quick permissions problem

stephenheath30 · 05-20-2007, 02:17 AM

Hi

I've just formatted my external hard drive. However, I don't know how to change the permissions to user (steve). I've tried the following to no avail:

chown steve /media/disk/*

How do I do this? Be gentle, I'm new to linux.

Thanks in advance.

mechdave · 05-20-2007, 02:36 AM

Steve,
Try

Code:

chown -R user:group /path/to/drive

The -R makes the command recursive so it changes all files and folders to the user:group you specify, (as long as both user and group exists!).

jschiwal · 05-20-2007, 03:43 AM

What is the filesystem on the external drive. If it is fat32 or ntfs, then you need to use the "uid=" and "gid=" options to change the ownership and group of the filesystem. You can only do it on the entire partition and not individual files.

stephenheath30 · 05-27-2007, 01:38 AM

Apologies for the delay in responding.

I have still failed to resolve this.

Code:

linux-azov:/ # chown -R steve /media/disk/
chown: changing ownership of `/media/disk/': Operation not permitted

I've entered the above as root.

Not sure whether the following helps (fstab):

Code:

/dev/sda1            /media/disk          vfat       users,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0

ADxD_7 · 05-27-2007, 11:00 PM

Try this(as root) and see if it works -

Code:

# umount /media/disk
# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt 
# chown -Rv steve: /mnt

If that doesnt work do this and then repeat the above

Code:

# chmod 0755 /dev/sda1

Forgive me if I am wrong, I am a Unix sys admin and am still getting used to the differences in Linux ..... and am having fun doing so