External drive is locked.......

I have an OWC external drive and out of nowhere a lock appeared next to the icon on my desktop. When I double-click to open it says "The folder 'Back Up Disk' could not be opened because you do not have sufficient access privileges." The icon also changed from silver to orange. When I get info I can't change privileges. It just says custom and I can't change it to anything else. Does anyone know how I can access my external again. I use it for back up and need to access my files. Thanks in advance.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2029052?start=0&tstart=0
Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at the top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
If all the above fails, then it appears to be time for a relatively painless Archive & Install, which gives you a new/old OS, but can preserve all your files, pics, music, settings, etc., as long as you have plenty of free disk space and no Disk corruption, and is relatively quick & painless...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120
Just be sure to select Preserve Users & Settings.

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My External Drives are locked

dor some reason my external drives are locked and I can read only.
I am the administrator and only user on the computer.
how do I unlock them ?

You can also unlock with a simple Terminal command. Launch Terminal from your Utilities folder, then issue this command:
chflags nouchg /Volumes/"Name of Drive"
If that doesn't clear lock then it may be necessary to run the command as a super user do command:
sudo nouchg /Volumes/"Name of Drive"
That requires you to give your admin password.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

External Drive is Locked After Archive and Install

Hello,
I took my iMac to the Apple Store this morning to have the Hard Drive worked on. (Permissions on the Library were messed up somehow) The woman at the Genius Bar did an A&I (keeping the home folder the same) which did the trick. I now come home to find my external drive for Time Machine locked!
It is a Western Digital My Book Studio, and is partitioned into two: one for data storage, one for Time Machine (500 GB each). Both partitioned sections are locked (little lock sign on the lower-left). Here is what the Permissions say under Get Info for the drive:
*My Admin. Account (Me) - Custom*
*My Other Account (also admin.) - Custom*
*My Admin. Account (Me) - Read & Write*
*Staff - Read & Write*
*Everyone - Read only*
*Ignore ownership on this volume is checked.*
I did not set the permissions to this, nor did I ever fool with the permissions on the external. I now can't access the data on the disk, nor use Time Machine.
Thanks in advance,
C h r i s t o p h

I suspect if it was run on the Time Machine partition something funny happened with all the gazallion hard links utilized by Time Machine, because of the use of the recursive function (the "-R") with the change flags commands. To simply unlock the volume you would just use:
sudo chflags nouchg /Volumes/"Partition Name"
The recursive command would have started going thru the entire file hierarchy looking for things to unlock, and, with a Time Machine drive, you can get rather startling results with Terminal commands, because of the way Apple set-up the file system.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

How to unlock a locked folder on external drive when locked checkbox greyed out

I use an external hard drive for Time Machine backups and to store some larger video files in a folder called Videos. The Videos folder on the external drive is now locked and I can't unlock it. I go to Get Info, hit the lock icon and enter my password, but the "Locked" checkbox is greyed out in the General section. In the Sharing and Permissions section, instead of displaying my name, it says "Fetching . . ." and I can't change the Privilege from "Write Only".
Anybody know what's causing this or how to fix it?
Thanks.

Launch Terminal and copy/paste this command at the prompt…
chflags nouchg
Then drag the files you are having a problem with into Terminal. It will create the path, then press Return.

External drive bit locker encryption hang up , while entering password

recent i encrypted my 1tb external hard drive, and ts worked fine , suddenly yesterday i entered a password in password window its hangs up , i waited for 3hrs its still like same (not responding) i need that data its really important to me

Try try Bitlocker repair tool..http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17294
"The BitLocker Repair Tool can assist administrators in recovering data from a corrupted or damaged disk volume that was encrypted with BitLocker."
Using the BitLocker Repair Tool to Recover a Drive
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee523219(WS.10).aspx
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928201
Hetti Arachchige V Aravinda | Network & System Administrator (B.Sc, Microsoft Small Business Specialist, MCP, MCTS, MCSA, MCSE,MCITP, CCNA, CEH, MBCS)

External Drive Permissions Locked to Read ONLY - HELP!

Hello:
I have recently moved from a powerbook to an imac. The external I used with the powerbook was working fine until I began to use it with the imac. Once I hooked it up to the imac, I only had read permissions. I have never set any of the permissions on the disk and have always left it open. Thinking it was just the imac, I plugged it back into the pb, to find it was also appears locked to read only. I have gone through the web looking for solutions and I cannot seem to find a solution.
When I open get info about the disk, under sharing and permissions, its says "you can only read"
under the list of name: wkim has read and write privlige, staff and everyone get read only. I am wkim, so what gives? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

ok. my problems were probably not related and were fixed by reinstalling 10.5.2 with the Combo Updater found on (www.apple.com/downloads)...this probably won't help you but won't hurt so may be worth a try...
your permission problems probably have something to do with user IDs changing from one machine to the next. Try first to "repair permissions" with Disk Utility on your main HD. you can also go to Terminal and navigate to the problem directory and enter "ls -ln" to see what user ID and group ID own the files. then type just "id" to see what your local ID is. if they don't match then you'll probably need to change them with chown or chgrp.
hopefully someone else will chime in here as 10.5 has created convoluted permission problems and I still haven't worked out my own...

Aperture Library on External Drive Keeps Locking Up

Hello all!
I have the aperture library that I created after my most recent wedding shoot on an external hard drive. Since I was importing photos out in the field, I created the library on my external from my laptop. I now want to edit photos on my desktop mac at home, and am able to launch aperture to my wedding library on my external, and browse for up to a few minutes, but then it freezes, and sometimes will unfreeze after a few minutes, but sometimes I am simply forced to force-quit. The external is properly formatted (Extended, Journaled), and is connected via USB 3.0. What could I be doing wrong?
Paul

and browse for up to a few minutes, but then it freezes, and sometimes will unfreeze after a few minutes, but sometimes I am simply forced to force-quit.
Have you repaired the Aperture library after the Force -Quitting? That is strongly recommended.
Next time you launch Aperture, open the Activity viewer (From the Windows menu > Show Activity). This way you will see, which media Aperture is currently processing, when it is starting to hang.
You may have a corrupted video or photo in your library, that cannot be processed and is causing Aperture to hang. You can test that by launching Aperture while holding down the Shift-key. This will defer the generation of preview images. If Aperture does not hang when launched this way, it is very likely, that a corrupted file is causing this, and you have to try to identify it.
If the shift-key does not make a difference, test with a new, empty Aperture library and add a few test images. DO you have the same problem with a different library?

TC and WD500 External drive - Locks up when copying large files

I have a TC with a Western Digital 500GB my Book connected to the USB port on the TC that I use for network Storage. Everything works fine until I try to copy large files or directories from the Finder mounted share. After the copy freezes the external drive can no longer be seen by airport utility. If I look at disks it sees the disk but no partition. I have to power cycle the external drive to have TC see the drive again. Then I disconnect the drive and plug it in directly to the MAC and run disk utility and his repairs the journal. I have to do the repair every time it locks up. Should the external drive be formatted different or does it have to be connected to a USB hub. Or is this just a bug with the TC and afp ?

I have this very same problem.
I tried to copy a 4GB+ folder from the Macbook to the 500GB MyBook attached to my TC and it froze.
Now the the files on the MyBook are invisible when attached to the TC ("0 Items") but are available when the drive is connected directly to the Macbook. I have run disk utility but it hasn't helped. The disk is FAT 32 formatted and the files on the MyBook are still invisible over the network.
When the drive attached to the Macbook directly I can see a 'phantom' file with the same title as the 4GB+ folder I'd tried to copy. This file is "ZERO KB" and it cannot be deleted (error code -43).
Anyone have a clue what is happening here?

How do I repair a damaged time machine backup drive/remove pictures from library on locked/failing external drive

I have a WD 1TB external hard drive that I use as my time machine backup drive as well as to store a number of things including my iphoto library (due to its size of about 85 GB) as well as documents. I began using the WD 1TB external drive with my 2007 13" MacBook and when I purchased a brand new 13" MacBook Pro in 2013 I used the WD to transfer what I wanted to the new laptop. My new MacBook Pro is running OSX 10.8.4 (2.9 GHz Interl Core i7 with 8GB 1600 MHz DDR3) (not the retina display). The WD 1TB product # is WDBACX001... and it's only about one year old so I'm super bummed that it's failing and trying to take my life with it It has only ever been used with my two MacBooks, never with a PC.
The external WD was working fine until this week when I noticed that it wasn't appearing on my desktop. I rebooted, unplugged and replugged the WD drive in each USB portal, and still nothing. I ran Disk Utility to verify and repair the disk, which did force it to show up on the desktop again, though it made everything painfully slow. After running the repair function Disk Utility told me that the drive couldn't be repaired, and that I should backup whatever is on it and restore the WD drive. I managed to pull off most of the documents before it decided to freeze up my laptop (I had a couple of folders with a few documents each left), but I wasn't able to move the iphoto library over before the drive disappeared again. I got it back by running the repair option in disk utility, with the same message that the WD drive is failing and to back it up, and tried to move the iphoto library. It told me it would take 180+ days, and kept going up. I left it up anyway for about a day to see if it would change, and instead it gave an error message, and moved nothing. I can't open the library in iPhoto- it tells me it's on a locked disk. I checked the permissions and it's set to Read & write by me (the admin user) but then under that it says read only for "everyone." I can't get into the library to pull out my pictures, which I cannot afford to lose.
I would appreciate any help or advice on how to crack into my iphoto library on this failing drive to remove the pictures. I read a lot about DiskWarrior but I also read that it won't work on newer macs (anything after June of 2012 supposedly), so I'm wondering if that's true or not, and if not is that a good program to use?
I can't afford to take it to a professional right now, so any help or advice would be so greatly appreciated! Also if anyone then could suggest the best way to back up in two places (digitally and perhaps a better brand of external drive) it would be amazing.
If you need more info let me know!

If you're very lucky, you might be able to salvage the drive mechanism, and the data, by removing it from the enclosure and installing it in another one, or in a drive dock.

Windows 8: Bit Locker encrypted drive "Access Denied" external drive

I rebuilt my computer and installed win 8.1 pro. Now my external drive comes up as an empty drive with "Access denied". Here is the kicker: I had turned off bitlocker on the external drive long ago as it interfered with automated backups.
Running the commands suggested here:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/738c1760-c96d-430f-9ae6-1f28f5c60998/windows-8-bit-locker-encrypted-drive-not-found-or-access-denied?forum=w8itprosecurity it shows the bitlocker but as unlocked. Drive still shows empty.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Markus

Ahh, turns out to be permission issue not bitlocker (or maybe bitlocker caused it to lose permissions, don't know).
Opened MyPc, right click on drive ->properties->security->advanced and selected apply to all.
Markus

Library locked on external drive

Hi,
I was using the Aperture on a PowerBook 17" laptop without problems. I was running out of space and copied the aperture library file on an external USB drive. It worked fine for a couple of weeks but than, after one import from my D200 stoped in the middle of transfering files, I received the message that the database is "locked". I looked at the file with the command-I key and the "locked" box is not checked and I do have read and write permision on the file. I copied the file back to the internmal HD (it takes forever for this 44GB file) and ran the disk verification and permisions on it: all fine with no errors given. I can read this file on the internal drive with no problems. I subsequently tried to copy this file on 3 other external disk drives and they all give me the errer message that the file is "locked". I am really at a loss: the Aperture library file can be read without problems on the internal drive but not external drives. I used the vault feature being afraid I will loose a few thousand picutures. I gave me some errors re. few projects: it could not back them up. This was not a problem before. I called Aperture Apple support and they were not very helpfull: they informed me that they had this problem "rarely". The fellow provinding customer support instructed me to delete the preference file in the "Preferences" folder pertaining to Aperture, create a new Aperture file to see if all works well (which it did) but did not solve my problem of "unlocking" the database on external drive where I would like to work with it since I am out of space on my laptop.
Did any of you had this problem? This could be a major shortcomming for this program if it locks your DB and can't unclock it. I should also mention that when I click the "loced" tab on the information pannel, the tick mark flashes but nothing happens.
Any help that will result in solving this problem will be appreciated.
CoolMac.
iMac17 and Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.1)

Bear in mind that Time Machine will apply ACL's (extended permissions) to the backup disk so it may be completely normal to be unable to access files on that disk. If you are trying to use an iPhoto library inside the backups folder it may not work at all - it must be copied off to another disk to use with iPhoto.
With that said, if the disk is failing or damaged it may not mount in Finder - is that what is happening here?
It is also possible that the failure is the 'external case' and not the actual disk, if the controller is not working the disk may not mount - sometimes you can get a disk to work by using a different external case or a USB toaster
You will need to consider data recovery if the disk is on it's last legs or is corrupted. Frankly this is complex & you should send it to data recovery professionals if you are inexperienced - it is the best way to stand any chance of recovering data on a failing drive, but it is costly. You are also correct to se the disk as little as possible - if the damage is a mechanical issue reading the disk can cause the disk to fail quicker.
If you are intent on doing data recovery yourself you must get another disk that is larger than the disk you need to repair. Then you can use tools like Disk Warrior or or Disk Drill to repair the disk or recover the files.
Provide more info about where the library is & the state of the disk, you may not need to do recovery.

IPhoto library locked on failing external drive

I have my iPhoto library on an external hard drive which I also used as a time machine/backup. I did this to save space on my much older macbook, and when I purchased a new macbook it would have taken months for the full iPhoto library to be moved to the new computer, so I left it on my external drive. Unfortunately, that external hard drive has started to fail. I ran the disk utility repair to try and fix the external drive, and I was able to retrieve everything off of the external drive except for my pictures, which are locked in that darned iPhoto library. I have not yet found a way to retrieve or move the pictures or the entire iPhoto library from the failing drive. My MacBook Pro is AOK, my iPhoto is fine- and I think the library would have been fine as well if not for the external drive failing. It hasn't completely crashed, and I'm afraid to do much more to it. I can still hack into the in the disk utility to see the files it's holding hostage. I desperately need to get the pictures back though. Is there any way to rescue my precious pictures? Please help!

Bear in mind that Time Machine will apply ACL's (extended permissions) to the backup disk so it may be completely normal to be unable to access files on that disk. If you are trying to use an iPhoto library inside the backups folder it may not work at all - it must be copied off to another disk to use with iPhoto.
With that said, if the disk is failing or damaged it may not mount in Finder - is that what is happening here?
It is also possible that the failure is the 'external case' and not the actual disk, if the controller is not working the disk may not mount - sometimes you can get a disk to work by using a different external case or a USB toaster
You will need to consider data recovery if the disk is on it's last legs or is corrupted. Frankly this is complex & you should send it to data recovery professionals if you are inexperienced - it is the best way to stand any chance of recovering data on a failing drive, but it is costly. You are also correct to se the disk as little as possible - if the damage is a mechanical issue reading the disk can cause the disk to fail quicker.
If you are intent on doing data recovery yourself you must get another disk that is larger than the disk you need to repair. Then you can use tools like Disk Warrior or or Disk Drill to repair the disk or recover the files.
Provide more info about where the library is & the state of the disk, you may not need to do recovery.

Why don't I have a Lock Icon available to me on an external drive?

Hi.
I will first off beg your forgiveness, as I am very new to iMac.
I have been using PC for quite some 20 years, but I am having difficulty with Finder and it's peculiarities.
My main problem is that there is no lock icon available to me in the "Get Info" section, when I go to place files on an external drive.
Despite being the administrator of this particular iMac, I only get "you can only read" in the Sharing and Permissions section.
I can find no function to allow me alter this situation.
Can anybody please help me?
Thank you.

Since you're a newcomer to the Mac, see these:
Switching from Windows to Mac OS X,
Basic Tutorials on using a Mac,
Mac 101: Mac Essentials,
Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts,
Anatomy of a Mac,
MacTips,
Switching to Mac Superguide, and
Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Lion Edition.
Additionally, *Texas Mac Man* recommends:
Quick Assist,
Welcome to the Switch To A Mac Guides,
Take Control E-books, and
A guide for switching to a Mac.

RAW Support 3 Update LOCKED ALL My External Drives!

OK, Can't get Aperture 2.1.4 to open or create any Libraries since the RAW 3 Support and iLife 09 update yesterday (came in through Software Update).
Running a PowerMac G5 tower, OSX 10.5.8
The Update worked fine with iPhoto 8.1.1 and I can now open RAW files from my new Canon S90.
I have 8 external FW drives which are now all "Read Only" and the lock is Grayed Out.
Any ideas? Thanks!

Thanks for the response. I decided to try the Bob Timmons approach of shutting everything down for a half hour and then restarting the external drives and then 5 minutes later start the Mac.
This worked!
All of my FW drives now say "Read & Write" and all is back to normal.
However Aperture 2.1.4 still will not recognize CR2 (RAW files) OR JPEGs from the new Canon S90.
iPhoto8.1.1. sees both now.
Message was edited by: musicandlight

External drives "locked" after restart

My iMac is acting very strangely: after a restart, an external drive (or more) may suddenly become "locked" for no apparent reason. Just restarted and got an error message that it could not complete a Time Machine backup because it is on a "locked Volume".
Running "repair" in Disc Utility fixes the issue, although it never reports any actual problem on the volume.
I have also started having kernel panics, which I think may be related.
Any idea what might be causing this?

Hello, see how many of these you can answer...
See if the Disk is issuing any S.M.A.R.T errors in Disk Utility...
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH7029
Open Activity Monitor in Applications>Utilities, select All Processes & sort on CPU%, any indications there?
How much RAM & free space do you have also, click on the Memory & Disk Usage Tabs.
Open Console in Utilities & see if there are any clues or repeating messages when this happens.
In the Memory tab, are there a lot of Pageouts?

External drive is locked.......

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