NTFS external drives and permissions
by tpprynn from LinuxQuestions.org on (#59SWJ)
Last year before selling a computer that had Windows and a separate data drive I copied its contents onto three smaller external drives that were formatted NTFS. I hadn't entirely finished with Windows at that point and didn't know what would come of the formatting, issue-wise.
I have set up a few computers and copied files to them from these drives. Sometimes as a result a text file is marked executable. The files usually have 'Anyone' in all three categories of their permissions as seen from the PCManFM file manager.
I had assumed from the Windows mindset that larger drives were formatted NTFS rather than fat and only belatedly became disabused of this.
Can I bulk-correct these permissions either on the external drives or when/after transferring to the Ubuntu or Debian machines or should I really be re-formatting the external drives and re-filling them? What is the best solution? What do people usually do? The external drives have ripped DVDs, ripped CDs, text files, word processor docs, pictures, all kinds. I'm not mad keen on having to move the films about, four hundred mp4 files, but will if need be. (It would involve getting a disk enclosure of some kind for my currently unused 2tb drive for the moving.)
Ideally the external drives would be readable by a Windows computer too but that's increasingly unnecessary for me. But do Linux-only people format external drives Ext4?
Edit: In PCManFM, some documents that I have through means other than having been transferred from one of my drives have as their permissions:
View Content: Anyone
Change content: Only owner and group
Execute: Nobody
And some have just 'Only owner' in the second category. What is the difference? Should it matter at any point? (One example is a screenplay from Fadein, screenwriting software, which is possibly set up to enable collaboration, which might be relevant.)
I have set up a few computers and copied files to them from these drives. Sometimes as a result a text file is marked executable. The files usually have 'Anyone' in all three categories of their permissions as seen from the PCManFM file manager.
I had assumed from the Windows mindset that larger drives were formatted NTFS rather than fat and only belatedly became disabused of this.
Can I bulk-correct these permissions either on the external drives or when/after transferring to the Ubuntu or Debian machines or should I really be re-formatting the external drives and re-filling them? What is the best solution? What do people usually do? The external drives have ripped DVDs, ripped CDs, text files, word processor docs, pictures, all kinds. I'm not mad keen on having to move the films about, four hundred mp4 files, but will if need be. (It would involve getting a disk enclosure of some kind for my currently unused 2tb drive for the moving.)
Ideally the external drives would be readable by a Windows computer too but that's increasingly unnecessary for me. But do Linux-only people format external drives Ext4?
Edit: In PCManFM, some documents that I have through means other than having been transferred from one of my drives have as their permissions:
View Content: Anyone
Change content: Only owner and group
Execute: Nobody
And some have just 'Only owner' in the second category. What is the difference? Should it matter at any point? (One example is a screenplay from Fadein, screenwriting software, which is possibly set up to enable collaboration, which might be relevant.)