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usb hard disk / ext3 partition - permissions change automatically(!) from read-write to read-only



I would appreciate any help to the following issue:
My system is debian-testing (not stable=etch).
I use linux exclusivelly only for 3 months and I have no programming
background, so I am rather newbe than expert.
I have an external usb hard disk Seagate "FreeAgent" 250GB connected to
my 5 years old laptop (which supports usb1.0 not usb2.0). I have created
two partitions, the original ntfs (preformatted by the manufacturer) and
a 30GB ext3 partition that I created on my own. 
=> Regarding the 200GB ntfs partition i) when it is automounted (without
any entry in fstab) I have read-only permissions, but ii) when it is
mounted with an entry in fstab ("/dev/sda1 /media/usbntfs ntfs-3g
defaults,force,locale=en_US.utf8 0 2") I have read-write permissions and
it works perfectly (I use the "force" option because ntfs-3g is not
supported sufficiently by the installed kernel 2.6.18-4-686 and asks for
kernel 2.6.20 or newer. Do you think that it is "safe" and "recommended"
to compile my own vanilla kernel? What how-to, guides, etc do you
propose?). A minor issue is that in the second case I see the ntfs
partition in /media/usbntfs mounted, but in desktop/"computer" I see the
"FreeAgent" unmounted, I see the ext3 partition mounted, but I do not
see at all the ntfs partition (why? how can I fix it?).
=> Regarding the 30GB ext3 partition both i) when it is automounted
(without any entry in fstab) and ii) when it is mounted with an entry in
fstab ("/dev/sda2 /media/usbext3 ext3 defaults,users,auto,rw 0 2") I
constantly face the same issue: IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE PARTITION HAS BEEN
MOUNTED I HAVE READ-WRITE PERMISSIONS BUT WHEN THE EXTERNAL HARD DISK
REMAINS IDLE FOR A FEW MINUTES THEN MY PERMISSIONS CHANGE AUTOMATICALLY
TO READ-ONLY!!! If I unmount/mount the partition, again iniatially I
have read-write permissions and after a wile they change to read-only.
It is interesting that the issue has to do only with the ext3 partition,
not with the ntfs one although they are both in the same hard disk!
In case this is a bug or in case I have to address this issue to another
list, please advise.
Thank you in advance
Ilias

PS: I am sorry if I should not send this message both to
debian-user@lists.debian.org  and to
debian-user-digest@lists.debian.org, please advise me what I should have
done -thank you.



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