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I am stuck with a (probably) silly problem: modifying preferences in Zotero-standalone! I would like Zotero standalone in Ubuntu to point to the Zotero data in the Windows partition. directory permission The 'Windows data partition' is mounted on a folder of mine. So far Zotero replies that permission to access the directory is denied.

What can I test or correct? 

rs@rs-XPS-12-9250:~$ lsblk -o name,partlabel,fstype,mountpoint,UUID
NAME   PARTLABEL                    FSTYPE   MOUNTPOINT                     UUID
loop0                               squashfs /snap/core/8268                
loop1                               squashfs /snap/gnome-3-28-1804/110      
loop2                               squashfs /snap/chromium/971             
loop3                               squashfs /snap/gnome-calculator/406     
loop4                               squashfs /snap/gnome-characters/296     
loop5                               squashfs /snap/gtk-common-themes/1353   
loop6                               squashfs /snap/gnome-logs/61            
loop7                               squashfs /snap/gnome-characters/375     
loop8                               squashfs /snap/gnome-calculator/544     
loop9                               squashfs /snap/canonical-livepatch/90   
loop10                              squashfs /snap/core18/1288              
loop11                              squashfs /snap/gnome-logs/81            
loop12                              squashfs /snap/gnome-system-monitor/100 
loop13                              squashfs /snap/libreoffice/163          
loop14                              squashfs /snap/core/7270                
loop15                              squashfs /snap/gnome-3-28-1804/67       
loop16                              squashfs /snap/zotero-snap/4            
loop17                              squashfs /snap/gtk-common-themes/1313   
loop18                              squashfs /snap/gnome-system-monitor/123 
loop19                              squashfs /snap/core18/1066              
sda                                                                         
├─sda1 Basic data partition         ntfs                                    0A9A78FF9A78E899
├─sda2 EFI system partition         vfat     /boot/efi                      9C79-CF74
├─sda3 Microsoft reserved partition                                         
├─sda4 Basic data partition         ntfs     /media/MSW10                   A44E81644E812FDA
├─sda5                              ntfs                                    963A9C573A9C3669
└─sda6                              ext4     /                              2bd5e8dc-7bce-460d-9a54-384a443d97d8
Kevin Bowen
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Roberto Scotti
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  • Need to see your partitions. Run lsblk -o name,partlabel,fstype,mountpoint,UUID and post output into question. – Paul Benson Jan 07 '20 at 01:32
  • You need to label your partitions properly. You should move all your data files including Zotero to a different partition from Windows under folders describing such data. Which sda partition is your Windows (C: drive) system? What are the other sda partitions (1, 4 or 5) used for? I see sda4 is mounted. What files are contained within? – Paul Benson Jan 07 '20 at 18:45
  • Many thanks for taking care but, excuse me, I do not understand very well all your points. Answering your questions requires more space than the 600 chars available, I will try to explain below what I am missing while I anticipate here what I might have understood. In order to have a single local Zotero DB accessed both by MSWin and Ubuntu, I have to modify the Windows partitions, create a new one, and move there the Zotero data folder? – Roberto Scotti Jan 20 '20 at 12:35
  • Your questions
    1. “You need to label your partitions properly.” All partition labels are generated by the software. Do you suggest that I label also sda5 and sda6? I suppose these are standard system partitions. Using the Disk utility I see following info sda1 “Ambiente ripristino Microsoft Windows (Sistema)” Not mount sda2 “Sistema EFI” /boot/efi sda3 “Microsoft riservata” Contents: “Sconosciuto” [unknown] sda4 “Basic Data” /media/MSW10 sda5 “Ambiente ripristino Microsoft Windows (Sistema)” Not mount sda6 “File system Linux” /
     – Roberto Scotti Jan 20 '20 at 12:38
  • Your questions
    2. "You should move all your data files including Zotero to a different partition from Windows under folders describing such data"
    You suggest to create a new partition (with Windows?), label it "Windows Data" and move there the sqlite data folder?     – Roberto Scotti Jan 20 '20 at 12:39
  • Your questions
    3. “Which sda partition is your Windows (C: drive) system?” I mounted sda4 on /media/MSW10 because I see there the folders I see listing in C: Does this answer your question?
    Your questions
    4. “What are the other sda partitions (1, 4 or 5) used for? I see sda4 is mounted. What files are contained within?” sda1 and sda5 seem to be Microsoft system restoration partitions sda4 is mounted as /media/MSW10 because I see the folders I see on C: (including Zotero data folders)     – Roberto Scotti Jan 20 '20 at 12:40

2 Answers2

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To access data stored on a mounted NTFS partition on Ubuntu in Zotero:

  1. Open Ubuntu Software app and find zotero-snap
  2. Click on Permissions
  3. Toggle "Read/write files on removable storage devices" to on
  4. Close and reopen Zotero

Note: The partition is mounted with these permissions/options: ntfs auto,user,rw 0 0

tyknkd
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OK. You've answered my questions. The point about labeling partitions is that you can see at a glance what partition contains what information. In your example you have 2 NTFS drives both labelled with the same description - Basic data partition, which is confusing. What I suggest is that you label sda4, Win10. Then you know it's your C:\ drive. If sda1 is a recovery drive, label that as WinRec or similar. If you look here you can see I've used proper labels for each partition, not the default ones, so I can see quickly what they all represent.

You can also see that my sda4 is my data partition where all data files and folders are shared between Ubuntu and Windows. I keep all data separately from the system partitions, so that a) If I ever need to reinstall Windows the data isn't affected. b) I now can reference the data partition directly from Ubuntu without the need to load my Windows system as well. c) I now mount sda4 at boot-up so that no permission problems arise as I can now make my own permissions in the /etc/fstab file.

To return to your original question I would suggest you do similar, ie make a new partition, format it NTFS, label it 'Data' and move all data folders and files (not just Zotero) from your C:\ drive to the new partition. Once you've done that I'll tell you how to proceed from there.

Paul Benson
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  • I now understand very well your suggestion, many thanks. Till now I have avoided making an extra partition and moving the Windows area data there, this would complicate the management of other aspects.
    Since, from Ubuntu I can open the Zotero data folder and see my rw permissions also on the sqlite file I do not understand what happens when Zotero standalone tries to access.

    > rs@rs-XPS-12-9250:/media/MSW10/Users/ro/Zotero$ ls -la > -rw-rw---- 2 rs root 28860416 gen 6 16:58 zotero.sqlite Do you think that a new partition is necessary? Many thanks

     – Roberto Scotti Jan 21 '20 at 17:12
  • I have a separate ntfs storage partition mounted, but Zotero still cannot access the directory. It appears to be a problem with Zotero reading and writing to ntfs, not whether the partition contains the Windows system files. – tyknkd Feb 09 '20 at 09:26
  • @koyakun When the storage partition is mounted, who is the owner of the mounted folder and what are the permissions for that folder and its mounted subfolders/files? – Paul Benson Feb 11 '20 at 18:43