After a successful Drupal install, I was trying to follow the security recommendations and reverted the settings.php file to 444 permissions (read, read, read). Then, all of a sudden, right after doing that, Drupal does not recognize the installation process was completed. It went back to the install screen. Worst of all. I did chmod back to 666 (write, write, write) but it does not work any more.

When I move forward as if I was going to install Drupal again, he tells me he does not have permissions to create the files folder under sites/default... But since the installation has already been completed... the files folder is already there... I am puzzled... Could it be some sort of server caching? Since this is one of my first adventures with a Linux server, I am a bit confused. Any help appreciated... Thanks.