Unknown owner,group,permissions,etc.

[Albert Wagner]

I have a partition of common data, meant to be shared by multiple Linux 
installations.  The directories and files in that hierarchy have root 
specified as owner/group, but read permission is granted to all.   I set 
up in my Ubuntu 6.06 user directory a link pointing to that common 
partition.  However, Ubuntu 6.06, while logged in as user shows the 
subdirectories of that link as unknown documents with 
owner,group,permissions, etc. all labeled as "Unknown".  Those same dirs 
and files display properly when logged in as root.

Why does the Ubuntu 6.06 file manager obfuscate those file attributes, 
blocking access to subdirectories and files for everyone but root?