Changing permissions on external HD

I've got an external drive (Simpletech something or other) that I've been using since my Windows days and I'm having issues with it on Arch.
Namely, I can't write to it as a user. I can't chmod it, I can't chown it, opening the dialog box in PCManFM and checking the "write" boxes under permissions, nothing makes a difference. Take a look at this output:
[crew@myhost ~]$ ls -l /media/"Awesome Stuff"
total 32
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 0 2006-12-06 13:39 Diskeeper
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 12288 2007-11-28 01:10 Media
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 2008-03-28 17:07 RECYCLER
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 2008-03-28 16:56 System Volume Information
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 1826 2008-03-06 23:50 conkyrc
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2222 2008-03-05 16:55 conkyrc~
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 2009-03-13 11:19 crew2
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 0 2008-10-25 03:20 found.000
[crew@myhost ~]$ sudo chmod 755 /media/"Awesome Stuff"
[crew@myhost ~]$ ls -l /media/"Awesome Stuff"
total 32
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 0 2006-12-06 13:39 Diskeeper
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 12288 2007-11-28 01:10 Media
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 2008-03-28 17:07 RECYCLER
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 2008-03-28 16:56 System Volume Information
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 1826 2008-03-06 23:50 conkyrc
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2222 2008-03-05 16:55 conkyrc~
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 2009-03-13 11:19 crew2
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 0 2008-10-25 03:20 found.000
[crew@myhost ~]$
The permissions literally don't change. What the heck can I do here?

Your hdd's pro'lly using the FAT32 filesystem, which doesn't support linux permissions. But a linux box can't work without permissions, so when the hdd is mounted, virtual permissions are set: All files are owned by the user who mounted the hard drive, and if I'm not mistaken the modes for all files are 644. That's why you can't write files or create new files - you can't change the virtual permissions. A workarround (which I adopted) is to add an entry in /etc/fstab about your hdd and mount it as your user on every reboot.

Similar Messages

Changing permissions on external usb hard drive

This is similar to the other thread about USB hard drive permissions, but I didn't want to hijack.
I just got the USB drive working, as root I can read and write to it.
As user it still automounts, but I don't have read write permissions. Here's some output:
[ali@misbarch ~]$ cd /media/disk
[ali@misbarch disk]$ ls -l
total 16
drwx------ 2 root root 16384 2008-05-08 01:14 lost+found
The permissions tab in properties of /disk show:
Owner: root (root)
Access: Read & Write
Group: root
Access: Read only
Others: Read only
So I want to change "Others" to read and write also. I'm not very good with the chmod numbers, I've read the man page, but is that how I would do this? Would a simple
chmod 777 -R /media/disk
be advisable? Or is that just a bad work around and not the proper solution?
Once I got it readable, I copied the info off it as root, and I unmounted it, deleted the partition, created the partition, made an ext3 file system, all as root. Does that have anything to do with it?

stojic wrote:
There is a slightly better solution: change the group of /media/disk to storage, change permissions to 775 and add users that need to be able to write to disk to the storage group (you need to log out and log in that users before changes are visible).
So, as root:
# chgrp storage /media/disk
# chmod 775 /media/disk
# gpasswd -a user_name storage
This way everyone will be able to read the disk, but only root and users in storage group will be able to write to it. Still, if you want everyone to be able to read/write, chmod 777 is a good solution.
Nice solution, thanks, I'm already added to the group storage, but media/disk wasn't part of storage, it was part of root! Thanks for the solution and suggestions.

Unable to change permissions on external drive.

I have an external Firewire drive attached to my PowerMac G5 running 10.5.5. Until the past few days I have been easily accessing (reading and writing) all areas of this drive from my standard non-admin user account since I have the "Ignore ownership on this volume" box checked in the get-info dialogue.
Recently however I have been unable to write to this drive from my non-admin account. When I go to the get-info dialogue, the "Ignore ownership on this volume" box is still checked but that doesn't seem to matter.
I am unable to click on the little padlock icon to change any permissions for any file on this partition (the other partition of this drive is being used by Time Machine, and does not seem to have the "Ignore ownership on this volume" box, and I am able to click on the padlock to make changes).
Any idea what is going on?

I am having a similar problem, but I cannot unlock the drive - as there is no lock icon .The drive is one I bought at Best Buy, and is formatted FAT32. I cannot see anywhere to unlock the drive since I moved to SL. It worked fine before I did the conversion. My other drives (I have 5 total) allow me to read and write, but the problem drive is set to read-only. Any suggestions? The specifics in info are: Kind: Volume, Modified: Yesterday..., Format: MS_DOS (FAT32), Capacity: 319.99 GB, Available: 106.48 GB, etc... Shared Folder is unchecked. Sharing and Permissions says "You can only read"
Thanks for the help!

Cannot change permissions to external hard drives

My usb partitions are all set to "custom" permissions and they cannot be changed no matter what I have tried. I tried creating new Administrator accounts but I cannot assign any new accounts or settings to the partitions. They merely appear on the desktop with a lock icon on them.
What caused this issue is I wanted to remove the annoying "unknown user" under permissions for an external partition. It would not allow me to do that so I tried to apply disk permissions to "all enclosed items". This did not help either so I tried repairing disk permissions and it appeared to start to fix a trillion disk permission errors that would take 2 hours estimated to do so. It suggested canceling and reinstalling the OS after backing up your files.
So I took that suggestion, cancelled the repairing process, but was not able to back up my files because of this change to the partitions that all now appear with a lock.
I have a feeling it will require some Terminal commands to reapply new permissions to the partitions, which I would need help doing.
Thanks for any assistance.

you should never use "apply to enclosed items" on a system drive or on system created folders. that includes the Applications folder, your home directory, your desktop folder etc. Use it only on folders you create yourself. to unlock the external drives you need to run the following terminal commands (copy and paste please)
sudo chflags nouchg /Volumes/"drive name"
sudo chmod 775 /Volumes/"drive name"
Put the name of the affected drive in the above. KEEP the quotes. You'll be prompted to enter your admin password (which you won't see). that's normal.

Changing permissions locked external drives

I'm not 100% positive I've chosen the correct discussion group, so feel free to direct me elsewhere if I haven't. :>)
Last night I changed the permissions on 3 external hard drives. After I was finished they ALL locked themselves up tight and I can't get into them. I can go into disk utility and verify them (they're all fine) but I cannot repair permissions. Two of them are expendable but I really need to get the data off the third. Does anyone have any suggestions I can try?

Thanks for the suggestion, pullman. I actually managed to find a similar one and did get the drives working finally but I appreciate you taking the time to post the link.

Can't change permissions to external hard drive

Okay...so far switching to a mac from a PC has been extremely painful. I currently have an external harddrive that I only have read access to. When I go to File>Get Info I cannot change this to Write access. How can this be so hard.

Check the disk's format in the Get Info window; if this is listed as Windows NT Filesystem, you cannot write to it from Mac OS X. In this case, you will need to copy everything that you want to keep off of it and then use the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder to erase the drive.
(18127)

After trying to change permissions on my computer so others on my network can access files, my external Hard Drive has a lock on it and I can't access files. I've tried repairing permissions, logging in under another Administrator account, using Terminal

After trying to change permissions on my computer so others on my network can grab files, my external Hard Drive has a lock on it and I can't access files. I've tried repairing permissions, logging in under another Administrator account, using Terminal to fix the problem, downloaded BatChmod but nothing works… Any other suggestions? I have an Imac running OS10.6.8.

There is suddenly a lock icon on my external backup drive!
Custom Permissions

External Hard Drives Changing Permissions to Read Only

Three of my USB external hard drives have suddenly changed to read only. One of the times I was trying to transfer/back-up the files from one drive that had changed to read only to another external. Suddenly the second drive changed permissions. Then after plugging a third external, that drive changed permissions. They all were working perfectly fine with my computer and I have only been using them on MACS. Any explanations? Could there be something wrong with my USB ports? Is it possible to have a virus of some sort?
Thank you!

In disk utility I had a look. I cannot verify or set permission (greyed out). The data coming back from info. How can I change this??
Name : FUJITSU MHZ2320BH G1 Media
Type : Disk
Partition Map Scheme : Master Boot Record
Disk Identifier : disk2
Media Name : FUJITSU MHZ2320BH G1 Media
Media Type : Generic
Connection Bus : USB
USB Serial Number : 560A48A291F9
Device Tree : /PCI0/EHC1@1D,7/@3:0
Writable : Yes
Ejectable : Yes
Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed : No
Location : External
Total Capacity : 298,1 GB (320.072.933.376 Bytes)
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
Disk Number : 2
Partition Number : 0
Name : NieuwVolume
Type : Volume
Disk Identifier : disk2s1
Mount Point : /Volumes/NieuwVolume
File System : Windows NT File System (NTFS)
Connection Bus : USB
Device Tree : /PCI0/EHC1@1D,7/@3:1
Writable : No
Universal Unique Identifier : C7B58C48-D6BC-4078-9DAE-CB125901A4D6
Capacity : 298,1 GB (320.070.288.384 Bytes)
Free Space : 127,1 GB (136.438.530.048 Bytes)
Used : 171,0 GB (183.631.757.312 Bytes)
Number of Files : 85.578
Number of Folders : 0
Owners Enabled : No
Can Turn Owners Off : No
Can Be Formatted : No
Bootable : No
Supports Journaling : No
Journaled : No
Disk Number : 2
Partition Number : 1

I recently purchased an external hard drive to back up my iMovies. When I try to open the movies on the backup I get a message "you may not have permission to modify that folder" How do I change permissions on the backup?

I recently purchased an external hard drive to back up my iMovies. When I try to open the movies on the backup I get a message "you may not have permission to modify that folder" How do I change permissions on the backup?

Hi
One Must NEVER move or alter any folders named
• iMovie Event's - or -
• iMovie Projects - or - alike
on DESKTOP/FINDER - Ever ! - ONLY Within the iMovie Program ! else all connections are broken and hard to impossibly to mend !
but rather do as described here under
Moving Event's and Project's
Connection - Either connect one Mac in Target mode to the other via FireWire. Or use an external hard disk !
(Target-Mode - Start one Mac e.g. laptop - BUT keep T-key down during full up-start - Now a FW-symbol is jumping around the screen and it will work as an external hard disk when connected to the other Mac)
A. The External Hard Disk - MUST BE - Mac OS Extended (hfs) formatted to work for Video. UNIX/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange works for most other things but not for Video whatever program is used (iMovie or FinalCut)
B. Should be a FireWire one as USB/USB2 performs badly to me and especially when filling up
C. Do never Move or Alter any folder named
• iMovie Event's - or -
• iMovie Project's
on DeskTop/Finder - as this will result in iMovie losing connections to them and repair can be anything from hard to impossibly
D. Moving and Copying must be done within iMovie application and Events to Events - and - Project's to Project's.
E. Moving Project's to Event's - Do not work for me - I have to export project as a QuickTime movie then Import this into Events.
Event's window can show two faces
Like this
or like this
from one hard disk Event - You can move it to the other hard disk
You can not (at least not me) move Event to Project or other way around only
Event to Event and Project to Project
Yours Bengt W

My MacBook w/ OSX 10.6.8 cannot access my external Time Machine Backup USB Drive. It says it is a Read Only drive. When I went to change permissions I found all pernissions were listed as "Custom" and I could not reset them to "Read Write". Any help!

My MacBook w/ OSX 10.6.8 cannot access my external Time Machine Backup USB Drive. It says it is a Read Only drive. When I went to change permissions I found all pernissions were listed as "Custom" and I could not reset them to "Read Write". Any help would be appreciated.

This can be done easily with ethernet.
Please follow the instructions strictly.
To make it easier I want you to do this overnight so you can turn off all your current connection to the internet.
Just go to the airport fan in to the top right and turn airport off.
Get ethernet cable and connect the laptop to the TC lan port.. ie <-> ones.
Press and hold the reset on the TC for about 10sec. until the front led flashes rapidly.
Open the airport utility.. go to manual setup and change the wireless to off. (so other people around you cannot join your network of one).
Ignore all the errors.. they won't stop the backup working.
Go to the TM and reselect the backup target disk as the TC.
It should start after 2min and run through to completion.
That is it.. for a backup of many GB it might take a few hours.. so make sure the laptop has power plugged in and the sleep is off.. (on early ones I think this is needed but I am a late arrival to the scene).. sleep doesn't affect later OS.

I can read but I can't write to an external drive - changing permissions

I can read but I can't write to an external drive.
How do I change permissions? None of the helps here on the discussions have helped.
Why would a computer company let me read files but not write? Hahaha. This is insane.
I have to write computer files for work. It's a project due this morning.
Man, I'm going to have to go back to PC.
Just need the compter to write files.

If it's formatted as NTFS, reformat it as MS-DOS, exFAT, or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as desired.
If it's formatted as FAT32 or exFAT, use the Disk Utility's Repair Disk command on it.
If it's formatted as Mac OS Extended, click Authenticate and provide your administrator password, or change the permissions on that specific folder in its Get Info window.
(72460)

How do I change permissions on many files at once?

Hello!
I recently had a large hard drive crash, and, long story short, I got all my data back but now have a different user account on a new hard drive. The permissions on all the files on the computer are fine.
However, I am a recently graduated film student and use an external drive to edit video. When I tried to open up Final Cut Pro and work on a project, I was told that the program couldn't work because I didn't have "write" access to my scratch drives. I changed the permissions on the relevant folders and can now open the application fine, but can't actually edit because ALL the medi files don't give me full read/write access.
I can change them all one at a time, which requires I enter my password for each one, but this would take a few days of work to complete.
My question is: how can I add my user account with read/write permission to many files at once? I've heard this can be done with Terminal, but I'm not sure how.
Please give me step-by-step instructions if you can! I have never used Terminal before! I am not a techie, but I want to be, and I learn quickly!
My computer specs:
15in Macbook Pro, early 2008.
System 10.5.8

In the Finder's Get Info window, under permissions, you can click the little gear icon and set the "Apply to encoded items" flag. Then when you change permissions, it will apply to everything underneath the selected folder.

I a owner and administrator. I can't change any file permissions. Help tells me to 'get info' on a file, them click on the lock icon to enter password. The lock icon is not present on any files I 'get info' on. How can I change permissions

I attached an external drive to my macbook pro for backup purposes. I found that the device is 'read only' for me. I read that I could change permissions by selecting 'get info' for a item and clicking the lock icon to submit my password. The lock icon is not displayed on any 'info' window for any file on my macbook, much less the attached drive. I am the only user and administrator as far as I know. What steps can I take to change permissions? Thanks. My 1st post.

How can I tell? The 'get info' window has no lock and under sharing and permissions, on says 'you can only read'. I did a get info on the Macintosh HD and it had a lock on it but said I could only read, for what that it worth.

Cant change permissions of backup disc

how can i remove all the permissions of my backup disc without deleting the data on the disc ???
so that i can restore to an older time-machine backup.
i tried several solutions , but non of them worked. near the icon of the external disc there is a closed lock . also if i trey to change permissions via info , they wont change .
Can anyone please help me out of this horrible problem .
greatings john.

john merlin wrote:
the thing is that i lost everything on my internal disc. and wen i tried to restore from a backup i had no longer privileges on that disc.
so yesterday i went to the apple store and they are going to crash backup my external disc and then putting everything that was readable back to the original drive.
Just for future reference, if they were Time Machine backups, all you needed to do was start up from your Install disc and use the +Restore System From Backup+ option. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't exactly make that obvious.
See #14 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum).
Message was edited by: Pondini

Take ownership of a registry key, and change permissions

Hello,
I am writing a powershell script to configure a W2008-R2 Server. In one of the steps, I need to take ownership of an existing registry key, and then give full control permissions to the administrators.
I have done this:
$acl = Get-Acl $key
$me = [System.Security.Principal.NTAccount]"$env:userdomain\$env:username"
$acl.SetOwner($me)
$person = [System.Security.Principal.NTAccount]"Administrators"
$access = [System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryRights]"FullControl"
$inheritance = [System.Security.AccessControl.InheritanceFlags]"None"
$propagation = [System.Security.AccessControl.PropagationFlags]"None"
$type = [System.Security.AccessControl.AccessControlType]"Allow"
$rule = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryAccessRule($person,$access,$inheritance,$propagation,$type)
$acl.AddAccessRule($rule)
Set-Acl $key $acl
But it fails in "set-acl" command, with the message "Set-Acl : Requested registry access is not allowed."
Any ideas of how to do this? or if it is even possible?
Thank you!

Here is the code to take ownership of a registry key. You first need to set the SeTakeOwnership permission on your process
The enable-privilege function is taken from a posting by Lee Holmes (http://www.leeholmes.com/blog/2010/09/24/adjusting-token-privileges-in-powershell/), but
I've been meaning to get around to tidy it up a bit for my purposes. Perhaps this thread is the motivation I need to do this. I should also note that the PowerShell Community Extensions has cmdlets to work with tokens already.
I also never tested whether you can do the PowerShell native methods of get-acl set-acl if you set the token. I don't have time to play with that now, but if you want to try it and let us know if it works that would be great. The opensubkey method
I'm using I've documented here for changing permissions when you don't have permissions: http://powertoe.wordpress.com/2010/08/28/controlling-registry-acl-permissions-with-powershell/
function enable-privilege {
param(
## The privilege to adjust. This set is taken from
## http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb530716(VS.85).aspx
[ValidateSet(
"SeAssignPrimaryTokenPrivilege", "SeAuditPrivilege", "SeBackupPrivilege",
"SeChangeNotifyPrivilege", "SeCreateGlobalPrivilege", "SeCreatePagefilePrivilege",
"SeCreatePermanentPrivilege", "SeCreateSymbolicLinkPrivilege", "SeCreateTokenPrivilege",
"SeDebugPrivilege", "SeEnableDelegationPrivilege", "SeImpersonatePrivilege", "SeIncreaseBasePriorityPrivilege",
"SeIncreaseQuotaPrivilege", "SeIncreaseWorkingSetPrivilege", "SeLoadDriverPrivilege",
"SeLockMemoryPrivilege", "SeMachineAccountPrivilege", "SeManageVolumePrivilege",
"SeProfileSingleProcessPrivilege", "SeRelabelPrivilege", "SeRemoteShutdownPrivilege",
"SeRestorePrivilege", "SeSecurityPrivilege", "SeShutdownPrivilege", "SeSyncAgentPrivilege",
"SeSystemEnvironmentPrivilege", "SeSystemProfilePrivilege", "SeSystemtimePrivilege",
"SeTakeOwnershipPrivilege", "SeTcbPrivilege", "SeTimeZonePrivilege", "SeTrustedCredManAccessPrivilege",
"SeUndockPrivilege", "SeUnsolicitedInputPrivilege")]
$Privilege,
## The process on which to adjust the privilege. Defaults to the current process.
$ProcessId = $pid,
## Switch to disable the privilege, rather than enable it.
[Switch] $Disable
## Taken from P/Invoke.NET with minor adjustments.
$definition = @'
using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
public class AdjPriv
[DllImport("advapi32.dll", ExactSpelling = true, SetLastError = true)]
internal static extern bool AdjustTokenPrivileges(IntPtr htok, bool disall,
ref TokPriv1Luid newst, int len, IntPtr prev, IntPtr relen);
[DllImport("advapi32.dll", ExactSpelling = true, SetLastError = true)]
internal static extern bool OpenProcessToken(IntPtr h, int acc, ref IntPtr phtok);
[DllImport("advapi32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
internal static extern bool LookupPrivilegeValue(string host, string name, ref long pluid);
[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, Pack = 1)]
internal struct TokPriv1Luid
public int Count;
public long Luid;
public int Attr;
internal const int SE_PRIVILEGE_ENABLED = 0x00000002;
internal const int SE_PRIVILEGE_DISABLED = 0x00000000;
internal const int TOKEN_QUERY = 0x00000008;
internal const int TOKEN_ADJUST_PRIVILEGES = 0x00000020;
public static bool EnablePrivilege(long processHandle, string privilege, bool disable)
bool retVal;
TokPriv1Luid tp;
IntPtr hproc = new IntPtr(processHandle);
IntPtr htok = IntPtr.Zero;
retVal = OpenProcessToken(hproc, TOKEN_ADJUST_PRIVILEGES | TOKEN_QUERY, ref htok);
tp.Count = 1;
tp.Luid = 0;
if(disable)
tp.Attr = SE_PRIVILEGE_DISABLED;
else
tp.Attr = SE_PRIVILEGE_ENABLED;
retVal = LookupPrivilegeValue(null, privilege, ref tp.Luid);
retVal = AdjustTokenPrivileges(htok, false, ref tp, 0, IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero);
return retVal;
$processHandle = (Get-Process -id $ProcessId).Handle
$type = Add-Type $definition -PassThru
$type[0]::EnablePrivilege($processHandle, $Privilege, $Disable)
enable-privilege SeTakeOwnershipPrivilege
$key = [Microsoft.Win32.Registry]::LocalMachine.OpenSubKey("SOFTWARE\powertoe",[Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKeyPermissionCheck]::ReadWriteSubTree,[System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryRights]::takeownership)
$acl = $key.GetAccessControl()
$me = [System.Security.Principal.NTAccount]"t-alien\tome"
$acl.SetOwner($me)
$key.SetAccessControl($acl)
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Changing permissions on external HD

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