unchageable file permissions on fat32 partition
 

I have fedora core and windows Xp on computer a and I have ubuntu edgy (I believe thats 1.10) and windows XP on computer b. I am mostly working with computer a trying to set full permissions on fedora core.

I have monted a fat32 drive on linux to share files between linux and windows, but I can't save files to the drive from linux on ether computer.
I opened terminal in fedora and tried...

[user@localhost user]$ su
Password: (entered my password)
[root@localhost user]# chmod -R 777 /mnt/storage
chmod: changing permissions of `/mnt/storage' (requested: 0777, actual: 0755): Operation not permitted

What does this mean and how do i stop it? i'm not worried about other people useing or accesing my files I just want full access to them at all times.
please help this newb...

I have same situation, when I get time I will work on that.
For now, what I do is go through a terminal as root, and use command:

mv -fra filename /mnt/data

The -f is for force without confirmation (so I don't have to hit (y) to confirm for each individual file.

The -r is for recursive, for a folder/directory, to make sure everything within gets moved also, if applicable.

The -a is for all files including hidden files if applicable.

Bash will tell me it failed to preserve permissions/ownership, which is not a big deal for me.

With Fedora 6, there is a super user file manager through main menu/system/more applications. You can use that also.

thanks Junior Hacker. mv -f worked perfectly. even dowm to the error "failed to preserve permissions/ownership" I appriciate your advice.

The problem you have is that since FAT inherently knows
nothing of linux permissions and ownerships. You can't
mimic linux perms on FAT - full-stop.




Cheers,
Tink