I'm using a Linuxmint 17 xfce 64 b os, 3.13.0-24.
I'm attempting to backup my HOME folder using a usb backup drive.
I've been able to have the system recognize the backup drive, already formatted a partition using Gparted, selected the Home folder and certain files therein, copy or send to the appointed device, and then receive the following error message:
"The folder 'downloads' cannot be copied because you do not have permissions to create it in the destination".
Interestingly, if I access the backup drive, properties, permissions, it shows 'Root' as owner.
IF I were to plug in a usb stick, I can copy the files without any error messages, but not with the new backup usb drive. (The new drive is a SSD drive which I've formatted a partition to ext4).
I was not logged in as root at the time either which would probably have to be done from the command line.
Any help would be appreciated.

Default behavior is to have root as the owner of partitions on external devices. Copy as root using sudo to preface the command or change the ownership of the directory mount point to your user. You seem to understand that so I'm not really clear on what the problem is?

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Mounting the drive on a mount point owned by your user, (if I remember rightly), will allow your user to use it.

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Thanks to both 'Fatmac'& 'Yancek'for your responses.
You confirmed my assumption about root being the default owner.
I will change the ownership to root using the terminal. I still haven't mastered that, but use every occasion to manually input commands to better understand how the linux file system functions.
I'll also utilize the web connections recommended.