Can't change permissions even in root!

[jwolfe71]

Here's something that's bothersome. I have a USB external drive and have 2 partitions on it. One for Nix other NTFS. I am trying to get permissions to read off the NTFS part for me. I go in root try to change the permissions to 755 (chmod) but even in root I can't (no permission).
I DO have permissions off the internal drive in both ext2 and ntfs but only ext2 on the USB drive. The reason I would like permission to read off the USB drive because thats where all my mp3's and videos are kept.
HELP!! I thought being in root you have control of everything!!
For the record, my distro (for the time) is Mandriva 2005.

[StarKnight83]

certain fs can only be mounted read-only (ntfs in most distros is this way i believe) does the kernel have ntfs support compile in or as a modules?

[hard candy]

Daniweb (http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread36300.html)

Linux forums (http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/mandriva-linux-help/43273-permission-denied-usb-hard-drive.html)

Are a couple of threads to look at. It seems there is another file to edit to allow users access to USB hard drives in Mandriva. The Hardware Abstraction Layer keeps any changed permissions on drives such as yours from becoming permanent.

[jwolfe71]

Thank you much for the links helping me with the issue.. it worked! edited the hal daemon.
Can u help with another issue.. about the only one left. How can I get wmp9 videos to work using mplayer plugin?? I think I have the plugin .so but it's possible it's in the wrong path.
I heard this issue is common with the mandrake 2005 distro.
--thanks

[hard candy]

I would try this:
Are you using Firefox? if so, in the address bar type "about:plugins". That will show if mplayer plugin is being used by Firefox.
If not, there should be a mplayer-plugin.rpm somewhere on the web for mandriva. Then get the win32codec, like this example for using urpmi:
"[root@localhost beowulf]# urpmi.addmedia plf-nonfree ftp://ftp.free.fr/pub/Distributions_Linux/plf/mandriva/non-free/2006.0 with hdlist.cz
added medium plf-nonfree
wrote config file [/etc/urpmi/urpmi.cfg]
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.Installation Free DVD (cdrom1).cz]
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.plf-free.cz]
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.updates.cz]
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.main.cz]
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.contrib.cz]
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.jpackage.cz]
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.SoS-2006.cz]
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.SoS-KDE.cz]
computing md5sum of existing source hdlist (or synthesis)
retrieving source hdlist (or synthesis) of "plf-nonfree"...
ftp://ftp.free.fr/pub/Distributions_Linux/plf/mandriva/non-free/2006.0/hdlist.cz
found probed hdlist (or synthesis) as hdlist.cz
....retrieving done
examining hdlist file [/var/cache/urpmi/partial/hdlist.plf-nonfree.cz]
writing list file for medium "plf-nonfree"
examining pubkey file of "plf-nonfree"...
built hdlist synthesis file for medium "plf-nonfree"
found 0 headers in cache
removing 0 obsolete headers in cache
wrote config file [/etc/urpmi/urpmi.cfg]

(now I was able to get win32-codec using uprmi)

[root@localhost beowulf]# urpmi win32-codec

ftp://ftp.free.fr/pub/Distributions_Linux/plf/mandriva/non-free/2006.0/./i586/win32-codecs-1.7-2plf.i586.rpm
installing win32-codecs-1.7-2plf.i586.rpm from /var/cache/urpmi/rpms
Preparing... #############################################
1/1: win32-codecs ############################################# "