HFS+ : read and write files from Ubuntu

Question

Hello,

I would like to benefit from your valuable assistance in gaining read and write access to my files stored on an external hard drive formatted with HFS+ journaling.

This hard drive was used on a Mac, but now that I've switched to Ubuntu, I am unable to recover the multitude of files I stored there.

I no longer own a Mac, and I cannot disable journaling from a Mac OS.

Any ideas?

Best regards,

Gorosk

Configuration: Linux / Firefox 45.0

dom17 · Answer

Hello Start with  sudo apt-get install hfsplus hfsprogs hfsutils  -- The magic words: hello, please, thank you. And if the proposed solution worked, let others know, it will be helpful.

gorosk · Answer

Hello Dom17, and thank you for your response.
The three software programs you mentioned have indeed been installed.
Then the external hard drive was connected, but the problem persists.
What are the next steps?
Best regards,
Gorosk

dom17 · Answer

Good evening

To try: reconnect your drive to a Mac
and in the terminal
locate your drive (something like /dev/disk***)

df -h

disable journaling

diskutil disableJournal "my_drive"

--
The magic words: hello, please, thank you.
And if the proposed solution worked, let it be known, it will be helpful to others, and mark it as Resolved

gorosk · Answer

Hello dom17! Yes, I know the procedure you describe as I've seen it on various forums. The only issue is that I don't have access to a Mac. Is there a way to do this via Ubuntu? Thanks, Gorosk

dom17 · Answer

Hello

Okay, no Mac around, so you’re trying the Linux procedure

Ubuntu usually mounts the disk automatically at startup (depending on the options in /etc/fstab)

You can identify it

sudo fdisk -l

The following command unmounts/remounts it in write mode

sudo mount -t hfsplus -o remount,force,rw /dev/sdx

(replace x with the letter found with fdisk)

sudo mount -t hfsplus -o remount,force,rw /media/your_disk

@+
--
The magic words: hello, please, thank you.
And if the suggested solution worked, let us know, it will be helpful to others, and mark it as Resolved.

gorosk · Answer

Hello again Dom17 and thank you once more for your patience.

I will show the screenshots from the terminal following the commands you suggested.

sudo fdisk -l

It clearly shows that the external hard drive has two partitions, one in FAT32 that I can read under Ubuntu and the other in HFS+ which is accessible to me in "read-only" mode.

sudo mount -t hfsplus -o remount,force,rw /dev/sdx where "x" is replaced by "b1"

and to finish

sudo mount -t hfsplus -o remount,force,rw /media/your_drive where "your_drive" has been replaced by "sdb1" and "LucasMac" (that's the name I gave to the drive).

After all these manipulations, I unmounted and remounted the external hard drive but the files in SDB1 (hfs+) are still in read-only mode.

Have I forgotten something?

Gorosk

gorosk · Answer

Hello Dom17, and thank you again for the time you dedicate to this post.

I have two pieces of news, one good and one a bit less good.

The good news is that I managed to disable journaling on the HFS+ partition of my external hard drive.
I just used my MacOS installation disk: without launching the installation, I went to Utilities > Terminal.

In the terminal, I typed

df -h

which immediately shows the HFS+ partition named /dev/disk2s1

then: diskutil disableJournal disk2s1

Journaling has been successfully disabled on this partition.

Bad news:

Back on Ubuntu, I connect the external hard drive and check the HFS+ partition. Nothing changes. I can read the files but I can neither copy nor delete nor modify them. The message that appears is "you are not the owner and do not have the permissions"

I wonder if connecting the hard drive to a Mac will show that I am not the owner and do not have permission...

Best regards,

Gorosk

gorosk · Answer

Hello Dom17, I'm back!

Good news, I was finally able to solve the problem by typing the following command line:

gksudo nautilus /media

After that, I was able to manually change the owner of the files on the HFS+ partition of the external hard drive.

The only downside is that this procedure is time-consuming, I have to do it file by file.

I would have liked to try your procedure, but I saw it too late!

Thanks again for your help,

Gorosk

dom17 · Answer

Good evening

If you are still changing permissions file by file, you will save time with a single line in the terminal

sudo chown -R conte /media/conte/LucasMac

which will do it all at once

--
The magic words: hello, please, thank you.
And if the proposed solution worked, let it be known, it will help others, and mark it as Resolved

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