On Mon, 5 May 2008, James B. Byrne wrote: > I wish to change the ownership and access permissions of files and > directories contained on this device. The device is immediately > recognized and mounted when plugged in and I can create and move > files on it. However, I cannot change either the permissions or the > owner of any file or directory on this device, nor of the device > mount itself, whether logged in as the owner or as root. > > Why is this so and is their any way to alter this behaviour. Most flash memory devices are formatted with a FAT or VFAT filesystem, which doesn't support Unix file permissions. If you're only using the device under Linux, you can re-format it with your filesystem of choice (ext3, xfs, ...) et voila! If you need to pass the device back and forth between Linux, Windows, and/or Macs, then V/FAT (warts and all) is probably the only good solution. -- Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> http://www.madboa.com/