Score:2

I am only able to access backup hardrive using sudo nautilus

gb flag

I have a backup harddrive on my computer, and after install Ubuntu 18.04, if I click my backup harddrive in nautilus, I get the error message

Could not display "Backup 1.6TB". The file is of an unknown type.

The harddrive is named "Backup 1.6TB" by the way. However, if I launch nautilus as sudo (e.g., sudo nautilus), then I click the hardrive, I am able to open the harddrive and edit or add files.

How can I make this harddrive accessible without sudo?

sudodus avatar
jp flag
What **file system** is there in your backup hard drive?
Ralff avatar
gb flag
@sudodus The filesystem is Ext4.
sudodus avatar
jp flag
Depending of the kind of backup method, you should or should not modify the ownership and permissions of the directories and files in the backup. It's a good idea to learn some command line tools to manage also directories and files, where the standard user ID has no permissions. You can run `sudo comand-line ...` for example with `rsync` to recover files or even whole directory trees from the backup. Please notice that it is risky to run nautilus with sudo, because it is easy to continue using it when you no longer need elevated permissions, and you can easily damage something by mistake.
Ralff avatar
gb flag
@sudodus I simply use the hard drive for storing extra files manually. I do not use any software for doing the backup. I am not sure if this makes a difference in how to resolve the issue. What I have been doing to access the data is copying manually after running `sudo nautilus`, then I change ownership of the copied folders via `sudo chown -R $USER ~/folder`.
sudodus avatar
jp flag
If you store personal files (not any system files or configuration files), it is OK to modify the ownership to your own user ID with `sudo chown -R "$USER" ...` for whole directory trees to make them available without sudo. See `man chown`
Ralff avatar
gb flag
@sudodus I know with certainty that I do not have any system or configuration files on the drive. Is it possible to use chown to change permission of the drive itself and its contents? I tried doing this, but the drive doesn't seem to be visible in /media/user/
sudodus avatar
jp flag
Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/127643/discussion-between-sudodus-and-ralff).
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