On Thu, 11 Sep 2008, Craig White wrote: > On Thu, 2008-09-11 at 17:03 -0700, Robert Holtzman wrote: >> Running "sudo chgrp mail" on a directory on a usb stick gives >> >> "chgrp: changing group of `mail': Operation not permitted" >> >> This is true for any file or directory on the stick, and yes, I entered >> the password. I can't figure out how to copy to the stick without the >> group being changed to root or how to change it after the fact. >> cp -p test1 /media/disk doesn't do it and >> >> cp -preserve=mode,ownership,group,timestamp test1 /media/disk gives >> >> "cp: invalid option -- e" >> >> I have to be doing something wrong but I'm not sure what. Google and >> Ubuntu forums were no help but I may be searching on the wrong terms. >> >> Any help appreciated. Thanks. > ---- > a lot of details are missing but presuming that this USB disk is vfat > filesystem, then there would nothing like POSIX users/groups and all > files/folders are owned by the user mounting the filesystem and cannot > be changed because a vfat system wouldn't support it. Sorry about being so sketchy. Drive is 2 Gb with one big ext3 partition. > If what you are trying to do is to copy files from one system to another > and preserve those things (owner/group/timestamps), tar the file, copy > the tar file onto the USB 'stick', copy the tar file onto your next > Linux host and untar it there and the those attributes should be > preserved. That's probably optimum and I'll do it in the future (it may be the *only* way). Short of wiping everything I've copied to the drive already, is there any way of reovering from here? Thanks for the reply. -- Bob Holtzman "Next to hydrogen the most abundant thing in the universe is stupidity" Albert Einstein --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss