Install drupal on a hosted server. The directory sites/default/files does not exist.

To install drupal on a hosted webserver follow this very good  introduction.

During setting up I had two problems

PROBLEM 1) The directory sites/default/files does not exist . An automated attempt to create this directory failed, possibly due to a permissions problem.

SOLUTION:

I had to create the folder /files in /sites/default and change the folder permission to 777 (read-write, read-write, read-write) of the /sites/default/files folder. and I had the problem

2) The Drupal installer requires that you create a settings file as part of the installation process. Copy the ./sites/default/default.settings.php file to ./sites/default/settings.php.

SOLUTION: copy the file ./sites/default/default.settings.php file to ./sites/default/settings.php. and change permissions to 777 (read-write, read-write, read-write) After installing the profile change back the file and folder permissions of ./sites/default/files and sites/default/settings.php to read-write, read-only read-only (should be 755).