Okay, I'm stumpted again and need your help.

Here's the setup: Toshiba Satellite notebook. Dual boot Red Hat 9.0 and Windows XP. As seen in Partition Magic, reading from left to right, the drive is laid out this way:

Red Hat (5 gig) - Windows XP NTFS (7 Gig) - FAT 32 Data (8 gig)

I'm trying to get Red Hat to be able to write to the FAT32 partition, in part so that I can network another notebook to the Toshiba so the Toshiba can accept periodic backups. Here is what I have done to try to access the FAT 32 partion:

su

mkdir /mnt/windows

mount -t vfat /dev/hda5 /mnt/windows

Now I can see all the files on the FAT 32 but I can't write to any of the folders. I tried to log in as root and change the permissions but it said I didn't created the folder so I couldn't change permissions! The FAT32 was of course created in Windows months before Red Hat was installed. Even though I substituted user while logged in as my usual identity, it lists the created of the directory as root. But even whether I am logged in as root or my usual login ID, it won't let me change the permissions (I'm trying to change them via the GUI, not the command line - a possible cause?)

Also, how can I rig the machine to mount that directory each time? After rebooting I noticed that the directory was still there but no longer mounted to the FAT partition.

Thanks!

To mount a FAT32 filesystem automatically on Boot-up, put this entry at the bottom of your /etc/fstab file on a new line.

/dev/hda5 /mnt/windows vfat umask=000,defaults 0 0

Forgive my ignorance, since I'm still working through the Sam's book on Red Hat, but what are the permissions associated with that entry and for which users / groups? I'm just a little concerned about security so I want to be sure I understand the entry fully.

Thanks for the response! You guys are QUICK!