Many to Many selection problem

[rayge99]

Ive been trying to figure this out for 2 days now. maybe my brain is fried but heres what im trying to do.
Im trying to gather all records related to a group in 3 sets.
set 1 uses a field in the File table called allow all.
set 2 uses the Link table below to gather all records With the group id

Set 3 is the problem....

I have a link table that looks like this

file_id group_id
3 1
2 2
2 1
6 2
5 2

what im trying to do is gather the file_id WITHOUT the group ID of 1
But the catch is that the file ID of 2 shouldnt show up because it DOES have the id of 1 but has others too.

Here is the query i tried to use but obviously doesnt work properly

SELECT *
FROM pportal_files, pportal_files_groups
WHERE 1
AND pportal_files.id = pportal_files_groups.file_id
AND pportal_files_groups.group_id != '1'
LIMIT 0,10

Do you follow this at all?
IF you need more info just lemme know.

THanks for any help.

[hardline]

Try checking the file_id against the list which is associated with group_id 1.

SELECT *

FROM pportal_files, pportal_files_groups

WHERE 1

AND pportal_files.id = pportal_files_groups.file_id

AND pportal_files_groups.group_id != '1'
AND pportal_files_groups.file_id NOT IN (SELECT file_id FROM pportal_files_groups WHERE group_id='1')

That syntax might not be perfect, as I'm sort of a beginner, but if you haven't tried this, it's something to look into.