Installing Drupal

I have just set up drupal and having permission problems.
I am running mysql and apache.

I loaded the db_drual with MySql query browser

my web file is set to e:/www
and have installed drupal into E://www/drupal

settings.php is
$db_url = 'mysql://root:password@localhost/db_drupal';
$db_prefix = '';

$base_url = 'http://localhost/drupal';

When I try and access drupal I get

forbidden
You don't have permission to access /drupal on this server

The installation of drupal went OK, and so far (cross my finger) so good.
However, in order for the files to work, I had to go to my ISP. He is getting aproblem with the following lines in the .htaccess

# Set some options.
Options -Indexes
Options +FollowSymLinks

I had to comment them out to ignore them, and then everything works fine. They are not sure why this is causing an issue. What should I be looking for, and how crucial are these?

Hello everybody! I considered trying Drupal for a long time before I finally installed it about a month ago. I have to say it has great promise and will probably work great when I get it figured out. The forum is great and I've solved many issues with help from you guys. I hope I'm able to give back at some point.

What I would like to do is, offer a free blogging solution to my visitors. I've read the posts about others trying to do this and it's coming along fine, I guess. I ended up using the cvs version.

My current issue is the img tag disappearing from the post (sometimes). Sometimes the code is displayed correctly:

<div class="image">
  <a href="american_eagle"/><img src="files/images/Cartoon0119.thumbnail.jpg" width="100" height="100" alt="American Eagle" /></a><br />
  <div class="caption">optional image caption</div>
</div>

and sometimes part of it is missing:

	<p>this is a test of a personal blog entry with an image</p>
<p>  <a href="test_image"></a><br />
  flag caption</p>

Can someone please point me in the right direction?

Actually, I could use a bunch of help getting it configured correctly if anyone is willing.

Thanks in advance.

From the install manual:
.
.

Each site configuration can have its own site-specific modules and themes that will be made available in addition to those installed in the standard 'modules' and 'themes' directories. To use site-specific modules or themes, simply create a 'modules' or 'themes' directory within the site configuration directory. For example, if sub.example.dom has a custom theme and a custom module that should not be accessible to other sites, the setup would look like this:

I am using a new install of 4.6, hosted on a Linux/plesk server, and using a mysql database.

I've installed several other modules without problem. I've followed the img_assist instructions, and the module does not appear in the list of available modules.

Any clues? What can I do to troubleshoot this?

-j

Hello, everyone:

This was my first time trying to install Drupal, although I have used my Drupal websites installed by others before. Here is the problem. I know nothing about databases and am going through this pretty much blindly hoping that the instructions will help me figure it out. So, if this is an elementary question, my apologies in advance.

I used the "Easy Installation Guide" which can be found in the Support section (http://drupal.org/node/25310). It did look easy enough, and I did go through all the steps. Looking at myphp page, it loos like the database got installed (at least I see a bunch of files there). I also see the little Drupal icon when I go to my page to test it. However, on the page itself, I see the folowing message:

Warning: mysql_connect(): Access denied for user: 'username@localhost' (Using password: YES) in /home/pz29/public_html/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 31
Access denied for user: 'username@localhost' (Using password: YES)

Where did I go wrong?

As I was installing it following the instructions, I was unsure about two things: First off, the instructions tell me to:

"Change the setting in settings.php: $db_url = "mysql://levavie_u1:234@localhost/levavie_db1";"

I found the file settings.php in the sites folder of the Drupal installation package and typed in all the information related to my site. Then I upload the file to the server. Should I have looked the file somewhere else?