title: Ubuntu / Windows dual boot : How to solve "read-only" issue when trying to write on a NTFS mounted volume?
body: <h2>EDIT : </h2>
  <p>This was originally a question about why I couldn't download anything to my displaced Downloads folder. The issue solved itself after rebooting the computer a second time (no idea why). I decided to leave it here anyway since it contains useful information to people who want to redirect their files on a mounted volume.</p>
  <h2>EDIT 2 : </h2>
  <p>I was right at first, there was indeed an issue with my dual boot. The problem was that sometimes, I couldn't write anything on my NTFS partition when I was booted on Ubuntu. The reason for that was that Windows hadn't properly disconnected from the partition. More info about that issue <a href="https://askubuntu.com/questions/70281/why-does-my-ntfs-partition-mount-as-read-only">here</a>, but basically it happens when Windows isn't completely turned off before Ubuntu starts. The quick fix is to remove the Windows log file : <code>$ sudo ntfsfix /dev/your-NTFS-partition</code> (for me it was : <code>$ sudo ntfsfix /dev/sda4</code>). Then you simply unmount and remount the NTFS volume and you should be able to write in it, no reboot needed.</p>
  <h3>Context : </h3>
  <p>I made my first dual boot yesterday, following <a href="https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/35807/how-to-harmonize-your-dual-boot-setup-for-windows-and-ubuntu/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this tutorial</a>. I partitioned my drive in 3 volumes, 1 for Windows 10, 1 for Ubuntu 20.04, and 1 for my files (named Storage), that I mounted at /media/storage. The only thing that I did differently from the walkthrough is that I used symlinks to redirect my downloads and documents folders to the mounted volume instead of changing the paths in /etc/fstab. I used <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsdTwW2P8V0" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this video</a> to learn how to work with symlinks.</p>
  <p>I had an issue with the Trash not working in the mounted volume, that I solved by adding uid=1000 in the mount options in /etc/fstab as advised <a href="https://askubuntu.com/questions/75154/cannot-move-file-to-trash-warning-when-trying-to-delete-a-file-in-nautilus">here</a> (I used udisks). Everything seemed to be working just fine after that.</p>
  <h3>Issue : </h3>
  <p>This morning I tried to download a file with Google Chrome into the Downloads folder (which is now at /media/storage/Downloads) and I got an error &quot;Failed - insufficient permissions&quot;. Same thing happened with Firefox. Both browsers download without issue if I use my home folder to save the file.</p>
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/8uHz8.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/8uHz8.png" alt="Download failed" /></a></p>
  <p>I read <a href="https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2377758" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a> that :</p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>As a normal user you don't have the right to write anywhere except your home directory and
  its subdirectories, /tmp (the directory for temporary files) and the
  subdirectories of /media/&quot;yourUsername&quot; into which media you've
  connected to the computer are mounted.</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>Does this mean that I should have mounted my volume at /media/username/storage instead of /media/storage ? If I changed the mount path now in /etc/fstab, would this fix the issue or just mess everything up? Is there something else I'm missing ? What is the best, most sustainable way to fix this ?</p>
  <h3>More info (more issues) ? </h3>
  <p>I just realized that I have some lock icons on my symlinks folders. They can't have been there yesterday, because everytime I try to modify anything in there, the system throws an error &quot;Read-only file system&quot;. I know that I was able to add and delete files from there yesterday.</p>
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/v2icj.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/v2icj.png" alt="Read-only file system" /></a></p>
  <p>Here is the output of <code>/media/storage$ ls -l</code> :</p>
  <pre><code>total 4
  drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 12 14:14 '$RECYCLE.BIN'
  drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 18 18:14  Backup
  drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 18 20:13  Documents
  drwxrwxrwx 1 val root 4096 Mar 18 20:14  Downloads
  drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 18 20:15  Music
  drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 18 20:14  Pictures
  drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 18 16:23  Public
  drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 12 14:45 'System Volume Information'
  drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 18 16:23  Templates
  drwxrwxrwx 1 val root    0 Mar 18 20:16  Videos
  </code></pre>