As you [know](https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/mke2fs.8.html), if there is no root\_owner option, mke2fs use the user and group ID of the user running mke2fs. Let's test it on Ubuntu 22 x86\_64 (mke2fs 1.46.5 (30-Dec-2021)):

1. Generate image

mke2fs -t ext2 -I 256 -E 'lazy\_itable\_init=0,lazy\_journal\_init=0' -O '^large\_file' -O '^huge\_file' -L ext2test 'diskEmpty.img' 102400k
2. Mount image

gnome-disk-image-mounter -w diskEmpty.img

But only root user can write to this... **Why?**

Let's test root\_owner option:

1. Generate image

mke2fs -t ext2 -I 256 -E 'root\_owner=1000:1000,lazy\_itable\_init=0,lazy\_journal\_init=0' -O '^large\_file' -O '^huge\_file' -L ext2test 'diskEmpty.img' 102400k
2. Mount image

gnome-disk-image-mounter -w diskEmpty.img

Now I can write to my disk.

**Why can't I write to disk without `root_owner` feature?**