Hi, i have 2 HDDs, 1 internal on my laptop with an NTFS partition for windows, and the rest for linux.
And also a USB HDD with 1 NTFS partition and 1 FAT32 partition.

Now previously I had installed suse on my USB drive, and all drives were mounted automatically during installation.

This time I did an expert installation, and forgot to do the mounting of the NTFS drives.

So I did so via YaST2 Partioner, and editing the mount point name as follows:
/dev/sdb1 /windows/D ntfs users,gid=users,umask=0002,nls=utf8 0 0
/dev/sdb5 /windows/E vfat users,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0
/dev/sda1 /windows/C ntfs ro,users,gid=users,umask=0002,nls=utf8 0 0

yet only the FAT32 driver is mounting itself properly, when I try to access /windows/C or /windows/D i am told Permission denied. I am sure it is something to do with how I am mounting them, as I am sure openSUSE can mount NTFS drivers - at least in read only.

*EDIT I am almost sure it has to do with permissions, coz I can access the partitions as root. Which of the above perameters set the user access? Coz i can't understand why I can access the FAT32 one and not the NTFS when I used the same method to mount them...

Check what groups your regular user is in.

mARGO

The problem is not from the users side, because even when logged as root, I cannot change the permissions of the folder.

Don't think you can change permissions of a folder residing on NTFS drive.
Are the drives listed with "user" option in your /etc/fstab?

mARGO

ehhhhhhh the problem is that I cannot even read the files mounted on these partitions unless i am as root.
/dev/sda6 / ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/sda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs noauto 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /windows/D ntfs ro,users,gid=users,umask=0222,nls=utf8 0 0
/dev/sdb5 /windows/E vfat users,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0
/dev/sda1 /windows/C ntfs ro,users,gid=users,umask=0222,nls=utf8 0 0

that is my complete fstab

You should use "user", not "users" as mount option. Try that.

mARGO

I chose the unprofessional way to fix it, and just re-installed everything.
but i still have one problem.
/dev/sda1 /windows/C ntfs ro,users,gid=users,umask=0002,nls=utf8 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /windows/D ntfs ro,users,gid=users,umask=0002,nls=utf8 0 0
/dev/sdb5 /windows/E vfat users,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0

/dev/sda1 mounts itself on boot
/dev/sdb1 and /dev/sdb5 need to be mounted after logging in - can i set them to self mount as well? the fstab details look the same...

could it be related to another file - mtab? (what is it anyway?), mtab seems similar:
/dev/sda1 /windows/C ntfs ro,noexec,nosuid,nodev,gid=100,umask=0002,nls=utf8 0 0
securityfs /sys/kernel/security securityfs rw 0 0
/dev/sdb5 /windows/E vfat rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,gid=100,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /windows/D ntfs ro,noexec,nosuid,nodev,gid=100,umask=0002,nls=utf8 0 0

mtab just holds a list of the successfully mounted partitions and their mount parameters. Try it out and list it before and after you (u)mounted something by hand...

For the rest, can't see the reason for this either...