Greetings All. I wonder if anyone can give me some advice! Seeking a device to take backups onto, I bought a Western Digital "My Passport Essential" external USB hard drive (500 GB, USB 2.0 and 3.0). When I plug this in (Debian Lenny) I get a pop-up which says: Cannot mount volume Invalid mount option when attempting to mount the volume 'My Passport' dmesg | tail -35 gives: usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 9 usb 4-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice scsi8 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices usb-storage: device found at 9 usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning usb 4-3: New USB device found, idVendor=1058, idProduct=0740 usb 4-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=5 usb 4-3: Product: My Passport 0740 usb 4-3: Manufacturer: Western Digital usb 4-3: SerialNumber: 575839314138315934373632 usb-storage: device scan complete scsi 8:0:0:0: Direct-Access WD My Passport 0740 1003 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6 scsi 8:0:0:1: Enclosure WD SES Device 1003 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6 sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Spinning up disk....ready sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] 976707584 512-byte hardware sectors (500074MB) sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 47 00 10 08 sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] 976707584 512-byte hardware sectors (500074MB) sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 47 00 10 08 sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through sdc: sdc1 sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk ses 8:0:0:1: Attached Enclosure device fdisk /dev/sdc gives: Disk /dev/sdc: 500.0 GB, 500074283008 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60797 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00038a56 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdc1 1 60798 488352768 7 HPFS/NTFS Then, as root (remote login): mount -t ntfs /dev/sdc1 /mnt apparently mounts OK, and then: ls -la /mnt gives: drwx------ 1 root root 4096 2012-01-19 13:11 . drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 4096 2009-04-17 19:52 .. drwx------ 1 root root 4096 2011-03-10 00:48 Extras drwx------ 1 root root 0 2012-01-19 13:11 $RECYCLE.BIN drwx------ 1 root root 0 2012-01-19 13:10 System Volume Information drwx------ 1 root root 0 2011-03-10 00:48 User Manuals -rw------- 2 root root 3290480 2011-03-09 22:43 WD Quick Formatter.exe drwx------ 1 root root 4096 2011-03-10 00:48 WD SmartWare -rw------- 2 root root 4246384 2011-03-09 22:43 WD SmartWare.exe drwx------ 1 root root 0 2011-03-10 00:48 WD SmartWare for Mac and I can read the user manual under "User Manuals". However, I want to make a new directory on the USB disk, so as a test I try: mkdir /mnt/Test which gives: mkdir: cannot create directory `/mnt/Test': Operation not permitted (despite the fact that /mnt, and /mnt/Test and all subdirectories, apparently have write permission for root). Also, in /media I have: -rw------- 1 root root 0 2012-01-23 18:37 .hal-mtab-lock which was not there before I plugged it in (well, it was from a previous session, but I deleted it before starting this test). SO: How do I make this thing writeable??? (This is the first time I have had a USB drive so this on me). With thanks, Ted. ------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@wlandres.net> Date: 23-Jan-2012 Time: 18:41:46 This message was sent by XFMail -------------------------------------------------