chmod ugo+rwx *..easy enough, but why it is not working here

[jaggededge]

I have an external fat32 hard drive. It already has some files on it. Now, I mounted it and it shows the owner to be root. fine. but when I change the permissions, it does not seem to change it. I am not able able to access the directories, even as root !.
I was able to create directories, but "luckybackup" wan not able to write to it due to permissions. I take it the lucky backup is executing as root/ but even otherwise, if I do chmod ugo+rwx, why do the permissions dont change ? (no erorr message by chmod).
here is the stuff: (ext drive mounted at /seagate)
================================================== ===
rootubuntu--seagate# chmod ugo+rwx *
rootubuntu--seagate# ls -l
total 128
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 32768 2008-08-11 21:03 HPComputerKeyFolders
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 32768 2008-08-11 21:02 Other
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 32768 2007-04-06 18:27 Recycled
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 32768 2007-03-21 05:59 System Volume Information
############^^^^^^^^^^^^^has not changd it to 777 ??? wonder why###############
######################I created a directory#########################
rootubuntu--seagate# mkdir ubuntuBkup
rootubuntu--seagate# ls -lt
total 160
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 32768 2009-12-19 16:43 ubuntuBkup
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 32768 2008-08-11 21:03 HPComputerKeyFolders
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 32768 2008-08-11 21:02 Other
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 32768 2007-04-06 18:27 Recycled
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 32768 2007-03-21 05:59 System Volume Information
##########################further info################
rootubuntu--seagate# id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root)
rootubuntu--seagate# chmod ugo+rwx ubun*
rootubuntu--seagate# pwd
/seagate
rootubuntu--seagate# ls -l
total 160
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 32768 2008-08-11 21:03 HPComputerKeyFolders
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 32768 2008-08-11 21:02 Other
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 32768 2007-04-06 18:27 Recycled
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 32768 2007-03-21 05:59 System Volume Information
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 32768 2009-12-19 16:43 ubuntuBkup
############^^^^^^^^^^^^^has not changd it to 777 ??? wonder why###############

any help for this newbie appreciated.
--Thanks

[OldGrantonian]

I'm not sure that you can change permissions on a mounted FAT32 partition.

Also, I'm not sure that you can use all this fancy ugo+rwx stuff. Maybe FAT32 only understands the old UNIX chmod 777

umask is also important

Here are some googled links. Each link seems to contribute a piece of the puzzle:

Mounting a FAT32 drive in linux? - *nix Hardware Configuration
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/mis...partition.html
FAT permissions problem | TuxRadar Linux
.

[D-cat]

FAT does not have permission structures, period; chmod is completely ineffective on a FAT partition. What ever the umask is on mount, that's the inversion for permissions on every file and directory on the FAT partition. This generally means by default only root has full access.

Set umask=0 as a mount option, then all files and folders will be 777; fully accessable to everybody.

[jaggededge]

Thanks for your suggestions.
Meanwhile, I did get the luckybackup to work. I explicitly ran it as root, from command line.So it was able to create the directory.
I will try the umask=0 route as well.