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Ubuntu / Windows dual boot : How to solve "read-only" issue when trying to write on a NTFS mounted volume?

EDIT :

This was originally a question about why I couldn't download anything to my displaced Downloads folder. The issue solved itself after rebooting the computer a second time (no idea why). I decided to leave it here anyway since it contains useful information to people who want to redirect their files on a mounted volume.

EDIT 2 :

I was right at first, there was indeed an issue with my dual boot. The problem was that sometimes, I couldn't write anything on my NTFS partition when I was booted on Ubuntu. The reason for that was that Windows hadn't properly disconnected from the partition. More info about that issue here, but basically it happens when Windows isn't completely turned off before Ubuntu starts. The quick fix is to remove the Windows log file : $ sudo ntfsfix /dev/your-NTFS-partition (for me it was : $ sudo ntfsfix /dev/sda4). Then you simply unmount and remount the NTFS volume and you should be able to write in it, no reboot needed.

Context :

I made my first dual boot yesterday, following this tutorial. I partitioned my drive in 3 volumes, 1 for Windows 10, 1 for Ubuntu 20.04, and 1 for my files (named Storage), that I mounted at /media/storage. The only thing that I did differently from the walkthrough is that I used symlinks to redirect my downloads and documents folders to the mounted volume instead of changing the paths in /etc/fstab. I used this video to learn how to work with symlinks.

I had an issue with the Trash not working in the mounted volume, that I solved by adding uid=1000 in the mount options in /etc/fstab as advised here (I used udisks). Everything seemed to be working just fine after that.

Issue :

This morning I tried to download a file with Google Chrome into the Downloads folder (which is now at /media/storage/Downloads) and I got an error "Failed - insufficient permissions". Same thing happened with Firefox. Both browsers download without issue if I use my home folder to save the file.

Download failed

I read here that :

As a normal user you don't have the right to write anywhere except your home directory and its subdirectories, /tmp (the directory for temporary files) and the subdirectories of /media/"yourUsername" into which media you've connected to the computer are mounted.

Does this mean that I should have mounted my volume at /media/username/storage instead of /media/storage ? If I changed the mount path now in /etc/fstab, would this fix the issue or just mess everything up? Is there something else I'm missing ? What is the best, most sustainable way to fix this ?

More info (more issues) ?

I just realized that I have some lock icons on my symlinks folders. They can't have been there yesterday, because everytime I try to modify anything in there, the system throws an error "Read-only file system". I know that I was able to add and delete files from there yesterday.

Read-only file system

Here is the output of /media/storage$ ls -l :

total 4
drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 12 14:14 '$RECYCLE.BIN'
drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 18 18:14  Backup
drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 18 20:13  Documents
drwxrwxrwx 1 val root 4096 Mar 18 20:14  Downloads
drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 18 20:15  Music
drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 18 20:14  Pictures
drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 18 16:23  Public
drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 12 14:45 'System Volume Information'
drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 18 16:23  Templates
drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 18 20:16  Videos
Solution

  • No idea how or why, but the good old "turn it off and on again" did the trick (EDIT : No it didn't, see EDIT 2 of my question). Why did it not work when I rebooted my computer earlier today ? Mystery. Anyway I will leave this here (and edit the title) since it is a good collection of the issues I had while working out my first dual boot and the methods I used to fix them.