USB Storage - deleting files

[Chris Jeffries]

I have a small MP4 player, which can attach as a USB mass storage
device.

On connecting, it shows up as media/disk

The following done in Nautilus

In order to make space, I deleted some files - which appeared to go
smoothly except it did not free up any space.

Googling for a solution, I discovered Ubuntu creates a hidden Trash
directory (.Trash-1000 in my case) on the storage device. So I tried
deleting the files from there.

Intially it looked hopeful ('These files cannot be moved to trash, would
you like to delete them permanently' (I am working from memory so these
are approximately the words))

However, instead of actually deleting them, it DID move them to trash, I
saw them before my very eyes disappear as I ask for them to be deleted,
only to see them re-appear a moment later.

I then tried enabling the Delete option in Nautilus. But then I got a
message that I was trying to delete from a read only device.

I tried the same thing in CLI both as myself and as root. I tried making
the owner myself and root (at different times of course), I tried making
the directory chmod 777, but it still insisted th device was read only.

The forums on Google suggested reformatting, but I also knew that I had
never had this problem on Windows.

So I unplugged the device form my Ubuntu PC and plugged it into a
Windows one, where I was able to delete the Trash directory and recover
the disk space.

I have now plugged it back into the Ubuntu PC and the problem seems to
have gone away for the moment.

My question is this. Is this a known behaviour (I've not found anything
definitive on it elsewhere) or does anyone have any idea what might be
happening here, or where I should start to look for clues.

Please be gentle with me, I am still not that familiar with where to
find things on a Linux set up.

Chris.