Can't chmod or chgrp with sudo to a ntfs disk

Try this

use sudo chmod 777 /(your second partition location) -R

for ex:

sudo chmod 777 /media/DATA -R

don't forget to type -R at the end of command (it's case sensitive)

Well, everything was already 777, but I tried it anyway then tried the chgrp cmd.
sudo chgrp RichG /media/MyDisk -cR ; No Joy.
Sudo chgrp -cR richg /media/MyDisk also worked at least it showed every file and directory being changed, but nothing really took. No errors. looks like it is doing the changes (-c option) but it is not.
Still rwxrwxrwx root root for everything on the disk.

?

Maybe you should find some information here

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MountingWindowsPartitions/ThirdPartyNTFS3G

run this in terminal

sudo gedit /etc/fstab

please copy and paste the result here ...

Thanks ^-^

Interesting, to me anyway, the hard drives are not mounted?
there are two and yet the ls shows the second one and only after I select it from the Places menu.
I understand root owning the drive/partition but not every file and folder in it. The fact that the commands seem to work, but nothing is actually modified seems to be a problem.
Also I just created a folder in a folder on the BigDisk with the GUI interface and it shows up in the folder, but not on an LS of the folder. The new folder is owned by root in the root group, yet I am not root. If I try to share a file or folder with the GUI interface it says I do not have permission and need to have the administrator edit a smb file so I can share files and folders.
So much is familiar and yet different from my memories of Solaris. It has been 7 years :(

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# /dev/sda1
UUID=0cd62a40-d8f4-4fe7-9ca0-3438516f5bbb / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /dev/sda5
UUID=4fd438d8-c567-4d4a-bdef-906bf5d93b1f none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0

Thanks for your help.

I looked at the link above about mounting windows partitions.
I will run through it as soon as I can.
I don't have time now, but it sure looks like it might do the trick

Thanks
RichG

While your ntfs drive is automounted type "mount" to get the device node for the ntfs device.
So for example on my machine I see :
/dev/sdb1 on /media/winxp

In /etc/fstab use :

/dev/sdb1 /media/winxp ntfs rw,uid=richg,gid=richg

Although you can read and write to data in an ntfs partition you can't change much of the metdata (data about data) because it is tightly integrated into the operating system it was created under.
If you could change ownership of those files to your user what would happen next time you booted windows, how would it be able to understand those changes?

I thing you should try ntfs-config that will enable you to write ntfs partition

sudo apt-get install ntfs-config

To answer a misconception here, which I must not have made clear up front, sorry.
This computer USED TO BE A WINDOWS 2000 MACHINE.
Windows 2000 got corrupted and I decided to replace it with Ubuntu UNIX. The original format of the C drive was fat32 and Ubuntu could not see it at all. I formated the drive during the Ubuntu install to NTFS. The D drive, the one I am trying to gain read write and ownership to was already NTFS and recognized by Ubuntu.
Now I have Ubuntu only on my C drive and it is 100% configured by Ubuntu.
The D drive has ALL MY OLD DATA FILES, ALL MY RECORDS, ALL MY PURCHASE AND SALES RECORDS. All I want is to be able to open and use those files with the programs in OpenOffice 3.0.
I can open and read them but not write to them, I can't delete them, I can make new ones, but that doesn't help unless I want to copy every old file to a new one. I am 62 years old, I don't have enough years to do all that.

If I had the real root authority/password I should be able to log in as root and change the files and folder to be owned by any user I chose.
Ubuntu will not allow that, I guess, because someone has decided to protect something by keeping the root password a big secret. Part of that protection is written into the sudo command it seems. So sudo does not give total root authority.

Now I have another suggestion to get back to and see if it will get me around the real problem.

BTW I do not wish to take this machine back to a windows box if I can avoid it.

Thanks for everyones help, this truely is a fantastic group of very smart and helpful people and I really really appreciate what you all do.

if you want to explorer your file as root, you can open nautilus as root

press alt+f2, a small box will appear, type

gksu nautilus (it will be ask your password)

Then, now you can explore your file as root ...

This seems to answer the question.
I was able to log in as root changed the password and still couldn't change anything in the file system.
Never heard of ext3 format? When did that appear, don't have to answer I'll check it out.
I guess linux uses the ext3 format so I'll back up everything and reinstall the OS and copy everything back from my usb drive.
Seems like an unfriendly way to do things, especially if one wanted to have a dual boot system and have full access and control over his system. Not being able to edit files because your the wrong administrator/superuser/root/user or whatever sucks.

But in all my years at Sun we never could, or were even allowed to use windows and Solaris at the same time and even had conversion programs so we could work on a file with a windows app then a UNIX app. Converting every time I went from home to the office was a pain but it was better than the alternatives.

Ill try the reformatting and reinstalling of everything and see how it goes.
Thanks to all that replied you were a big help
RichG

Thanks Andy Ruddock, that solved my question.