External Drive locked as read-only

Hardware Support
1

I'm currently using Zorin 18 Pro (first time using anything Linux-related in at least a decade), and I recently downloaded the Twintail Launcher from Flatpak in order to download a game, and both of them worked perfectly fine for the entire time I was using them.

I then uninstalled Twintail via Flatpak, and when I went to check the drive this morning to delete a few unnecessary files that I no longer needed, I got the message that told me the drive is read-only.

Screenshot from 2026-07-13 12-50-31
Screenshot from 2026-07-13 12-50-31906×191 12.7 KB

Trying to open any specific file within the drive gave the same result.

Is there a way to 'unlock' it or get it back to read/write?

I have tried un-mounting and remounting the drive, and the permissions window in every folder on the drive clearly state I have full read/write access.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

2

Welcome to the Forum!

How is the Drive formatted?

3

It's formatted as Ext3/ext4

4

Is there an OS on the drive or is it a pure data drive?
If you have only datas on the drive and no OS you could try to open disks and take ownership of the partition of the external drive. Be careful to select the right drive!

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5

The OS is on an internal SSD, the Drive I am having trouble with is an external one with just data/files.

Following the instructions to take ownership gave me this error.

Screenshot from 2026-07-13 14-34-41
Screenshot from 2026-07-13 14-34-41816×199 15.6 KB

6

Hm, I found that command which may help

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /path/to/mountpoint

(Replace $USER with your username and /path/to/mountpoint with the path to the drive).
With

lsblk

you can list your drives to find out the paths. But I'm not so familar with that, so probably it is better to wait until someone with more experience can help you.

7

Following the instructions given, terminal gave me a scrolling list. with each line starting with

chown: changing ownership of '/media/adrian/Steam/components

With the item at the bottom reading as

chown: changing ownership of '/media/adrian/Steam': Read-only file system

Trying to delete an old image resulted in the exact same read-only file system error in my previous post.

Thank you for your help so far.

8

Strange that take ownership did not work. I have seen it fail or be grayed out ion windows formatted disks but worked OK for me on EXT4.

It might be worth copying everything to a spare thumbdrive, then reformatting the drive as Ext4 (I'm not familiar with Ext3) in case it is somehow corrupted and taking ownership then copying everything back. I did have a situation way back where my windows formatted external drive thought it belonged to root and absolutely refused to change but I was seeing permissions I didn't want and your permissions sound OK.

9

I am currently copying everything over to a spare drive, and will then also be reformatting the other drive as EXT4 again.

I also just checked the drive's permission settings in the properties window, and they are all listed as create/delete files, with specifically me as the owner instead of Root.

10

Wow EXT3...thats the older 32bit way also didnt support UEFI was superceded by EXT4 there was also an EXT2

11

I tried formatting the drive, but ended up with this error message.

Screenshot from 2026-07-13 17-24-30
Screenshot from 2026-07-13 17-24-30708×151 8.66 KB

EDIT: Nvm, i managed to fix it by doing a quick reboot.

12

It is a Steam Drive. So, there are Steam Games on? Maybe that is the Reason ...

So, You were able to format the Drive now?

13

I was able to format it, and everything seems to be working, now.

Thank you all so much for your help!

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