mounting harddrive

[blahblahblah]

ok im getting angry at this... i have been trying to get it forever

i go in terminal, make a windows directory, mount it like: mount /dev/hda1 /home/Drew/windows,
then in fstab i add this line:
/dev/hda1 /home/Drew/windows vfat user,uid=500,gid=500 0 0

but when i boot the windows directory either A) isnt there anymore or B) has a padlock on it.
if it is still there after booting i have to umount it and mount it again.
i know that the line i added in fstab is supposed to give access for users, because it is pissing me off that i can only access files as root and that i have to run everything from terminal.

any help as to why it wont mount and give user access would be greatly appreciated.
thank you.

[Stephen]

i go in terminal, make a windows directory, mount it like: mount /dev/hda1 /home/Drew/windows,
then in fstab i add this line:
/dev/hda1 /home/Drew/windows vfat user,uid=500,gid=500 0 0

Well to start with where did you get the uid & gid=500 from if you are using user knoppix it should be uid & gid=1000 and this is not needed anyway to find the correct number use id in a console window as your user. It's been awhile but I believe the line should read something like this:

/dev/hda1 /home/drew/windows vfat rw,user,auto 0 0

Also you should make a directory /windows off the / or /mnt directories to to use as your mount point ie. /windows or /mnt/windows this would be done as root.

[blahblahblah]

that line that you gave me did not work.
i got the uid & gid 500 from someone who was trying to help me. as im new to linux i dont really know much at all.

i just replaced the 500's with 1000's and it works fine now. thank you.