by Ken Task.
CentOS ... ok ...
what are the owner/group/permission settings on every folder/subdirectory along the path to the moodledata folder as well as the moodledata folder.
On 'typical' installs of a RedHat flavored server (CentOS), web server (httpd) runs under user 'apache' and group 'apache', web root is /var/www/ Document root is /var/www/html/
Person who installs Moodle could set up the data folder where ever they desire as long as Apache knows about it AND ownership and permissions will allow.
Wonder if you might have been reading a how to install that was meant for Ubuntu users? (happens, done so myself). ;)
'spirit of sharing', Ken