Changing permissions on PC-formated firewire drive

I have a Lacie external firewire drive formatted as a PC drive. I would like to reformat it as Mac but I do not have the proper permissions to erase the drive. I have checked the Mac Help for how to change permissions on a drive, but none of the options that are described show up under Get Info for this drive. I also cannot trash the contents because I do not have permissions.

Do the following:
1. Open Disk Utility in the Utilities folder of your Applications 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. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled, if supported.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
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, if supported.) Click on the Options 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 will take 30 minutes to an hour or more depending upon the drive size.

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.

How do I change permissions on my seagate expansion drive from read only to read and write? Thank you!

I don't seem to be able to change the permissions on my Seagate 1TB Expansion Drive from read only to read and write.
Are there expansion drives compatible with both Windows and Mac as I have a Windows computer at work and use my Mac at home?
Thanks

It is a question of formats. That drive probably is formatted for Windows. You will have to reformat it to ExFAT on the PC, then it will work both on the Mac and the PC.
REFORMATTING ERASES ALL DATA ON A DISK!
There is a software option which will allow you to write to the HDD with reformatting:
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/
Ciao.

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!

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

External Hard Drive changed permissions to 'read only'

I have been searching everywhere for a solution to this with no luck, so I figured I would start my own post and see what comes of it.
Computer: iMac Intel 24" /3.0ghz/4gb ram/1TB WD hard drive
External Drive giving me issues: Western Digital 1.5TB (has been formatted for Mac)
I recently installed a new main hard drive into my iMac after the original one began to die. I have an external drive that I had been using for achiving files for a long time, with no issues at all. After I installed the new drive, it has suddently become 'ready only' - thus, I cannot write to the drive at all, but can pull information off of it.
When I go to 'Get Info' and down to the permissions section, it is completely 'greyed out' - I can't change or click anything. It reads:
sckenyon (me): read & write
staff: read & write
everyone: ready only
Which is normal, but given that I should have writing priveledges, shouldn't I be able to change those permissions? Or that I should have writing permissions since it shows that I should have them?
I have tried some commands in terminal under other discussions, but I just get a statement that says the volume is 'ready only'.
I have tried Verify Disk in Disk Utility - doesn't do anything, just tells me the disk is OK. I have no option to repair permissions - they are greyed out.
So, can anyone help me out here? I'm at a complete loss! I'm not a complete noob at this, but I am definitely not an expert. I'm capable of following terminal commands if that's what it takes, but I do not want to format the drive if I don't have to (it's already formatted for Mac, so I don't see why I should have to).
Thank you

The problem may be an erroneous flag for the volume of the external drive that puts it in read-only mode. When I had a similar problem, the following steps corrected it.
1. Open Disk Utility and Verify the Volume.
2. If the verification shows that the volume is OK. If so, run repair disk. If the verification does not shaw that the volume is OK, STOP. Copy the drive immediately to oanotehr drive before proceeding. Failure to do so can result in permanent data loss.
3. After the repair function completes, close Disk Utility and start Terminal. It is located in the System Utilities. Type in the following command:
sudo chflags nouchg /Volumes/[Volume Name]
For example, assume your external drives are named Mary X where X is a sequential Arabic numeral. The command line for one of those volumes will be "sudo chflags nouchg /Volumes/Mary\ X" where X is the drive number. You will be prompted for your administrator's password. Note that when you type in the password, it will not be echoed in the terminal window for security reasons . Press "Return"
If your experience is similar to mine, your external drive will no longer be in read-only mode. Hope this is helpful.

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 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)

FireWire Drive Permissions

Hello and thanks in advance for the support.
I'm sharing my home computer with my 3 year old daughter and have set up a user account for her.
From her account, I changed the permissions of my firewire drives to NONE so she could not delete any files. I assumed this would affect only her user.
I was wrong, and now when I start up, no fire wire drives appear. No icon is apparent so I can't go back and change the permissions back.
The drives appear in the disk utility but I can't change permissions from there.
How can I change the permissions of my drives back to normal?
Any help much appreciated.
Yes, I've learned the simple finder option for her user is a better approach:)

Let us assume the drive's name is "My Nice Drive" (You will have to substitute whatever name you gave it). Do as follows
connect your drive
Open Terminal (found in /Applications/Utilities/)
In Terminal type the text in the grey zone (or copy and paste it) and hit return
ls -l /Volumes
You should see a line that reads somehow like
d---rwxr-t 48 root admin 1734 Sep 22 14:34 My Nice Drive
If that line does not appear, post back for more info... If it appears read on
Still in Terminal, type (don't forget to substitute your drive name for "My Nice Drive" and put it inside quotes if it contains spaces like the example) hit enter and give your password when needed
sudo chmod ug+rwx /Volumes/"My Nice Drive"
sudo chmod o+r /Volumes/"My Nice Drive"
Normally your drive should appear on the desktop. If it does not, logout and then back in
In case of doubts, write back...

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

Unable to change permissions on Hard Disk Drives after rolling back OSX Lion to Snow Leopard

Are you able to help me?
I had several problems with permissions and a series of other serious issues after upgrading to Lion, so I did a clean re-install of Snow Leopard 6.4 (from disk), upgraded to 6.8 and still had permissions problems which I have made worse by doing what I thought made sense - giving my administration user access to all hard disks and time machine back-ups. I emphasise "hard disks" because I have an iMac 27" i7 and 250GB Flash Drive provided by Apple where I keep OSX and aplication files. Thus the Flash Drive (FD) becomes the boot disk, not the Hard Drive.
Changing preferences on the Apple HD (not FD) and the Time Machine Backup HD to my user name (with administration privaleges) has had the reverse effect of not giving me access to anything other than my OSX system volume on my 250GB Flash drive! I can only see my files on the hard drives with the root user (which I have used for the first time ever to get that access). But using the root user does NOT allow me to change permissions of either my Time Machine backup disk or the Hard drive on my iMac ! Why oh why??
Googling for solutions suggested using iRepair to change permissions but that gives me a "boing" when I try with no effect - at least a "boing" is more feedback that the Apple Finder's response to my attempt to alter permissions in the "info" window!
Oh! and of course I have unsuccessfuly tried the Disk Utility as well, which does come back with errors - that appear to be "safe to ignore" from Apple Support's website!
I originally posted a slightly different message to this one to https://discussions.apple.com/message/16955471#16955471 because it appeared to have similar issues. It appears as if my problem is unfortunately quite unique!
Godfrey Bridger
Hamilton, New Zealand

So the background to this situation:
1. The user had OS 10.6.8 installed on one volume, while his actual users home folders stored on a second volume, this is fine but can sometimes cause issues during/post upgrade to 10.7
2. The user upgraded to 10.7 and while his home folders were still being accessed, he no longer had permission to change or modify them.
3. The user downgraded to 10.6.4 again which broke the link for his users completely.
4. In an attempt to change the permissions for his information he had the (common) mistake of changing the permissions of his root level of his drive, this did several things, in addition to negatively effecting his OS, it also locked the drive mount points in his (hidden) /Volumes/ folder.
5. the steps taken to help rectify this issue:
A. Open Terminal.
B. TYPE:
chmod -N /
chmod 1775 /
chown root:admin /
C. Reboot computer
D. Open Disk Utility.
E. Repair permissions on the boot volume.
F. Also the following commands were run on her second drive to allow him access to his stuff again:
sudo chflags -R nouchg /path to drive/
chmod -R 775 /path to drive/
chmod -RN /path to drive/
chown -R username:staff /path to drive/
Once the permissions repair is complete the Users can be readded to the System Preferences>Accounts pane and the paths to home directories located in his second drive using the "Advanced Options..." section, but due to the time the permissions repair was going to take this step will be posted tomorrow.
Also each user will require Terminal commands to make the permissions unique for each user: (this must be done PRIOR to the users being added in System Preferences>Accounts.
chmod -N /
chmod 1775 /
chown root:admin /
sudo chflags -R nouchg /path to home folder/
sudo chmod -R 775 /path to home folder/
sudo chmod -RN /path to home folder/
sudo chown -R username:staff /path to home folder/
EE

Changing external USB hard drive into a FireWire Drive???

I have been reading in some of the other discussions about how it is possible to change a USB external hard drive into a FireWire external hard drive. Is this true ??? I recently pruchased an external USB hard drive only to now find out that I cannot use it to boot from. Apparently OSX will only boot from a FireWire drive ??? Is there some way to change my current external USB hard drive into a FireWire compatible drive or do I have to purchase a FireWire drive ??? Thanks.

All I can remember was an internal USB/firewire hub (for PCs, by the way), I haven't seen external adapters like cables; but you may simply ask in your local computer store about.
Yes, you can boot only from firewire drives. I was told that it is possible the new Intel Macs are able to boot from USB drives, but haven't had the time to verify this so far.
A possible solution may be to remove the harddisk from the USB enclosure and put it into a firewire case. This should work and you just need to buy the firewire case without the need for another harddisk. Just ensure that the case is able to take your harddrive (2.5" / 3.5" drives, connection interface).

External Firewire drive icon changed

Without warning, the typical Firewire drive icon I've grown accustomed to changed on me. It used to be this:
http://flickr.com/photos/7624391@N02/482112390/
But now, every time I plug in my drive, its this strange thing:
http://flickr.com/photos/7624391@N02/482112392/
This second image looks like a compact flash card or something, so I'm thinking OS X is confused and thinks my Firewire drive is now a compact flash drive? How can I make it stop? Is there any way to revert to the normal icon? (I've tried the article in Apple's knowledge base about removing custom icons, and so I know its not a custom icon that's somehow been applied to my drive).

..."Without warning, the typical Firewire drive icon I've grown accustomed to changed on me."...
Was it really without warning, or did it begin immediately after installing the 10.4.9 update? This may be unrelated to your problem, but there seem to be some ongoing issues with Macally FW enclosures after the update, including incorrect icons in some cases. E.g. see this thread:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=69428

Can no longer repair permissions using firewire drive

attempting to boot from a firewire drive with 10.6 to repair permissions of a different 10.6 drive no longer works.
even though there's an OS on the drive, when launching Disk Utility, the Repair Permissions button is completely greyed out unless you select the actual boot drive
looks like we might now ONLY be able to repair permissions using the 10.6 boot disc

attempting to boot from a firewire drive with 10.6 to repair permissions of a different 10.6 drive no longer works.
even though there's an OS on the drive, when launching Disk Utility, the Repair Permissions button is completely greyed out unless you select the actual boot drive
looks like we might now ONLY be able to repair permissions using the 10.6 boot disc

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.

Changing permissions on PC-formated firewire drive

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