An External Hard Drive says read only, I want to write to this drive. How do I change this?

My external hard drive, which is connected via firewire, changed to a read only drive. I want to write to this drive. How do I change the setting to write to the drive?

If the drive comes from the Windows world, it will probably have an NTFS format. MacOS doesn't like NTFS and won't write to it. Would have to get some third party driver to enable writing.

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External hard disc is read only on my MacBook air and I can't safe and export files on it, how can I change that

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If that doesn't help, the directory structure may be damaged. See if you can Repair it, per #6 in Using Disk Utility.

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Error says my External backup hard drive is read only

I have a WD External drive that I use for my Time Machine backup. I turned on the computer today and it says it cannot backup because the drive is read only. It appears on the desktop and in the Finder window. When I open Time Machine preferences, it's identified as the backup disk. But when I choose "backup now", I get that message (it's read only).
Do I have to partition this again using Disk Utility or is there a simpler solution? Thank you,

See #C6 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

External Hard Drive Becomes Read Only

I have a LaCie Hard Drive that Time Machine has been backing up to for about 4 days now. All of a sudden, the external hard drive is read only. When I go into Get Info for the hard drive, I can't even change the read/write permissions - it's all grayed out. This is the second time it's happened. The first time was on a Western Digital MyBook. TM fried that drive. At least this drive hasn't disappeared like the last time.
I've now changed the Time Machine backup to my second hard drive on my Mac Pro (which is screaming along, as opposed to the FW800 [!!] backup on my La Cie, whose file transfers are slo-o-o-w).
The idea behind backing up onto the external was so that if I ever needed to leave during a fire or earthquake, I could bring this with me and not worry if my computer was destroyed. Insurance would replace the computer, and I could replace my system.
If it weren't formatted properly, it wouldn't have been backing up for the last few days.
Can anyone help?
Message was edited by: Theresa Mesa

Thank you to everyone who has posted about this issue -- it just happened to me AGAIN this morning (this is my 3rd time), after I installed the 10.5.2 update. The first two times were right after I hooked up my external Iomega 500GB drive to use with Time Machine and I thought it was something I was doing. Then it seemed to work fine for a couple months so I thought the problem was over. Guess not! It is frustrating because I just lost about 2 months worth of backups. So finally I searched Apple's discussion forums and saw that I am not alone. However, no one was really posting a solution other than to say "reformat the drive".
So I did a Google search about this topic and encountered the following article. I have just gone through the steps he outlines and although I won't know for awhile if it works, I figure at this point it can't hurt to try. I hope this proves useful to others as well. (One note -- in his article, he says to skip the Erase tab and go right to the Partition tab. If you don't see the Partition tab, first erase your corrupt Time Machine backup disk and then follow his steps.)
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/apple/leopard-disk-utility-format-issue-screws-with-t ime-machine-but-theres-an-easy-fix-316573.php
Cheers ~
Message was edited by: sneebish

External hard drive becomes "read only" and won't let Time Machine back up

I have an external hard drive for back up, and it has been working fine until recently.
There is a version of 10.6.6 loaded on it also.
The back up will fail every few days. When I do some checking, the back up drive is "read only" but I am not able to switch it to read/write. I cannot repair it with Disk Utility as the repair buttons are grayed out.
I can run DiskWarrior and it will fix it, but it runs super slow and takes all the memory to do it. I can barely use my e mail while it's running.
Anyone know what's going on?

System log says:
3/27/11 8:01:19 AM com.apple.backupd-auto[1559] Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup - time machine destination not resolvable.
It's read only because:
A: I cannot do repairs under Disk Utility, the buttons are grayed out.
B: I right click and "Get Info" and if I click on the lock icon, nothing happens.
C: The disk is not listed in the Time Machine backups.
I will try to take better notes the next time it happens and give you the exact messages.
There is another drive daisy chained to this external drive which holds my music. The music drive does not have a Mac OS installed on it and is only for storage. It works properly.

My external hard drive is read only

Hey guys,
I'm just transferring stuff from a windows pc and i had all my music on my external hard drive. Well i set my default iTunes folder back to my external on my new mac but my hard drive is read only so it won't let me download anything after i buy it. How can i change it from read only?
Thanks

If the external drive is formatted NTFS, OSX can read but not write to it.
MacFUSE is supposed to add NTFS write support to OSX
<http://julipedia.blogspot.com/2007/03/ntfs-readwrite-support-for-mac-os-x.html> , but it may be safer to copy the data from the drive, the re-format it to Mac Extended (or FAT32 if you still want to use in on Windows). Re-formatting will erase the disk, so save the data first.

I am connecting an external USB HDD and I can see it on my Apple Macbook Air. BUT this drive is READ only. How can I write to it?

I am connecting an external USB HDD and I can see it on my Apple Macbook Air. BUT this drive is READ only. How can I write to it?

Drive Partition and Format
1.Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

TS1550 OSX Upgrade (Mountain Lion) turned external drive to "read-only" and now I can not do back-ups on time machine. How do I fix this?

I recently upgraded to mountain lion, latest version OS and now my external drives are read-only. They are formatted Mac OS Extended and I have been using one of them for Time Machine. How do I fix?
Thanks

http://pondini.org/TM/C6.html

Seagate Drive as Read Only

Hi I was using my External Seagate 3 TB Hard Drive on a Mac Mini that I just Borrowed from a friend and I just bought my Mac Pro now when I use this Hard Drive in the Mac Pro seems to be Read Only but if I conect it back into th Mac Mini appears as Write and Read, how can I change that????

maybe the mini has NTFS driver from someone like Paragon and the Seagate drive and any NTFS volume would be read-only normally unless you use 3rd party driver.
Paragon updated their NTFS to v. 11 to support Mavericks and better support 10.6.8 and up.

External harddrive limited to 'read only'

I have a hard drive that is set to 'read only' and is formatted as NTFS. How can I change this so that I can save files to the disk, without reformattin and losing everything on the drive?

Best is to connect that external to a Windows PC, Copy all the files off it then format it either FAT32 or exFAT on the Windows PC. That way both Windows and OS X can write and read from it.
3rd party software will work but can be problematic.

Hard disk becomming read-only ?

hi all,
I've been having a curious problem for about a year now. After a few days not so intensive usage, my iMac's hard disk becomes read-only. Most programs become unusable of course, some actually work as long as they don't try to write anything...
Symptoms:
system.log isn't written to anymore (so no system error reported);
terminal works I can "ls" here and there, but mkdir, touch, or anything like that fails.
And worst, I did a clean format re-install (going from tiger to leopard), and the problem still apears.
I'm assuming it's the disk, but I get no bad blocks error in the logs (well those can't be written too, okay
Anyones gone thrue that before I replace the hard drive with a new one ?

Hi ncksayer -
Greetings and welcome to the Apple boards.
I have not experienced your particular problem but it does sound like the drive can be an issue.
I have replaced the hard drive on an iMac of your series. If you are at all handy and not afraid to open it up it is quite easy.
Luck-
-DaddyPaycheck

An External Hard Drive says read only, I want to write to this drive. How do I change this?

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