External hard disc writeprotected

Hello...my hard disc seems to be protected in writing...ther'es a pencil with a slash...impossible to write anything on the external hard disc.....thanks

It's probably formatted for Windows using the NTFS filesystem.  You will have to re-format it to Mac OS Extended (journalled) using Disk Utility.  If you need the external drive to be both readable and writeable by both Windows and Mac then format it to FAT32.

Similar Messages

  • User account on external hard disc frequently gets corrupted - reasons?

    Dear all,
    I have recently written a question regarding a problem with my user account; in this question I have described that I have my data for my user account on an external hard disc (USB2 hard disc), and that all data in this account seemed to be deleted one day (in fact, it was simply set to a wrong path, see below); user V.K. has helped me out of the problem - the problem could be solved by renaming the external hard disc and setting the path to my user data folder in the "user account" settings to my old folder on the renamed disc; You can find our discussions here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1513799&tstart=0 By the way, I use OS X 10.5 (newest version).
    Now, several months later I find myself in the situation that the problem returns frequently, although I do not yet see regularities or the reason; each time the described renaming-procedure helps, but anyway it is annoying, and some programs who have data on my user account folder (such as Linotype FontExplorer X - latest version!) even fail to notice the change and have to be very reset with lot of effort.
    Now, as I can not imagine that I am the only one who uses a user account on an external drive, I start wondering what am I doing wrong. Did anybody else ever experience problems like these? Does it also occur when the user account is stored in a network (on a server) - which must be a very common workplace setup? Is there anything known about the reasons?
    I do not understand what causes this problem; and also, the problem seems to be very intricate - I do not know enough about the internals of Mac OS X, but (if You look into my old post cited above), if You simply try to reset the user path in the user account settings to the folder on the NOT renamed disc, the account stops to work completely, and the user cannot log into it at all; somehow, there seem to be different "stages" of corruption of the account on the external drive - I think that this may help somebody with detailled knowledge to understand the problem, but I am out of the game here... also, all the old names of the external drive keep to be mounted in the "Volumes"-folder on Macintosh HD - although they don't exist anymore.
    I have formatted the external drive to "Mac OS Extended"; is this okay - or should it better be formatted to "Journaled"? The drive is a 500 GB external drive from LaCie - I think it should be okay (I have two of them - one for TimeMachine - the drives themselves work reliably, it appears).
    Is there anybody who can help - or anybody with a similar setup and who could tell me whether or not he ever experienced a similar problem, and what he did against it (if necessary)? Thanks in advance!!!
    With kind regards and greetings from Berlin,
    Björn

    Aside from starting over, losing whatever you've done on the new machine, see Pondini's Transferring files from one User Account to another. If you haven't done much and can afford to lose that data, I suggest starting over, following the steps in Pondini's Setup New Mac guide. That should result in just one user account.

  • How can I boot from my recovery dvd to reach the system recovery C: on a extern hard disc

    I think a have a virus in my notebook Pavilion 15 and want to restore my C partition with a system back up. I made this system back up a month ago and it is stored on a extern hard disc. I have also made a recovery dvd. How can I boot my notebook from my dvd to start the procedure? I have 2 partions on my notebook. The second partition contains My Documents.
    Thanks in advance.
    Tineke

    It is unlikely that the back-up of the system recovery, that you have stored on an external drive, will be useful in recovering your computer. Please see HP PCs - Performing an HP System Recovery (Windows 8), for instructions on using the HP Recovery Disc set your created earlier. Typically, the disc set is 4 to 6 DVDs.
    If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.
    Please click the white KUDOS star to show your appreciation
    Frank
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  • External Hard Disc won't show

    My iMac hard disc is getting full so I bought an external hard disk. I changed my iTunes folder over to the external hard disc without any trouble and removed the old iTunes music folder as per directions. After that iTunes played fine, the next day when I turned on my iMac the iTunes music folder had reverted back to my iMac's hard disk, and the external hard disk no longer shows. I opened Disk Utility and the external disk shows there but when I try verify disk or repair disk i get "FIRST AID FAILED, Disk Utility stopped repairing “disk1s1” because the following error was encountered: The underlying task reported failure on exit."
    Can anyone help, i have moved other data to the external drive also and its no lonfer in my iMac hard disk meaning if I have to send the external disk away for looking at I'll likely lose everything on it.

    I think what you need to do is get a second external hard disk to attempt to recover data off that drive before you do anything else by using Subrosasoft Filesalvage to do the recovery.
    External drives are best used as backup. If your itnernal hard drive is becoming too full, you need to know how to better manage your data, or get a larger internal hard drive. My FAQs* here should help you:
    http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html
    http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html
    Good luck!
    - * Links to my pages may give me compensation.
    Message was edited by: a brody

  • Music stored on external hard disc not found after re-boot

    I moved all my music onto an external hard disc becuase it was taking up too much space on my Mac. Now every time I reboot I get an error message saying music not found, please find. ie. I have to point itunes to all the folders on my hard drive again. How can I stop this happening?
    Thanks for your help
    imac g5   Mac OS X (10.4.5)  

    I followed other comments on the forum and succeeded. Thanks! -Migs

  • External hard disc not recognized

    I have been using a WD external hard disc with Time Machine. Today I had it plugged into a USB powered hub when the house electrical power briefly went off then on, twice. A message appeared stating that device was removed incorrectly (or words to that effect). Now the HD does not appear on the desktop. It is recognized in "about this computer" as a USB device. It is not recognized in disc utility and thus can not be mounted.
    All suggestions appreciated.

    Answered my own question. Working now. Connected directly to computer USB and ignored it for a couple of hours and now it is visible on the desktop and appears to be working.

  • Time Capsule and external Hard Disc

    Hi,
    I have a problem with my Time Capsule (1 TB) and External Hard Disc (1 TB). The external HD is connected via USB. The idea is to have use the device as a shared HD in my network. First it worked perfect. After upgrading to Snow Leopard i have following problem.
    Once the external HD is turned on my Time Capsule is not longer recognized. I can't connect to Time Capsule and make any backups. It is also no longer appearing in the Airport settings.
    Can anybody help?
    Thank you.

    Emma1609 wrote:
    Hi,
    hi emma, and welcome to discussions
    Once the external HD is turned on my Time Capsule is not longer recognized. I can't connect to Time Capsule and make any backups. It is also no longer appearing in the Airport settings.
    you could try a power cycle on your devices. turn off modem, TC, and HD for, say, 10 minutes. turn the modem back on for 2 minutes, followed by the HD, followed by the TC.
    then go airport utility > manual setup > disks. see if your HD is showing beneath the TC

  • Running iTunes from an external hard disc, deleting songs on local disc

    I've moved my iTunes library to an external hard disc, so I could free up room on my Macbook Air. Everything seemed fine, so as a test, I deleted 1 song from the iTunes media file on my Air, and then tried to play it from the external disc.
    I get the "original file could not be found" message. The preferences in iTunes point to the external drive, and the song is there. I get find the individual file, but that's clearly not going to be a good solution for ALL my music!
    What should I do? The only advice I find online is to go to preferences, advanced, find the external hard drive and click OK, but that's all be done!

    You have to move the library database too, or you have to use a method for just moving media.  Unless you know the details of how iTunes works I would move it all otherwise you are more likely to encounter issues such as the one you are seeing and won't know how to resolve them.
    iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527  - Basically what ChrisCA recommends
    iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449 - moving just media but leaving all else on your main drive.
    What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
    More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
    What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
    iTunes 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847
    Image of iTunes folder structure Dec. 2011 - https://discussions.apple.com/message/16923545
    see also:
    Image of folder structure and explanation of different iTunes versions (turingtest2 post) - https://discussions.apple.com/message/13025536 and https://discussions.apple.com/message/17457605

  • How to copy my iphoto from one external hard disc to another?

    Hi, I am trying to copy my iphoto library that is on my external hard disc to another empty external hard disc, but i keep getting this message:
    You can’t copy “iPhoto Library” because it has the same name as another item on the destination volume, and that volume doesn’t distinguish between upper- and lowercase letters in filenames.
    What am I doing wrong? all I want to do is to beck up my iphoto library into another external hard disc.
    Thanks a lot!

    If the destination EHD is empty try reformatting it  and try copying again.  I don't use RAW files but there's no reason I can think of why you'd get that message when trying to copy.
    Here's another approach:
    1 - download  iPhoto Library Manager and use it to rebuild your library.
    2 - set the location of the rebuilt library to be on the second EHD. 
    Maybe iPLM will get around that obstical and let the library get recereated on that EHD.  See the Note 1 at the end of the following:
    Using iPhoto Library Manager  to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
    Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
    Click on the Add Library button, 
    navigate to your Home/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
    Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the Library ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
    In the next  window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed.
    Click on the Create button.
    Note 1: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost.
    Note 2:  your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.

  • I am not able to open few files from my external hard disc in snow lepord

    i am not able to open few files from my external hard disc in snow lepord

    Need more information. Is there a message when you try to open them?

  • I am unable to transfer my pictures from iphoto after editing back to my external hard disc. How do I do it. Previously I used Windows and this is the first time I am using a Macbook. Need help and tutorials.. Where can I find em..

    Hi there, I am new to Apple Iphoto. I am having lots of problems in transferring my edited photos back to my external Hard disc after editing. How am I able to do it. will it be able to open in Windows OS... Previously I was using Windows and now i m new in using the Apple OS.. Need guidance.. Would really appreciate if any1 of u guys could help me through. are there any other applications that I could use to edit pictures.

    Best if you try and explain what you are trying to acheive.
    Iphoto is a different paradigm than you're used to. I don't understand why you are trying to transfer your edited photos back to an external disk.
    There are tutorials here
    http://www.apple.com/findouthow/photos/
    Regards
    TD

  • Mac book air not reading files on external hard disc.

    Whenever I connect my external hard disc ( Transcend 1 TB, Ms DOS) to my macbook air (OS X 10.9.3, 1.3 GHz intel core i5, 4GB 1600 MHz) its icon appears on the desktop but I can not open the files saved on it. When I try to open the music files lets say, this message appears: "You can’t open the application because Microsoft Windows applications are not supported on OS X." Also, it worked properly a while ago. What shall I do?

    What file extension(s) do these music files have at the end of their names?

  • External hard disc "disappeared"!

    Hi,
    I upgraded to Lion on my 2.66GZ Intel Core 2 Duo about a month ago. After 3 weeks my new Iomega external hard disk which I used with Time Machine was no longer recognised or appeared as a device in Finder. The Iomega hard disc (top of the range model with a 5 year guarrantee) appears to be working - or at least it is making  a whirring sound and the "ON" light is glowing - but my Mac can no longer find it. I plugged the same Iomega into a PC and the PC will not recognize it either.
    Assuming I'd bought a dud, I just purchased a brand new WD My Passport 1 tetrabyte External Hard Disk and plugged it in to my Mac. Immediately it came up in Finder and I was able to set up Time Machine. Now after less than hour - the same thing has happened to the new disc! Still whirring, light on, but not recognized or appearing in Finder. I have also tried the new hard disc which I bought two hours ago in my PC and it is also not recognized or does not appear as a device.
    It seems my Mac is doing something to the external hard discs that makes them not able to be read.
    Any help appreciated! I now have two new hard discs that don't work plus no Time Machine Backup. What can I do?
    Thanks,
    Stevie

    See Pondini's Tips for starters.

  • Is there an external hard disc that will work with Mac OS10.4.11 and Windows Vista?

    Is there an external hard disc that will work with both Mac (OS10.4.11) and Windows (Vista)?

    For NTFS on Mac, there are both open-source and commercial solutions. See:
    http://www.macupdate.com/find/mac/NTFS
    For HFS+ Drivers for Windows, there is only one:
    http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive
    Regards.

  • Can I transfer the photos from mac to external hard disc which is used for pc too

    can I transfer the photos from mac to external hard disc which is used for pc too

    A FAT32 drive can't store files which are 4GB or larger. You need to reformat or repartition the drive to include an exFAT, NTFS, or Mac OS Extended volume, or use a different drive, or use a way other than an external drive to transfer it.
    (105483)

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