External Hard drive Permissions changed to "read only"

I use a Seagate Slim Drive (500GB) on my Macbook Pro (Late 2012, Retina, 13"), to store movies and tv shows and whatnot. Last night, I was watching a movie and everything was fine. I ejected the drive after use and it stayed that way overnight. This morning, I tried to connect it, but the partition refuses to mount. I got a friend to help me run command prompt diagnostics using terminal, which revealed that the permissions had suddenly changed to "read only". I really need to access the data on this drive because some of the movies in there are part of an important project that could hopefully land me job. Any help is welcome.

1. Select the external hard drives icon
2. Right-click > Get Info (cmd + i)
3. Expand the Sharing & Permission column
4. Click on the lock at the bottom right
* You will be prompted for an administrator name and password *
5. Once unlocked change the permission for user, group & everyone to read & write
6. Click the little gear right below and select “Apply to enclosed items…”

Similar Messages

How do i get my external hard drive permissions changed from read only to read and write?

Does anyone know how to get an external drive to unlock the permissions from read only to read and write? Without reformatting or buying an app?

Hey P,
If you single click on your external drive icon on the desktop and then goto
'File > Get Info' a window will display the information for that drive. At the
bottom of the window their should be a check box that either allows you
to recognise users of not. You probably want to uncheck this box.
Or... You can keep the user option and just change the permissions
using the same Get Info window.
A.

External hard drives suddenly changed to read only

Three of my external hard drives suddenly changed to read only. These hard drives have been working on my macbook pro for months. When I click on get info 'read only' shows up and there is no lock icon nor is there a window that shows name | permissions, also in disk utility the 'verify disk premissions', 'verify disk', 'repair disk', and 'repair disk premissions' buttons are ghosted and I can not select them. I have not made any changes to my computer and I have read many other posts and have not been able to find a solution.

About a hundred times with no luck. Some of my research is leading to Western Digital, there may be a problem with the drives' 'smartware' software. I've been using this drive for months and I never used the 'smartware', but I tried it anyway with no luck. I just remembered that four days ago I had this drive plugged this drive into an Iomega wireless storage device and it seemed to work fine. Now the wireless storage device can't find the drive at all. I just need to know if there is a way I can change the permissions back to read/write, otherwise I will have to buy another drive and transfer all the data to the new drive and re-formatt the wd drive.

External hard drive permissions frozen to "read only"

Hi
I have an external hard drive (windows formated) and I am using it on my imac but the permission won t change from read only
I need to copy files into it and I can't right now...
Thanks for your help if you have an idea!
Matt

I have an external hard drive (windows formated) and I am using it on my imac but the permission won t change from read only
If it's in the Windows NT filesystem, you need to install a driver such as this one or reformat the drive, which erases everything on it.
(45387)

My External Seagate Hard drive just changed to read only

my External Seagate Hard drive just changed to read only on its own?
I went to get info and scrolled down to the Sharing and Permissions
But there is nothing there but a greyed out : You can only read
There are No boxes to check or uncheck, No options to change to read and write, No name of owner or ignore ownership box. NOTHING ELSE IS THERE
HELP!
I have recently upgraded to Mountain Lion and am having other problems as well

Click on the external HDD icon COMMAND+I. You should see a display such as this:
You should be logged on as the administrator. Click on the lock icon. It should open and allow you to make the required changes.
Ciao.

I have an external hard drive but it is read only on my macbook.

I have an external hard drive but it is read only on my macbook. I have tried my friends which works on his macbook but this is also read only on mine. Do I need to change any settings?

Here's my lo-tech solution (if you have Parallels) to this frustrating problem:
Eject your hard drive.
Unplug (USB) your hard drive from the MAC .
Start Parallels.
When Windows has started, plug your drive back into the MAC.
You should get a little screen asking if you want the drive to be utilized by MAC or Windows. Select Windows.
Use Windows to copy your files over to the hard drive.
This is less than ideal and not a long-term solution, but I was afraid of attempting any reformatting since I have many files on my hard drive.
Just remember that Windows has to be running first, before you plug in your hard drive.

External hard drives randomly marked as read only

I have a few External Hard drives (the two I care about the most are Seagate brand and fairly new). Both of them have been set up for Mac use only and never gave me any issues on my older Mac and were used frequently. I just recently got a new Mac. I hooked up my hard drives, denied the Time Machine pop-up, and copy my work onto my new computer. Though I was able to copy my work to my new computer, I couldn't move files on my external hard drive anymore nor could I add new files (back-up work) to the hard drive. Not sure if it's just the new computer or rejecting the time machine pop-up, but my external hard drives can no longer back up my work.
Anyone know what the issue is here? I browsed these forums for a bit and it seems like the common solution is to unlock it or repair the disk. Both task I am very familiar with; however, I don't get the option. There is no lock icon for me to click to unlock and repair the disk (as well as all other options in the disk utilities) is greyed out for the external hard drives. If anyone knows whats going on here, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

machumpo wrote:
Not too thrilled that it is going to wipe the hard drive (and I prefer to avoid third party when possible), but I will give it a shot.
What you can do is use another external drive formatted to your requirements and copy the data from your current one to it. Then do the reformat. Also if you have the space on your MBP internal drive, copy the drive data to it, format the drive and recopy the data back to the reformatted drive.
Any chance you know how my external hard drives magically changed formats?
I cannot assist you there.
Ciao.

Hi all not sure where original request went but as a new apple user I have external hard drives that are now "read only" and I can't change or save documents. Went to Get Info and this did not help. Can anyone assist with solution, thanks.

I am a new user to apple and have external hard drives from previous computers. I have many documents I can no longer access and change as they say the drives are read only. How do I change the read only to read and write etc for these external drives. I tried Get Info but this did not assist. Thanks.

Hi,
Google is your Friend
10:18 PM Sunday; February 12, 2012
 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Seagate 500 GB external hard drive allowing me to "read only"

Hi Everyone -
Well, I'm a Mac greenhorn - so I'm still learning the ropes of this wonderful world of Macs - after living with PCs my whole life.
I have a 500 GB Segate Free Agent Drive - I have tons of files on the drive that I would like to go through and delete - but I am only able to "read only" in the permissions. I've followed the help menu's instructions to do everything from change the settings in the files permissions to "read & write" - but the option is not available. I've gone into the applications/utility to try and repair the drive - but so far no luck. When I look at the information for the Free Agent Drive the specs tell me: The format is for the Windows NT File System. I'm guessing this is part of the problem?
Long story short: I need to be able to access/ add&delete files to the external hard drive on my Mac and my laptop. Is this possible? My software was all pre-loaded at the Apple store so if anything regarding reloading software is needed - I'm going to be clueless on that too. I'm usually clueless anyway
If anyone has knowledge - I'd greatly appreciate a suggestion.
Thanks for reading guys!

Hello and Welcome to Apple Discussions.
Macs can only read NTFS drives at this time. You should reformat the drive to HFS+ ("Mac OS Extended" in Disk Utility) for sole use with a Mac; or to FAT32 ("MS-DOS" in Disk Utility) if you need to use it with a Windows laptop and iMac.
mrtotes

My external hard drive will not open and only shows up in Disk Utilities. When I try yo repair it, it give me and error of invalid sibling link. How do I fix my external hard drive?

My external hard drive will not open and only shows up in Disk Utilities. When I try yo repair it, it give me and error of invalid sibling link. How do I fix my external hard drive?

Invalid sibling link may not be fixable by Disk Utility. (Disk Utility is very conservative, and will not attempt repairs that might cause you to lose data.)
It is an indication of serious Directory damage.
that leaves
a) third-party Utilities that will take those risks, or
b) re-initializing the drive (which deletes all your data) and restoring from another backup source.
c) "Copying off whatever files you can salvage" has gone by, and you cannot copy anything off a drive that will not mount. You may be able to use "rescue" programs such as prosoft engineering Data Rescue to copy files to another drive, but that sounds a lot better than its reality. You may get many files, but not get ANY filenames.

I have an imac 2009 the disk drive is damaged and I have lost the passwords I need to reset passwords I tried booting with a macosx disk from an external hard drive but did not read the drive how else can I reset password ?

I have an imac 2009 the disk drive is damaged and I have lost the passwords I need to reset passwords I tried booting with a macosx disk from an external hard drive but did not read the drive how else can I reset password ?
I have a 2012 mac book pro can I use that to connect with firewire and load osx that way? and how woudl I do that?
Thanks so much!

To what password are you referring? Do you mean your user account's admin password? Or do you mean the master password for File Vault or do you mean a Firmware Password?
For an admin password:
Forgot Your Account Password
For Snow Leopard and earlier
     Mac OS X 10.6- If you forget your administrator password
For Lion/Mountain Lion
    Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
     When the menubar appears select Terminal from the Utilities menu.
     Enter resetpassword at the prompt and press RETURN. Follow
     instructions in the dialog window that will appear.
     Or see Reset a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Password and
     OS X Lion- Apple ID can be used to reset your user account password.
If you cannot do the above then try this:
1. Boot to Safe Mode by restarting and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-S keys until a black screen with white type appears.
2. At the prompt, type the following commands pressing return after each command line:
     /sbin/fsck -yf
     If you do not receive a "Filesystem OK" message then repeat this command until
     you do. If after seven tries you still do not receive a "Filesystem OK" message,
     then the system is corrupted and needs to be reinstalled.
     mount -uw /
     cd /private/var/db/netinfo
     mv local.nidb local.old
     rm ../.AppleSetupDone
     shutdown -r now
The second-to-last command above will cause OS X to think that the operating system is newly installed, and when the new owner starts up the computer it will send him/her to the startup wizard where he/she can start a new user without reinstalling.
This last method does not actually change a password. It simply removes the user accounts and lets you create an initial admin account as if the computer were new out of the box.
How to reset the OS X password without a startup CD:
Reboot into Single-user Mode. Enter the following and press RETURN after each command line
   1. Type fsck -fy
   2. Type mount -uw /
   3. Type passwd <username>
I have never tried this method myself.

HT1364 I have moved my library to an external hard drive and changed the location of the iTunes media folder in Preferences, but every time I close and re-open iTunes, I have to do it all over again. How can I make the iTunes media folder change permanen

I have moved my library to an external hard drive and changed the location of the iTunes media folder in Preferences, but every time I close and re-open iTunes, I have to do it all over again. How can I make the iTunes media folder change permanent? I have an older machine with Windows XP.

I don't believe mounting the hard drive should be necessary, unless you have several external drives and want your computer to recognise them as folders, rather than drives. I've never had to mount a hard drive, ever. If you don't know how to do it, then it shouldn't be necessary now.
Try this:
Prepare iTunes so that it can see the external drive.
Make a note of which drive-letter the external drive has been allocated. (Look in Windows Exploer)
Look at the file location for a song. Make sure it plays (and therefore that iTunes has found it). Highlight it and select File/Get Info/Summary>Where: and make a note of the drive letter for that song.
Close and shut down the computer.
The next time you turn the computer on again, connect the external drive
Before you start iTunes - check the external drive in Windows Explorer. Is it ready, does it have the same drive-letter that it had last time? Can you go into the drive and see the files on it?
Once you can, start iTunes. (If the drive lettter has changed, you need to work out why before going any further.)
If iTunes fails to find your external drive, you need to check where iTunes is looking for your Library.
Select the same song you checked before (presumably iTunes can no longer find it). Follow the procedure for locating it. You should be able to see where iTunes thinks the file is. It's the drive that counts. Which drive letter is iTunes looking at? Is it the same one that it was previously (which should also be the same one that the drive has now).
What happens, which step do you have problems with?
Message was edited by: the fiend

Itunes cannot locate my files on the external hard drive - I changed preferences but still not locating songs?

itunes cannot locate my files on the external hard drive - I changed preferences but still not locating songs?

This work for the most part:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/20361846#20361846

External Hard drive permissions

I have a 4 TB external hard drive which is formatted as NTFS - when I load it on my mac I can only read the drive and cannot edit, add, delete etc. therefore obviously making it useless!
This problem hadn't occurred to me before purchasing my mac so I guess I have 2 questions,
1. Is there a single format that I could use which would allow me to read and write on my Windows PC and Mac.
2. Is there a stable and reliable way of changing the permissions on this drive so that I can read and write on both my mac and PC? Also as it is several TB in size and I do not have a larger drive to back it up to is there a way I could do this without losing the data??
Thanks

Great I'll try formatting it to that - will I be able to use Disk Utility to do that??
I've downloaded paragon which has worked a treat for now but I don't particularly want to pay for it... needs must perhaps though.

MY Hard Drive says_"YOU CAN READ ONLY" for the OWNERSHIP AND PERMISSSIONS!

I cannot add anything to my EXTERNAL (SimpleDrivePS) hard drive. When I try to copy something to it, it says "The item cannot be moved because SimpleDrivePS cannot be modified."
Upon control-clicking this external hard drive's icon, under "Get info" it says "You can read only" for it's "Ownership and Permissions."
I have used this hard drive with Windows-based computers, but not with this new Apple yet.
What do I need to do so that I can move or copy things to this external hard drive?
Also, is there a discussion room for just general questions? - There are many little things that I wonder how to do from time to time as I am trying to become accustomed with Apple, like shortcut key for desktop, or where is control panel or link to "my computer" or other shortcut keys - things like that.

Hi newsppler;
Since I have never had a disk that was formatted NTFS, I am not absolutely sure exactly how you can discover how it is formatted. I think if you look at the disk with Disk Utility that should tell you.
Yes. If you reformat you will lose everything that is currently on that disk.
To reformat open Disk Utility and then select the disk. You then click the partition tab. This will allow you to select what format you wish to use. I would suggest Mac OS Extended +
Allan

External Hard drive Permissions changed to "read only"

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