External OS X formatted drive keeps switching to Read Only

Since completing the upgrade to 10.7.2, my generic external eSATA drive case holding a Caviar Green drive decides randomly that it should be read only, despite having been formatted as OS X Journalled. Disk utiliy says that permissions have errors but I cannot repair them. It also says taht the drive is not journaled which it was set up to be.
Using Get Info shows system as Read & Write, wheel and everyone as Read Only. Unlocking with the admin id does not allow changes to be made to the Read Only settings and consequently my Carbon Copy Clone update fails every time as did the Super Duper method I was using previously.
The point of an extra backup is to keep it up to date, not to have to format the idiot thing every couple of days.
It happened again today and given the lack of any kind of solutions found with Google, I tried to add an authorized user. I clicked the plus sign and selected my own id. After accepting, the id was not added, nor was the Administrator group when I tried to add that. However for reasons I do not understand I was now able to change wheel and everyone to Read & Write. I was able to get CCC to do its update but I continue to have issues making the privilege correction stick.
Once I was able to filter out all the dreck about NTFS mounts, I discovered that A LOT of users were complaining about this happening and all the "helpful" advice was to reformat and start over. That's not particularly helpful as it does not fix the problem or prevent it from happening again.
I don't know if the workaround I discovered will work again and I suspect that since both Super Duper and CCC actually call the open source service called rsync, there may be a bug in rsync in OS X 10.7
Anyone know the root cause and the permanent fix?
Thanks!
Ross

More info. It's not RSYNC. My LaCIE USB3 drive that has worked flawlessly as a RW volume decided that it is Read-Only. My trick above does not work. What a pain in the butt this is, and no answers from Apple as to why this happens.

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This has happened to me twice now. I have inserted a USB drive (formatted for FAT32) into Macbook. The USB drive has been fine for a while on both my Macbook and my Windows 7 computer. Then suddenly and spontaneously switched to read only while inserted into Macbook, without any action on my part. I have OS 10.8.5 installed on my Macbook Air. Anyone else have this problem?

Does your USB drive have a lock switch like SD cards? I have found that sometimes my SD cards will show the same behavior, it is because the lock switch got moved during insertion.
Also usally just ejecting and plugging in resolves the problem.
What is the brand and model of your flash drive?

VFAT drive keeps turning into read only

I notice that I one of my mounted VFAT drives, after online for a while, is becoming read only. Why would this happen? To resolve it, I have to umount and then mount it. After a while, I have to do it again. Here's the relevant line in my fstab:
/dev/hdb1 /mnt/back vfat auto,umask=000,uid=1000,gid=100 0 0
My user id and gid are the ones you see above. Here's an ls -l output of that partition:
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brain0 wrote:Check your syslog (/var/log/*). There might be something that tells you the reason (though I've only such this behaviour with ext2/3 so far).
Found this for that day:
Feb 7 11:43:17 tux FAT: Filesystem panic (dev hdb1)
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fsck -t vfat -a /mnt/back
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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.

[solved] External drive automatically mounted as read-only

Hi folks,
I have a strange issue with an external drive automatically mounted as read-only whenever I plug it to my laptop :
[sclarckone@archLaptop ~]$ mount
/dev/sdb1 on /run/media/sclarckone/dd type ntfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uid=1000,gid=100,fmask=0177,dmask=077,nls=utf8,errors=continue,mft_zone_multiplier=1,uhelper=udisks2)
And I can't remount it as read-write :
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mount: cannot remount /dev/sdb1 read-write, is write-protected
But of course, I'm able to mount it as read-write on other operating systems.
I have udisks and udisks2 installed on my system. I also belong to the storage group so I thought I could mount a filesystem as a normal user but I can't :
[sclarckone@archLaptop ~]$ mount /dev/sdb1 dd/
mount: only root can do that
I don't know whether it is relevant to this problem, but I have systemd and polkit installed as well... Does anybody has an idea of where the problem could come from ?
Thanks for your help !
Last edited by sclarckone (2012-12-13 21:45:04)

Check out following file :
/usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.udisks.policy
Look for mount a device and It should have configuration like :
<action id="org.freedesktop.udisks.filesystem-mount">
<description>Mount a device</description>
<description xml:lang="da">MontÃ©r en enhed</description>
<message>Authentication is required to mount the device</message>
<message xml:lang="da">Autorisering er pÃ¥krÃ¦vet for at montere et fil system</message>
<defaults>
<allow_any>no</allow_any>
<allow_inactive>no</allow_inactive>
<allow_active>yes</allow_active>
</defaults>
</action>

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my External Seagate Hard drive just changed to read only on its own?
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But there is nothing there but a greyed out : You can only read
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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:
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Ciao.

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

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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.
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Just remember that Windows has to be running first, before you plug in your hard drive.

I purchased a IMac in Feb later I added a Seagate ext. hard drive. On April 29 I received an errors that the ext. Drive may be a read only and not backing up files. I'm unable to check disk permission or correct errors. Help would be appreciated.

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Click on the hard drive on the desktop, then File > Get Info. What does it say about permissions? If this is just a data drive you may want to consider "ignore ownership on this volume".
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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.
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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.
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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]
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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

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)

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.

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?
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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 harddrive has switched to read only

i have a western digital 1 tb hard drive which is formated to fat 32.
everything was going perfect on it until one day i was copying the whole drive to an older hard drive to create a back up when it came to my attention that my current external harddrive had become read only.
it made no sense.

Select the drive on your Desktop and then Get Info (command+i) In the window that opens, down at the bottom, are the permissions.
Click the small padlock icon and enter your admin password then change the Privilege to Read & Write, if you're asked to apply the same setting to sub-folder say yes. When that's done close the window.

External OS X formatted drive keeps switching to Read Only

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