Can't copy files to root owned files! Help!
 

When i installed ubuntu. I made a seperate partition so that i could copy an ISO image onto it of an up-to-date version of ubuntu. I wanted to then boot the ISO up so i could install the new version that way. I've already tried doing it through the update manager but it'll download, almost be done with installing and it freezes on me. so i figured this would be easier. However i do not know how to gain access to the other partition to copy the ISO image. Please help.

Just download the image into a single file, you don't need to use any update manager. Then copy the image into the partition (eg, /dev/hda3) like this:

Now try mounting the partition:

i tried that and still wont copy over. i need permissions to copy it over. How do i get permissions for the partition?

i tried that too.....

christopher@christopher-laptop:~$ sudo dd if=/home/christopher/Desktop/ubuntu-10.10-desktop-i386.iso of=/media/sda5/
dd: opening `/media/sda5/': Is a directory

and then i tried..

christopher@christopher-laptop:~$ sudo cp '/home/christopher/Desktop/ubuntu-10.10-desktop-i386.iso' /media/sda5
cp: cannot create regular file `/media/sda5/ubuntu-10.10-desktop-i386.iso': Read-only file system


What else can i do???

Obviously /media/sda5 is a directory, not a device. /dev/sda5 is a device. There's a difference;)

ps. the device should not be mounted when you copy onto it, either:

If it fails because it's busy, get your filebrowser out of the /media/sda5 directory and try umount again.

Now do the dd, using /dev/sda5 as the output file.