Why does my thumb drive have a lock icon on it in Pmount? (Solved)

[Governor]

Perhaps I am searching incorrectly, but I was unable to find this.

I understand why my CD drive has a lock, but why does my thumb drive have a lock icon on it in Pmount?

Thanks!

[Jafadmin]

It has it opened as read-only, I'm guessing. You could open GPartEd and get more info on the problem with that drive.

[geo_c]

It has it opened as read-only, I'm guessing. You could open GPartEd and get more info on the problem with that drive.

Are you mounted to that drive when you run gparted? I think you may have to unmount to perform any operations on it.

[Flash]

The "read only" problem with USB sticks is common in Puppy. If you can't use Windows to try to fix it, here's what worked for me in Puppy:

1. Mount the thumb drive and transfer whatever you want to save to some other media
2. Unmount the thumb drive and then use Gparted to delete every partition from it. It should be all unallocated space.
3. Then use Gparted to create new partition(s) (Formatted FAT32 or NTFS if you want to be able to read the thumb drive in Windows.)
4. After closing Gparted, mount the thumb drive and try writing to it. If it's still read-only, punt.

[Governor]

I reformatted the thumb drive and installed Puppy on it, but when I boot from it my settings are still not saved.
It is really tedious to have to redo the settings every time.

[geo_c]

I reformatted the thumb drive and installed Puppy on it, but when I boot from it my settings are still not saved.
It is really tedious to have to redo the settings every time.

When you shutdown you'll be asked to make a save file or folder. Are you choosing yes? And what happens when you do? It will put it in the same directory as the install by default.

[Governor]

Yes I keep choosing Yes to savefile every time. I also used "nicOS-Utility-Suite-2022", but my settings are still nullified on each boot.

[geo_c]

Yes I keep choosing Yes to savefile every time. I also used "nicOS-Utility-Suite-2022", but my settings are still nullified on each boot.

Wait, that's something right there. What did you use nicOS-Uility-Suite for? I've used it once or twice and it's a complicated script for creating compressed filesystems like the adrv and ydrv in fossapup. That could mess things up quite a bit.

[TerryH]

How is the Thumb drive created? Is Puppy installed on the thumb drive?
If Puppy is installed, the the second reason below is possibly the cause. As you mentioned CD as being read only, the Filesystem created is iso9660. Some utilities seem to create USB Flash drive installs with this files system type. So it will be read only. You will need to provide additional information on which puppy you are attempting to use and how you installed it.

Two of the reasons that there will be a lock( read only) are :
1 - Corrupt filesystem so write is protected
2 - The File system is created as read only format (iso9660)

[Governor]

Well, the lock is back on my thumb drive. And this time I cannot find the thumb drive in ROX file manager. How do I force a path or bread crumbs in ROX so I can see where I am? BTW, I booted from the thumb drive because I did a filesave there the last time I exited. Apparently, None of my settings returned when I re-booted from the same drive.

I clicked on the thumb drive in Pmount and chose "show location" and I got to this:
mnt/home. The home directory has a funny symbol on it. On mouse hover it says: Symbolic link to initrd/mnt/dev_save
Is there an easy way to select/copy an image from the screen so I can post what I see?
Who said "solved"? Is it something I clicked on?

[geo_c]

Well, the lock is back on my thumb drive. And this time I cannot find the thumb drive in ROX file manager. How do I force a path or bread crumbs in ROX so I can see where I am? BTW, I booted from the thumb drive because I did a filesave there the last time I exited. Apparently, None of my settings returned when I re-booted from the same drive.

I clicked on the thumb drive in Pmount and chose "show location" and I got to this:
mnt/home. The home directory has a funny symbol on it. On mouse hover it says: Symbolic link to initrd/mnt/dev_save
Is there an easy way to select/copy an image from the screen so I can post what I see?
Who said "solved"? Is it something I clicked on?

When you boot from a drive, that drive is locked, you can't perform any formatting operations on it, because it would cause your system to crash.

names like /mnt/home are actually linked to /dev, which is where linux stores your devices like drives. The /mnt/home directory is where your system is running, so that drive won't show up as a drive like /mnt/sdb2, for instance.

Your save file should be located in /mnt/home if you didn't change the location when saving it. You don't need to change files in the save from the file manager, because you are booted into it, and it's showing up as your complete filesystem, like /root and /usr and /bin, etc.

edit: but of course you are not booted into a save file, so are you not able to mount this drive at all?

if you booted from it, it's readable. Now I would want to figure out what's on it.

[Flash]

Who said "solved"? Is it something I clicked on?

I added "Solved" to your original post because you said you'd formatted the thumb drive and were able to write to it. After that is a different problem, though possibly related.

[Jafadmin]

It has it opened as read-only, I'm guessing. You could open GPartEd and get more info on the problem with that drive.

Are you mounted to that drive when you run gparted? I think you may have to unmount to perform any operations on it.

True, but you can look at the warnings and info icons on the drive. It will tell you some things about the state.