Usability is compromised on Ubuntu because of read-only filesystem error

Question

Over the past couple of days Ubuntu has been progressively locking me out of the the system. I can’t open some programs and the last straw was a few minutes ago when it refused to save a screenshot. The error I constantly see is that the filesystem is read-only. I’ve also been forced to perform fsck checks constantly during boot due to errors and inconsistencies. According to information online, my HDD is to blame and is probably dying and Ubuntu turns sectors to read-only as a means of protection. However, I dual boot with Windows 10 and it doesn’t seem to be affected.

So before buying a new HDD, I’d like to know if there’s anything else that could cause this situation and if there is a fix.

Thanks in advance for any info.

dual boot filesystems fsck readonly ubuntu

So before buying a new HDD, I'd like to know if there's anything else that could cause this situation and if there is a fix.

Thanks in advance for any info.

dr_ · Answer

As already said in the comments, your Linux partition is being corrupted and you should make a backup ASAP.

About the reason for this, it's possible it's because of Windows 10.  I've heard several cases of Win10 corrupting the Linux partition on a dual boot machine. (Related: Launching Windows corrupts ext4 partitions) This would also explain why the Win10 partition is unaffected.

A solution for this would be to put the Linux partition offline from Win10 via diskpart, as explained in this answer: https://askubuntu.com/questions/849872/how-can-i-prevent-windows-10-from-corrupting-the-ext4-superblock-every-time/858159#858159

Usability is compromised on Ubuntu because of read-only filesystem error

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