Ubuntu: How to make read-only file system writable? Question: 1. I am not sure since when the filesystem on my digital audio player has been changed to be read-only. I cannot copy files into it or remove files on it. Are there some possible reasons for the player's file system to change the permission of its file system? 2. I tried chmod: $ sudo chmod a+rw SGTL\ MSCN/ chomd: changing permissions of `SGTL MSCN/': Read-only file system where "SGTL MSCN" is the mounted point of the digital audio player. I was wondering how to make it writable? Thanks and regards! Solutions Sample (Please watch the whole video to see all solutions, in order of how many people found them helpful): == This solution helped 105 people == If a filesystem has been mounted read-only, chmod will not work since it's a write operation too. Try remounting it read-write: sudo mount -o remount,rw '/media/SGTL MSCN' If the device has a write lock on it (like SD memory cards), you need to turn it off. Hardware locks cannot be disabled by software. Note that the write lock on SD memory cards is located from the sight you see the letters near the up left corner and it looks like a very small switch. Some filesystem drivers may also not support write operations, this is the case with the older NTFS module supported by Linux. For NTFS filesystems, be sure to use the ntfs-3g driver which should be picked automatically nowadays. If not, you can force the driver with something like: sudo mount -t ntfs-3g -o uid=$(id -u) /dev/sdb1 /mnt/ (where /dev/sdb1 has to be substituted for your block device and /mnt/ for your destination) == This solution helped 1 person == In case it is a fixed drive and not a removable drive, you can add the entry permanently. sudo vi /etc/fstab Add an entry in the following format: ＜file-system＞ ＜mount-point＞ ＜type＞ ＜options＞ ＜dump＞ ＜pass＞ And then do: mount -a == This solution helped 3 people == For NTFS file systems this problem may occur when it is not properly unmounted (probably by unexpected shutdown of windows). In such cases the file systems are marked as locked. You can mount them properly using the following command after replacing /dev/ sda3 with your own device name: sudo ntfsfix /dev/sda3 == This solution helped 4 people == I had this problem occur on several USB sticks. Each time I searched for an answer and tried various suggestions, including using Terminal to run commands, reformatting on both Linux and Windows machines, etc. All to no avail. It happened to me again today so again I went looking to see if I could find a solution. I tried the things here, but they didn't work. Out of desperation I again went to Disk Utility. I unmounted the drive and then hit "Format" on the partition portion, not the drive portion - USB only had the single partition. This time it WORKED!!!!. Then I went to the drive portion and again reformatted the single partition as a master boot drive and monkeyed a bit more with it. The upshot is, I'm now able to read and write to the drive again. I don't know if I just got lucky this time or not. But it is working again. With thanks & praise to God! With thanks to all the many who have made this project possible! | Content (except music & images) licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 | Music & music license: https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music | Images & images license: https://stocksnap.io/license and others | With thanks to user Zanna (https://askubuntu.com/users/527764), user Tim (https://askubuntu.com/users/1471), user Tejesh Raut (https://askubuntu.com/users/435636), user Tarun (https://askubuntu.com/users/19498), user SunTaoRus (https://askubuntu.com/users/221328), user Ned (https://askubuntu.com/users/75670), user Lekensteyn (https://askubuntu.com/users/6969), user Braiam (https://askubuntu.com/users/169736), user Amal Murali (https://askubuntu.com/users/133170), and the Stack Exchange Network (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/47538). Trademarks are property of their respective owners. Disclaimer: All information is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. You are responsible for your own actions. Please contact me if anything should be amiss at Roel D.OT VandePaar A.T gmail.com.