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I am using Mint. Everything was fine until three days ago. I wanted to create a file but I discover that my external HDD has read-only mode (file system is NTFS). I didn't change anything before but OK, maybe it was just a little error. I fix it pretty quickly. But even now I can't create any file or directory, also I can't edit any existing file (actuality I can but file get error and I get senseless combination of random symbols and "\00\00\"). When I try to create text file or directory I get next error:

root@mint:/media/mint/A47A802C7A7FF97E# cat > text.txt
bash: text.txt: No such file or directory
root@mint:/media/mint/A47A802C7A7FF97E# mkdir -p directory
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘directory’: No such file or directory

Running with sudo also doesn't help. It worked thousand times before but not now. Is my drive gone or I do something wrong? I found a lot of different solutions but there is no my one. I hope there is really simple way to fix that.

UPD: I am sure that drive is really rw. But I run ntfsfix --no-action /dev/sdX and get

NTFS signature is missing.
Unrecoverable error
Volume is corrupt. You should run chkdsk.
No change made

Also sudo fsck /dev/sdX detected a difference between original boot sector and its backup.

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    "I discover that my external HDD has read-only mode. I didn't change anything before but OK, maybe it was just a little error." "Little errors" don't happen like that. Probably the system detected fs corruption and automounted it read-only. "I fix it pretty quickly." How? Which commands did you run? Commented Oct 3, 2018 at 12:30
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    Try posting the output of cat /proc/mounts/. Also do a stat /media/mint/A47A802C7A7FF97E. This path may not exist(and still be the working directory of the shell) as these folders usually are created dynamically. Commented Oct 3, 2018 at 12:42
  • @dr01 I run sudo mount -o remount,rw /media/mint/A47A802C7A7FF97E so I should be able to create file and directories, isn't it? Commented Oct 3, 2018 at 14:05
  • @rudib Path really exist. Moreover, last modified is dated September, 30th - right before the day my problem had begin. Commented Oct 3, 2018 at 14:11
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    sudo mount -o remount,rw will attempt to mount as rw, but if there is a problem, it may fall back to ro. That's why cat /proc/mounts/ might give us a hint. Commented Oct 3, 2018 at 14:31

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  • Ensure that there is no hardware problem: Check this with smartctl -a /dev/sdX. (You may have to installl smartctl first). Also check the output of dmesg | tail.

  • Warning, read carefully: Note that all that actions may/will change the data on the disk and might cause more damage. If possible, you should make a raw backup (with ddrescue for example) of the disk to an unrelated storage medium before changing anything. Proceed at your own risk.

  • Try to fix the filesystem: You can try to run ntfsfix /dev/sdX. You can also use the tool testdisk to attempt a fix. It has more options and is interactive.

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