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Asked: 2012-04-18 12:00:39 +0800 CST

How can I access my Windows partition as an ordinary user?

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I have a dual boot laptop with Win7 and Ubuntu 11.10. Since few days my Ubuntu does not mount automatically the win partition or a usb drive. It's also not possible to change the desktop wallpaper.

I "fixed" the win partition by hand modifying /etc/fstab. I also played a bit and now Ubuntu mount the usb drive. On the other hand I cannot unmount them because

umount: only root can unmount UUID=521832F21832D4A7 from /media/WINDOWS

But my account is admin, so I do not understand why I have this message. If I unmount with sudo from terminal there is no problem. For the wallpaper I have no error message but I can't change anything. I also tried to assign my account to "normal" user group and then back to admin group: useless.

I believe that even if my account is administrator there is something messed up with permissions. Few days ago a guest played a bit with my account and the standard guest user (he couldn't unlock as he forgot the password). I don't know if this could be the cause, but at the moment I don't understand what it could be. Thank you for your help

permissions automount

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    When you run the sudo command in the Terminal, that causes what you type after sudo to be run as root. This is why it works from the Terminal--because the technique you are using makes you act as root.

    Being an administrator does not mean you are root, or that most of what you do is done as root. It does mean that you can perform actions as root with a couple of built-in facilities (one of which is sudo).

    When partitions are mounted automatically from /etc/fstab, the mount operation is performed by root, so it is necessary to be root (or run a command as root) to undo it. This is the normal and expected behavior, and not a bug.

    When you mount partitions dynamically as a non-root user, behind the scenes, that uses udisks --mount. Then you can unmount them automatically with udisks --unmount (which is what happens behind the scenes when you unmount them). The way you fixed your problem prevents this from happening, because /etc/fstab entries are not mounted/unmounted dynamically with udisks.

    So it seems that the way you've fixed your problem does not fully suit your needs. I recommend that you post a new question detailing the problem you were experiencing, so that someone can help you make automatic, non-root mounting and unmounting of your Windows partition work again.

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