I keep most or all my data on a separate partition so Windows and Linux can access it without my having to copy files back and forth. For some reason, MEPIS 7 has given me a lot of trouble in reading it. It often refuses to read individual files there unless I first open the partition in Konqueror. (With the file I have in mind, I have a menu editor entry for it with a keyboard shortcut. If I use the shortcut to get there, the file opens, but is blank. If I open the file that way after opening the data partition using Konqueror, the file opens normally. I have so far just sighed and thought "So MEPIS can't play nice with other partitions."
I've repeatedly set the permissions for that entire partition so that "owner," "group" and "others" can view and modify content. (The reason I kept resetting the permissions was because MEPIS kept resetting them itself. I'd log in as root and do what I just said, then immediately check the permissions again, and they would be back to what they were. It was similar to what happens in Windows with files the system just won't let you to tamper with: if you try to unset the read-only attribute, it simply ignores your change.) I even tried deleting the partition and reestablishing it, in case there was something wrong with it. That didn't work. Now it's done something else even stranger. Today I noticed that, for equally unclear reasons, my permission changes finally kicked in--owner, group and others can now view and modify content.
If that's the case, why do I have to enter the root password when I try to open the data partition using Kwikdisk?

This is only the latest manifestation of the problem with MEPIS that I can't settle on it because of. It's always had strange problems reading other partitions. (I saw it in Fedora Core 5 too, when I briefly tried that one. Other distros, including Knoppix and PCLOS, don't have such a problem.) MEPIS 3.4 used to open my Windows partition in Konqueror, and claim there were no files and folders at all there. Even stranger, there were two ways to access the Windows partition from the desktop--from the Documents folder going up, or from the Floppy Disk folder going up--and only one would produce that error. Whichever route to the Windows partition made Konqueror claim it was empty, the other route would let me see everything. Even stranger still, it seemed to be random--I could never tell in a session which way would work.
MEPIS 7 has the same problem, only in a different form. It reads my Windows partition fine, but gives me all this trouble reading the data partition. The designers never really corrected the problem, and I'm disappointed.

Let me guess, the installer set it up for you, including the /etc/fstab entry ? Open up fstab as root, and change that entry. Make sure it says auto,rw,user in there, in the correct section. If you want a little help with that, just post it here and we'll get it sorted out.

David

You don't! Just hit ignore and it works fine!! If you enter root password it opens the file manager window with root permissions instead of your user permissions.

This may also relate to why your permissions aren't working because you are changing your permissions while being root.

Quick question what Filetype is this other partition you speak about? FAT32 NTFS?? EXT2??

Try bookmark this link in konqueor: system:/media - it works better for mounting and umounting than kwikdisk for me.

Thanks. And what section is the correct section? I assume it's the line after each /dev/ entry, because all those have lines like "noauto,users,exec 0 0." Well, the entire contents of the file say:
/dev/sda2 / auto defaults,noatime 1 1
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devmode=0666 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts mode=0622 0 0
none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
# Dynamic entries below
/dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 vfat,ext3,ext2,reiserfs noauto,users,exec 0 0
/dev/sda3 /mnt/sda3 ext3 noauto,users,exec 0 0
/dev/sda4 /mnt/sda4 vfat,ext3,ext2,reiserfs noauto,users,exec 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1 vfat,ext3,ext2,reiserfs noauto,users,exec 0 0
/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,users,exec,ro 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,users,exec,ro 0 0
/dev/cdrom1 /media/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 noauto,users,exec,ro 0 0
/dev/scd1 /media/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 noauto,users,exec,ro 0 0

Cam, I see you're right about the password. But if I can ignore it, why does Kwikdisk bother asking in the first place?

And the data partition is formatted to FAT32. I deliberately made it FAT32 so both Linux and Windows would certainly read it.

Right, that is the correct section. It can be a little confusing, because you can put "auto" in place of a specific file system type too, and that is right before the section you need. Looks like you have more than one fat32 filesystem, so I don't know which partition you need to adjust, but I'd change the filesystem type to vfat, and get rid of the extra filesystem types, I don't know why they are there. Then change that section to auto,rw,exec,user

Just as an example, I would change this line from :

/dev/sda4 /mnt/sda4 vfat,ext3,ext2,reiserfs noauto,users,exec 0 0

To this :

/dev/sda4 /mnt/sda4 vfat auto,user,exec,rw 0 0

Your fstab says users. I haven't seen that before, I thought it was "user", but maybe they both work.

Also, you might want to avoid accessing that partiton as root. Anyway, let us know if that worked for you....

David

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