editing your auto mount

[Bryan.ONeal at asu.edu]

Ok, perhaps its late, perhaps I am tired, perhaps I an newb in disguise...  But
I can not get this Ubuntu install do mount my two fat partitions in an rw mode

1)I can chmod the two folders to +w on group and wold, but it dosn't take.  when
I ls -l they are back to drwxr-xr-x even though chmod says it changed it.  
2)If I umount and mount again specifying write, it goes through, but still will
not let me write.
3)Even if I could get it to go I can not find an fstab anywhere! So how do I
change the mount behavior for these volumes?
4)I had this problem with FC4 but I fixed it by login in as root and changing
the owner of the  mount folders to my primary user, but I can not loginto Ubuntu
as root.

This is one of many things I must figure out before I give the box to my dad...
 Installing VMWare is the only other thing I can not find a helpful guide on...

Thnks in advance, 
   Mr. Fealing like a newb