You have to mount and unmount drives as root user, at least from the command line.
 
To unmount a drive/partition, the command is;
 
umount /dev/whateveritis
 
Not unmount. This is a common mistake.
 
Assuming the second hard drive is recognized correctly. Get into filemanager as superuser mode and you should not have any trouble.
 
Depending on how konqueror or whatever is set up (different distros set it up differently) you can write in normal file manager mode. In others, you need to use superuser filemanager to move and write files.

how do i set it so normal users users can write to that drive though? I rather not have to log into X as root its just *scary*
 
 
 
 
[Edited by Whiskers on 2004-07-16 21:52:12]
 

If it's just you wanting to write to that drive, I'd continue to do it as root for security reasons. On the extremely rare occurance someone tries to hack your computer, the first thing he's gonna look for is a place where "anyone" has permissions. If you really want everyone to be able to read and write and execute everything on that drive, just change it's permissions. As a for instance, let's say the drive in question was an external USB memory reader which is mounted at /mnt/usbstick. As root you would go:
 
chmod 777 -R /mnt/usbstick [enter]
 
The -R is to also give user permisions not only to /mnt/sbstick, but to all the files and programs that are on that drive.

ok so i would do
 
chmod 777 -R /Oneniisama (thats the name of the mount)
 
now I can store the gigs of backup back onto the drive
when I am done, what do I do so that the drive is readable but not writeable again?

What the heck is Oneniisama and how does it work?? Is this another drive, secondary hard drive or external device? Please explain exactly what it is so I can know what I'm dealing with.
 
Presuming it is a file system of some sort, you would have to change the permissions again if, after putting what you want to on it, you wanted it re-restricted. To change the permissions where the file system can be read, and not written to, as root do:
 
chmod 444 -R /Oneniisama [enter]
 
Now, all folders in /Oneniisama can be read, but not written to.
I would think though, it would be more convenient for the owner, (you), to be able to write to it and no one else, in which case you would substitute the 444 with 644.
 
To get more familiar with Linux permissions, this page will be helpful.

Originally posted by Dapper Dan:

What the heck is Oneniisama and how does it work??  
Thats the name and mount point of my slave hard drive in my system. Just as linux is mounted on / , the secondary hard drive is mounted on /Oneniisama
 
I think the 444 will be best for its purpose, its where I store all data backups, Its a 1 user system, and I think the read only will be usefull in protecting the data from being delete or overwritten
 
Thanks for the help, I'll check that page out
 

Sorry, I did not mean to log in as root.
 
Most linux distros have a konqueror superuser mode via the start menu that can be accessed as user, if you know the root password. Other distros don't have this option apparent, but you can make an icon that prompts the user for the root password. This way root permissions remain intact for the directory and available only to the users who have the root password.
 
Otherwise, Dapper Dan's suggestions for setting permissions, depending on what you want to do.