Hello. I'm a newbie so please forgive me if I don't know all the terminology or use simple explanations.


I installed slackware linux, and almost everything is working fine, except that linux has locked my windows partition. I cannot acces it or any of the files on it, and the root folder has it listed as locked. My Secondary FAT32 physical drive is also locked, but that one is empty. I tried loading kate using konsole to modify it from there, but konsole says kate has crashed, and refuses to start any editor programs under root.

How can I unlock my physical FAT32 drive and my windows partition on this drive without going through konsole?

you do need to open a konsole

then su into root, and try umount'ing the fat32's and remounting them with 'mount -ouid=MyUserName -ogid=users -t vfat /dev/hdXX /mnt/XXXX'

if that works then edit your /etc/fstab so you have a line saying
'/dev/hdXX /mnt/XXXX vfat uid=MyUserName,gid=users,defaults 0 0'

Ok, How can I unmount it?

umount /dev/hdXX

Ok, I've unmounted and tried what you suggested, but it's not working it gives me this message:

root@Pedro's:/home/pedro# mount -ouid=pedro -ogid=users -t vfat /dev/hdb1/fatguy
Usage: mount -V : print version
mount -h : print this help
mount : list mounted filesystems
mount -l : idem, including volume labels
So far the informational part. Next the mounting.
The command is `mount [-t fstype] something somewhere'.
Details found in /etc/fstab may be omitted.
mount -a [-t|-O] ... : mount all stuff from /etc/fstab
mount device : mount device at the known place
mount directory : mount known device here
mount -t type dev dir : ordinary mount command
Note that one does not really mount a device, one mounts
a filesystem (of the given type) found on the device.
One can also mount an already visible directory tree elsewhere:
mount --bind olddir newdir
or move a subtree:
mount --move olddir newdir
A device can be given by name, say /dev/hda1 or /dev/cdrom,
or by label, using -L label or by uuid, using -U uuid .
Other options: [-nfFrsvw] [-o options] [-p passwdfd].
For many more details, say man 8 mount .
root@Pedro's:/home/pedro#

root@Pedro's:/home/pedro# mount
/dev/hda2 on / type ext3 (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
/dev/hda6 on /usr type ext3 (rw)
/dev/hda7 on /var type ext3 (rw)
/dev/hda8 on /tmp type ext3 (rw)
/dev/hda9 on /home type ext3 (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
/dev/hda1 on /windows type ntfs (ro)
/dev/hdb1 on /fatguy type vfat (rw)
root@Pedro's:/home/pedro#

You're not passing the mount command correctly. You're trying to combine the device you're mounting with the folder to mount it when passing the command, the two must be separate.

To do it, assuming you have already created a folder called /mnt/fatguy (which appears to be where you are trying to mount your drive to, or just replace any reference to '/mnt/fatguy' with whatever you are mounting to) you need to pass this command as root:

mount -ouid=pedro -ogid=users -t vfat /dev/hdb1 /mnt/fatguy

(The /mnt/fatguy, or wherever you want to mount the device to, must have a space between the device you are trying to mount and the location to mount it to. In your original command you were trying to pass /dev/hdb1/fatguy in one)

Then, edit your /etc/fstab file as db391 suggested. For this partition, the line to add to it would be:

/dev/hda1 /mnt/fatguy vfat uid=Pedro,gid=users,defaults 0 0

No, it's not working... it just gives me the mount help file.

I've copied it exactly as you wrote it...

the drives and files are mounted, they're just locked.