User cannot access d drive
 

Okay, I have my hard drive partitioned into 4 sections: windows XP, a partition in FAT32 where i save my files that I use in XP and Slack, a swap, and a linux partition. When installing Slack, I mapped my d drive into linux as '/d'. Apparently this is owned by my root user and no other user can even access /d. My user name that I want to use as a 'limited' user is 'russell'. For some reason 'chown' won't correct this.

what do I need to do so that the user 'russell' can access '/d' which is apparently owned by the superuser 'root'?

Thank you for any help in the matter.

you need to make sure that the mount point is correctly defined in your fstab.

Should be something similar to:

/dev/hdax /mnt/somewhere vfat auto,user,umask=0000 0 0

the umask is the key part.

slight

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what people have suggested. Would you please give me some more step by step troubleshooting

Does anyone know how to fix this?

you have to edit your partition's entry in /etc/fstab
here is my win 98 c (hda1 /fat-c) drive in linux ;

/dev/hda1 /fat-c vfat users,defaults,umask=000 0 0

Before you modify your /etc/fstab copy it to your user's home directory first;
cp -v /etc/fstab /home/whoever/fstab

to edit any system file i use vi , you make the call like this ;

vi /etc/fstab

then you are in business. you will have to look around on the net and find a tutorial on vi which i do not have the capacity to teach you here...what i did i got a book from the library about unix and eventually bought one. my first distro was mandrake and i also had the user's manual that came in the box.....there was also a chapter about vi.very helpful.

do not let the task daunt you as vi is very simple to use and you only need a few commands-keystrokes. good luck

p.s.=o.k. a few commands=
i to insert a character where the cursor is at.
a to do the same to the right of the cursor
o to do the same below the cursor
O to do the same above the cursor
press the esc. key to go out of insert mode into command mode where you can delete characters using x
to save the file ZZ or :wq (i alaways use ZZ)

to leave without saving :q!

use the arrow keys to navigate in the text.....do not be afraid to press the esc. key when you are not sure...
you can also paste text while you are in vi
practice with the file that you copyied first....be patient .
good luck

do what slight said
open up a terminal and type pico /etc/fstab

then find the line referring to what you want to fix
probably looks like /dev/hdax /d auto defaults 0 0
in place of that put /dev/hdax /d auto auto,user,umask=0000 0 0

save and reboot
remember to change the 'x' in 'hdax' to the appropriate number
hope this helps

hehe damn nutronix beat me to the reply while i was typing

default in slack is 'users' not 'user' isn't it?

you're right, sorry about that didn't catch it