External Hard Drive Read-Only Issue

I have a Samsung M3 portable 2TB hard drive which i used to back up my iMac to take travelling with my Macbook Pro. Today it has turned to read only and everything in the disk utility is greyed out. I haven't used this hard drive on any other machines. I've tried running this in Terminal as advised by KAPPY and here are the results:
sudo chown root:admin
chown: /Volumes/SAMSUNG: Read-only file system
sudo chmod a+rwx
chmod: Unable to change file mode on /Volumes/SAMSUNG: Read-only file system
killall Finder
When opening get info it says 'you can only read' in the sharing & permissions section. This is the first time i've tried to copy anything from the Macbook to the Samsung device since transferring all the data. Also sometimes when I connect the drive it doesn't appear in the sidebar in Finder. Macbook Pro with Retina display running OS X Yosemite v10.10.2.

I have found a solution!
http://www.cnet.com/au/news/how-to-manually-enable-ntfs-read-and-write-in-os-x/
"First ensure that your NTFS drive has a simple single-word name, and then go to the Applications > Utilities folder and launch the Terminal program. In here, run the following command to edit the fstab file (supply your password when prompted):
sudo nano /etc/fstab
The Terminal should now show an editor window for the fstab file, in which you can enter the following all on one line. Be sure to change the word NAME to the name of your drive (it is case-sensitive):
LABEL=NAME none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse
When finished, press Control-O to save the file, followed by Control-X to exit, and then unmount your NTFS drive and attach it again. When you do so, the system will no longer immediately show it in the Finder, but you can go back to the Terminal and run the following command to reveal it in the hidden Volumes directory where the system mounts all attached drives:
open /Volumes
In the folder that opens, you should see the mounted NTFS volume, and should now be able to copy files to it, or otherwise manage files on it. If you need to access this volume more frequently, you can drag it to the sidebar, or make an alias of it in the location of your choice. You can also view the Volumes directory in Column mode to reveal it as a parent directory, from which you can create an alias instead of doing so on a per-drive basis."
This may only be a temporary fix but hopefully it will last me until I can afford to buy a new drive!

Similar Messages

Why is external hard drive read-only on one Mac, but read/write on another?

I have a Seagate Backup Plus Portable Drive. I bought it to be compatible with both Windows and Mac, which it currently is. It works just fine on my PC and my MacBook. However, recently, I bought a MacBook Pro. The Seagate drive shows up as read only on the MacBook Pro, though it is read/write on my MacBook. It's formatted NTFS, yes, but it already works on my MacBook. What's going on here?

Nope, one of the selling points of the drive was that it came ready to work with both Mac and Windows (the product description says there is an NTFS drive installed for use on Mac). No hacking or installing on my part.
But I think I figured it out. Apparentely, Mavericks comes installed with something that does not allow it to write NTFS no matter what (well, unless you go through a whole bunch of technical stuff to rewrite the software). My old MacBook was Leopard.
I'll just reformat the external hard drive for Mac, and if I ever need to use it on a Windows, I'll install HFS+ Explorer on the Windows. Oh well.

External Hard Drive "read only" when connected to mac.

Hi
I have a Lacie external hard drive, formatted FAT, which has always worked fine on our macbook pro until the macs internal drive crashed and had to be replaced. now, when i connect the lacie i can access everything, but cannot move it around or add new folders, etc. under permissions it says "read only" how do i change this? when i connect to a pc it works normal.
the macs software is OS X Version 10.5.8.
im sure that its a really simple answer but i dont know enough about mac to find it...

NTFS is read only on OS X. there are drivers to make it writable, so you could try to get those to work or you can copy the data off & reformat to FAT 32.
if you want to try the drivers: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/24481
reformatting the drive: http://cnettv.cnet.com/8301-13415_53-10286826-11.html

External hard drive read only unless you unplug and replug in

I've got an external firewire hd (fw 400 with an adapter) connected to a MacBook Pro 2009 running OS X 10.6.2. It's been working flawlessly until recently. I'm not sure what happened and I don't think it's the result of any system upgrade or modification, but now, at startup, the drive shows up as read-only. But, if I eject, unplug, and replug it in, or eject, turn if off, and back on, it mounts correctly as read/write. Get Info on the drive shows that it should be read/write. I've tried repairing permissions and doing a repair disk from Disk Utility, but no problems are found.
Any idea on what the problem/solution is?

I'm not sure where the issue is but you do you do have it running. One thing you can do to see if it's the computer or the drive is to get another FW drive and connect it and see if it works. If the Mac automatically detects it (like it should!) then that tells you it something with the original drive and if it doesn't then it's obviously something with the MBP. If you take it to an Apple Store and explain the issue they can probably provide another drive to test it out.
If it turns out to be the drive (that's my guess) then it might be a power supply problem or the FW connection, a hunch tells me it would be the power supply.
At least you are finally making progress and can use the drive though!

External hard drive read-only?

Just got a Macbook Pro last week and I have found that my external drive is read-only, where it used to work perfectly on my old Windows laptop.
I can assume that the drive is formatted as NTFS from reading other posts, and that I must format it as FAT32 (I believe), but in the Disc Utility I do not see this option.
Can someone aid with this slight problem? I seem to be heading in the right direction as I'm not too keen on using third-party applications to enable writing.
Additionally, sometimes the drive will not connect (light stays red) but I assume that this is possibly related to the formatting issue at hand. Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance

It is FAT32. For some reason, OS X refers to it just as "FAT".
As AussieDJ indicated, you can use NTFS 3G. This allows your Mac to write to NTFS formatted drives. I personally have used this for quite a while and have never had issues. I have seen some posts from people saying it can be problematic. As I have never had a problem, I can't say specifically what issues might arise. Apple does offer it directly on their download pages:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/ntfs3g.html

Time Machine - External Hard Drive Read only error

Just recently got a Iomega 1TB MiniMax FireWire 800 USB 2.0 Desktop Hard Drive and used Time Machine to backup my computer. This was my first time using Time Machine and it successfully backed up 350 GBs. It continued to do backups every hour. When I turned my computer off and then turned it on the next day Time Machine wouldn't allow me to do a backup because it said the hard drive was read only. When I checked info it said it was read/write. I used disc utility to verify disc it said it could not verify disc do a disc repair. Disc repair failed and it said reformat disc. I erased the hard drive tried again and I got the same error message. The hard drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I searched this forum and the trouble shooting links and couldn't find anything on how to correct this. Any help on this problem would be appreciated.

See the following:
What to do if Time Machine reports you don't have permission
This was posted in the Apple Discussions by V.K. I have only modified it slightly to be more generic.
The problem seems to be that 10.5.6 changes permissions on a file so that even the root user doesn't have write peivileges. I have no idea why they did this. The workaround suggested in [an]other post will probably work, too, but i did something less drastic. Instead of deleting the file I changed permissions on it, and it worked just fine. An added benefit is that the permission change seems to stick, so you don't have to delete the file every time you change a drive.
[Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt [enter] the following command:
sudo chmod 644 /volumes/"TM drive name"/.xxxxxxxxxxxx
The name of the file .xxxxxxxxxxxx is based on the MAC address of your computer and will be different for every computer. Put the name of the TM drive in the above and keep the quotes.
You'll have to enter your admin password (which you won't see) which is normal.
This was edited by Kappy just for cleanup.
Enable Finder to Show Invisible Files and Folders
Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt enter or paste the following command line then press RETURN.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
To turn off the display of invisible files and folders enter or paste the following command line and press RETURN.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
Alternatively you can use one of the numerous third-party utilities such as TinkerTool or ShowHideInvisibleFiles - VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Also, see User Tips for Time Machine for help with TM problems. Also you can select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine" to locate articles on how to use TM. See also Mac 101- Time Machine.
Message was edited by: Kappy

External Hard Drive Read Only. Please Help!

So I have looked for answers and I can't find one. I need help ASAP cause I have to edit pictures and I have no space.
Ive read that I have to format my ED but it was working just fine. I don't want to erase none of the backups in there. Theres about 900GB already used.

Looks like your HD is full. When something is full, the only way to make room is to delete stuff.
Formatting will wipe it clean by removing everything in it.
For alternatives, go into the HD and delete stuff selectively you no longer need to make room.
The only other option is to buy a new HD.
With that said, I see no indication the drive is failing. Only that it is full. Unless you know for a fact there should not be enough data in it to have only 88GB left. I don't see anything overtly wrong with it.

External hard drive in "only read" permission

I have a macbook air and a sony external hard drive. Although my mac sees the hard drive i have permission to "only read". Why? How can I get it to work?

Hi i have same problem but quite different.. if anybody knows the resoultion please help me out.. i have 250 gb external harddisk drive was using for my perosnal in my mac book and i use for windows also. suddently i don't what's wrong with my mac.. today morning i connect to my mac book it shows the external drive is read only file system. i cann't able to write the data on it.But if i connect to some other macbook it works perfectly.. i did check for other external harddisk drive and pen drive . only in my mac it shows read. only.. please help me out this issue..

External usb hard drive - read only

I connected an external hard drive to my macbook in hopes I would be able to use it for storage. I shows up and I can parse through all the files. When I try to add a file to a folder, it doesnt let me. Its says READ ONLY. I have never set any permissions. Any help on how I can fix this issue?

Select the drive on your desktop and hit command+i. This brings up an information panel.
At the bottom, click the lock and enter an admin username and password. Then, click the plus sign, choose the username you want to give read/write access to and select read/write. Then click the gear icon and select "Apply to enclosed items."
Cheers.

Time Machine won't back up to my ext hard drive - 'read only' error

My (two week old) external hard drive that is used for Time Machine has just given me this warning: Files can't be copied onto the backup disc because it appears to be 'read only'. It tells me to repair or reformat the disk using Disk Utility. I have my doubts as this is the third EHD that has gone this way over the past month. I use an iMac, OS 10.6.8. Is this a Time Machine issue that I can fix via changing some settings - I can't realisticallly accept that two top end La Cies and one brand new G-Tech G-Drive have corrupted in one month due to their own faults. Can anyone shed any light on this? I'd be really grateful.

Please look over Time Machine FAQs & Time Machine Troubleshooting. If you don't have any luck finding your issue then please repost in the Snow Leopard forum, because TM is part of OS X and there is a TM section in the Snow Leopard forums that is where you are more likely to find someone that has the expertise you may need.

External Hard Drive and iMac issues

When I plug in my external hard drive to my macbook pro, it works great. But when I plug it into my new iMac, it shows up as read only? What can I do to rectify the situation without reformatting the hard drive?

Hi jsncrwfrd182,
If you are having an issue with being unable to access an external hard drive because of permissions, I would suggest that you troubleshoot using the steps in this article -
OS X Mountain Lion: If you don’t have permission to use a disk
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Brett L

USB 3.0 External hard drive working only as USB 2.0

Hello all.
I have a MacBook Pro mid 2012 (specs below) which has two USB 3.0 ports. I have a Kingston USB 3.0 stick and a Toshiba 1TB USB 3.0 external hard drive. With Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks, both stick and hard drive worked fine, but since I updated to OS X 10.10 Yosemite, both work as USB 2.0 devices, with slow transfer speed and, in the case of the hard drive, it has a blue/white LED that indicates the mode (blue = USB 3.0 / white = USB 2.0) and it only lights up with white color.
It's not a device problem, because both work on Windows 8.x machines. I was guessing that it was some kind of firmware or motherboard's usb driver problem but I looked for firmware updates and found nothing.
Is anyone having issues with USB 3.0 ports? Can you help me with this? Any advice would help.
Thanks a lot for your patience and help.

Hi jesusbet,
Thanks for visiting Apple Support Communities.
It sounds like the USB 3 ports on your MacBook Pro are not operating at the expected speed.
The first troubleshooting step I'd suggest in this case is to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your MacBook Pro using these instructions:
Shut down the computer.
Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
Note: The LED on the MagSafe power adapter may change states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC.
From:
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
If the symptom continues, you can also reset the PRAM:
OS X Yosemite: Reset your computer’s PRAM
These two hardware resets can resolve many unexpected behaviors that affect hardware on a Mac.
All the best,
Jeremy

Make external hard drive read/write

Not quite sure if there is in the right section but oh well.
Here's the story:
SeaGate FreeAgent GoFlex Drive (1.5TB) (THE FOLLOWING INFO WAS TAKEN FROM ITS APPLICATION: ("SEAGATE DRIVE SETTINGS")
Drive Info
Model: FA GoFlex Desk
Firmware: 0D19
Volume Info
Format: Windows NT Filesystem
Capacity: 1397.26 GB
Available: 1224.35 GB
Used: 172.91 GB
Mount point: /Volumes/FreeAgent GoFlex Drive
So it seems to slow down my iMac (10.6.8), 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1.5GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM (memory) (1st Generation 17 inch) a fair bit. Could this be because of the Format? I have no idea why it says that. When I first installed it, it asked what OS I'm going to use it for. Not quite sure if I chose both or just Mac. But those files have somehow dissappeared.
Now in Disk Utility...the RAID tab, Format says it is set to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) but then in the Erase tab it says Format: Windows NT Filesystem
Which format is it set to!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Now to the main point:
I also have a new 13" MacBook Pro. When I plug it into it, I only have Read Permissions. How do I make it have Write Permissions as well?
Sorry for the long essay...I hope you can help me. I might have two problems here.
1. Is the format correctly set up for my iMac?
2. How do I set it to have Read/Write permissions on different computers?
Thanks.

The Format is incorrect for Mac use, as you guessed. Go into Disk Utility again, highlight the external har drive in the left hamd column by clicking on it and select the "Erase" tab, up and over to the right. Then select the Format below that will be installed as "Mac OS Extended (Journeled)". THEN, OK the erasure. That should clear things up.
Note: your Windows PC will NO LONGER be able to read the external hard drive. It will be formatted for OS X use.
Hope this helps

WD Elements External Hard Drive: No Sleep Issue

Hello,
I know this probably isn't the best place for this as it's not directly related to an iMac. But it works.
I have two WD Elements (http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=304&lang=en) external hard drives that I use for a Time Machine and for a Media drive. I've got them plugged into a Belkin Powered USB Hub (http://store.apple.com/us/product/TW306LL/A) which is then of course attatched to my iMac. My issue is that the two hard drives seem to continue to work at full power once I've shut my computer off.
Is there anyway I can have them go into sleep mode?
I was considering splicing a switch onto the power cord of the USB Hub so that I could easily turn it off once the computer is off. However that seems a bit silly?
Thank you for your time, and opinions,
Robin

Thanks for the suggestion. I can't believe I didn't think about that as I knew about it.
It seems to have helped when the computer is on. I can see that at some points they are working a lot less, which is great. So thank you.
Unfortunately they seem to be still working at full power them the computer is off. I figure this is because they are not directly attatched to the computer itself so nothing is telling them to "sleep."

How do I export my edited images from my iMac to an external hard drive? Only the originals transfer.

How do I export edited images from my iMac Lightroom 5 programme to an external hard drive? It seems that only the originals transfer.

In the export dialog don't choose original. Choose specific export settings for your purpose e.g. for a website, emailing or for printing.
You can choose jpeg, tiff etc and also select the size you need, sharpening and quality - click image below which shows an example of exporting jpegs in the sRGB color space.

External Hard Drive Read-Only Issue

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for