The problem
I installed version 10 and i needed to download a file for my adsl modem this i have done but when i tried to put it into the /usr/share/sppedtouch dir i get access denied.

I have tried
opening a shell logging on as su and using the cp command but access denied again.
i have run mc and tried changing the permissions of the dir but still no luck
however, on a seperate pc i have stopped it booting to x and can log on as root and cp the file to the new location only i can now not get back in to x it tries to load and screen goes black nothing until i reboot.

is there a fix for this or do I have to re-install and start again?

if you want to log in as root you can either end your x session (in kde choose logout, end this session only) then login as root. the login manager doesn't present a choice for root, but you can type it in.

or better yet, press crtl+alt+F1 , (or any of F1-F6) then login as root, do your magic, type exit and crtl+alt+F7 to return to X.

on the permissions i'm not sure what's going on.
is the partition that /usr/share is on mounted readonly for some reason?

just in case, you know the username for root is root

sorry, i just looked and mandrake removed root from their display manager (login manger?)
there might be a key-combo to get root or something, but i switched to the kde display manager.

anyways, su or the crtl+alt+F* terminals are usually all you need.