partition replace it with the output from blkid
# add this line to /etc/fstab
UUID=229a1b55-730b-4d17-8d22-396f30a82880 /media/HFS hfsplus force,rw,defaults 0 0
# save & exit

# There are many more options you can add in the fstab file but DO NOT touch the system partitions.

# make directory to mount partition
mkdir /media/HFS
chmod a+rw /media/HFS
# umount the partition
umount /dev/sdf3
# mount partitions from /etc/fstab
mount -a
# navigate to partition
cd /media/HFS
#check permissions
ls -l /media/HFS/*

healey guy · #3 29th February 2012, 01:18 PM

Hi Mr. Evil,
Thanks for getting back to me. blkid didn't give me any info. Just a carriage return to the command prompt. I'll have to look at it again after work. Incidentally, the sdf3 file in /dev is a zero byte sized file. Don't know if that is the way it is supposed to be.

EvilRedHorse · #4 29th February 2012, 03:42 PM

# this should give you a list of all the partitions by UUID
su -c 'ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid'

# You might need to install the extra utils first
su -c 'yum -y install hfsplus-tools hfsplusutils'

# yes, the size should be zero
# blkid would need su permission
# su -c 'blkid /dev/sdf3'

healey guy · #5 29th February 2012, 05:27 PM

Thank you. I'll give that a try this evening. I already have the utility installed.

healey guy · #6 1st March 2012, 07:14 PM

Well that didn't go so well. Using both methods to find the UUID yielded two different strings. The first one didn't seem to do anything, but I could still read what was already on the drive. Still couldn't write or delete files. Pasted the second UUID in and now the computer won't boot at all. I can get the error message later but basically I had a prompt to enter my password to begin maintenance. Doing that seemed to put the computer in a loop where I would then enter cntl d. I tried using a live CD to boot in and change the fstab file back, but the live CD seems to load a vanilla fstab file into /etc/fstab. Only way I can think of changing that file is putting the drive in another computer and reading it from there.

EvilRedHorse · #7 2nd March 2012, 10:32 AM

# You have added a UUID from a system partition
# I said before "DO NOT touch the system partions"

# you might not be able to boot in rescue mode
# when you are booting from a rescue DVD your old root is at /mnt/sysimage
nano /mnt/sysimage/etc/fstab
# remove or fix the line you added, save, exit
reboot
# your system should boot now that it isn't trying to mount to 2 points with 2 different formats

# this command gives you a list of ALL the partitions by UUID
su -c 'ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid'
# I personally do not get a UUID for my hfsplus partition

# I added a more traditional line to /etc/fstab
/dev/sdf3 /media/HFS hfsplus rw,defaults 0 0

# Then I ran
su -c 'mount -a'
su -c 'chmod -Rf a+rw /media/HFS'
# I can use the drive as a normal user at this point

# There are many more options you can add in the fstab file but DO NOT touch the system partitions.

healey guy · #8 20th March 2012, 04:31 PM

Finally figured it out. I was able to get back into my system the next morning through maintainence mode. Turns out the problem wasn't with the mac drive at all. Looks like I was inheriting permission from the original drive which was NTFS. I opened the drive on the WIN 7 computer I had formatted the drive on, and tried to remove all the restrictions but that didn't help. I still got rwx------ when I brought it back onto my Linux machine. I tried various Chmod commands which didn't help either. What eventually worked was formatting a spare drive with ext2 and copying all the files onto that drive. From there I was able to change the permissions to rwxrwxrwx. Then I copied those files over to the Mac drive with no issue.