When I mount hd0 (my windows disk), I have to mount it as root, so I do. But then, I can't get to it with my normal account. How can I be able to access this drive as my normal account? I am using a NTFS filesystem on hd0, which is only currently capable of read-only modes. So when I try to change the permissions the normal way (right-click, properties), it says it cannot change the settings because the drive's mount folder is read-only.

you have to edit the properties of the folder where you have mounted your windows partition
suppose that windows is mounted at /mnt/c
now to check whether it has the correct permission
do
umount /mnt/c
ls -halR /mn

you have to edit the properties of the folder where you have mounted your windows partition
suppose that windows is mounted at /mnt/c
now to check whether it has the correct permission
do
umount /mnt/c
ls -halR /mnt/c
and look at the permission of .( and not of ..)
it should be something like
drw_rw_rw_
if it is not so
do a
chmod 666 /mnt/c
now mount your partition again
mount -a
it should work now
keep posted

It still says Permission denied.

[root@localhost orange400]# ls -halR /mnt/windows
/mnt/windows:
total 8.0K
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Mar 2 21:10 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4.0K Mar 8 12:23 ..
[root@localhost orange400]# chmod 666 /mnt/windows
[root@localhost orange400]# ls -halR /mnt/windows
/mnt/windows:
total 8.0K
drw-rw-rw- 2 root root 4.0K Mar 2 21:10 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4.0K Mar 8 12:23 ..
[root@localhost windows]# su orange400
[orange400@localhost windows]$ cd ../
[orange400@localhost mnt]$ cd windows
bash: cd: windows: Permission denied
[orange400@localhost mnt]$

I would like to keep windows a read-only filesystem too, the write mode is very risky right now ...

give the content of your fstab file

All you have to do is add this to your /etc/fstab file:

/dev/hd0 /mnt/XP ntfs umask=0227,uid=root,gid=username 0 0

I would use this command mkdir /mnt/XP which creates the dir XP

That's it and when you boot up Linux it automatically mounts your Windows partition.

Have Fun

Don't put mkdir /mnt/XP in your fstab file sorry if that caused some confusion, its time for bed.

Umask sets your permissions on the XP dir to allow root and anybody belonging to your group permission to enter the Windows partition.

Good Night till tomorrow

umask? That's exactly what I'm looking for! I'm going to try that when I get back from school ...

it didn't work. During the bootup, it said [FAILED]. It said that there was a bad fs option, bad superblock, too many mounted filesystems ... of coarse not all of them, but it was the error message description. This has happened ever since I tried chmod 66 /mnt/windows. Is there any way to restore that?

Maybe you can do what I did,

I made a group called xp, then I made sure that I belonged to this group.
Then insert this in your fstab file
[b]/dev/hd0(a couple spaces) /mnt/XP(space) ntfs(space) umask=0227,uid=root,gid=xp(space) 0(space) 0

The spaces are really important of course don't type space just leave a couple spaces so that fstab can tell these are under different columns.

Good Luck

I did, I put that in, but it doesn't work. It's that chmod 666 setting (kind of a weird number). It has messed up my drive mountings so I can't mount my hdd. rch, help!

Well I fixed the 666 thing, on to fstab!

i will explain what this 666 means
rw_rw_rw=110110110(binary)=666
owner-group-others(in that order)
now i asked you to give your /etc/fstab file but you did not
so add(or modify) your /etc/fstab to include::
/dev/hda1 /mnt/windows ntfs users,default 0 0
i am assuming that your windows partition is /dev/hda1
(you can find out whether it is so by typing fdisk -l)
and your windows filesystem is ntfs
once the option is specified as users
everyone can mount your windows partition

This link might help you find your way through this:

Linux NTFS project

Follow the instructions after the download files, it talks about permisions and such.

Good Luck

Sorry rch, I was skimming and I skipped your request. However, my fstab is being modified very frequently, trying different things to get it to work, so I don't think it's useful ... I'm going to try the users command in fstab ...