Mavericks Startup Drive read only

I can't find details on this anywhere. I waited a while to upgrade because Lion apparently did not play well with Adobe CS5. Mavericks, on the other hand, is supposed to. (I may upgrade to CS6 soon, but I like "owning"" my software and being able to use it even if a server somewhere shuts down.)
I upgraded to Mavericks today, and now my Startup drive is read-only. Apps that update their files under system permissions continue to write OK, but apps that write under my account permissions are kicking back write errors.
Any reason why I can't do anything on my HDD? And what can I do to fix it? I upgraded from 10.6.8. I see some people had similar issues with Lion, but no one seemed to offer a usable "fix."
I can manually change the permissions, but crawling through all of the folders to make that change would prove very tedious. Is there a better way?
Any help would be much appreciated.

I'd recommend booting into the recovery partition and doing a permissions repair
Restart and hold "alt" until you see a list of bootable volumes. Then click the one labeled "Recovery"

Similar Messages

  • USB Flash Drive: Read-only filesystem

    Hi
    I'm trying to format a usb flash drive using various tools but they all say that it's a read-only file system. The drive is not mounted and I'm running as root. If I try to mount the drive like so with the command
    sudo mount -o rw,users /dev/sdc1 /media/myflashdrive
    I don't get any errors and when I go to /media/myflashdrive I can see and edit all the files (only as root however). However, any changes are not persistent. For example, if I delete any files or run
    sudo rm -rf /media/myflashdrive/*
    it seems to work and ls doesn't show anything, but then if a reopen the drive, the files are back.
    I've tried this on other computers and even in Windows but nothing can put a scratch on it. I heard something about there being a certain bit in the first sector which can be flipped to make a drive read-only but I think it only applied to Windows.
    Any advice would be greatly appreciated, but if I can't format the drive I'll probably use some thermite to toast the data on it.

    Hmm. I wasn't very clear: my drive was usable originally but it stopped working while I was using Windows (I just plugged it in one day and it was read-only) and now that I use Linux I thought I'd try to fix it (I have been told that linux can do anything but I'm not so sure). I suppose it could just be a physical error on the drive but it's not got any marks or anything.
    Just a thought here, if it was a physical problem, would it be possible to 'reset' it with an electromagnet or by shorting it out or would this just frazzle the chip? Maybe not the right forums for that kind of question.
    Last edited by JJ.Eastwood (2011-05-26 19:50:56)

  • 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!

  • 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.

  • Backup drive read only. Can I copy onto new backup drive?

    It looks like my 500GB Maxtor drive Time Machine uses to back up has given up the ghost.  It has become a "read only" and disk utility can't repair it.  The error message said there's an invalid node structure.  Then it tells me to back up as many files as possiible, reformat the disk and restore the backed up files.
    I will buy a new backup drive but I can't enter Time Machine.  Is there a way to get the old Time Machine files onto a new backup drive or are they gone forever?
    I don't fancy reformating the the failed external hard drive and using that again because it's obviously clapped out.
    Any and all advice much appreciated.

    Jane Garcia wrote:
    I am able to access the folders but it has nothing past 2008, which I think must have been when I bought it.  It's as though everything since then has gone.
    Is there any chance Data Rescue could pull up more recent files?  I haven't tried running Disk Repair from the startup disk. 
    please bear in mind that time machine automatically deletes old data if there is not enought free space to back up new data. i think buying a recovery software cannot fix this.
    can you check how much free space is left on the disk?

  • 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?

    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

  • FireWire External Drive - Read Only Filesystem

    I have a strange issue that I have not been able to resolve.  I have an external hard drive connected to my iMac that has a read only file system.  I have used it for years without issue.  It switched to read only just recently.
    Here are the details:
    27-inch, Mid 2011 iMac
    Processor  2.7 GHz Intel Core i5
    Memory  12 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
    Graphics  AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512 MB
    Software  OS X 10.8.4 (12E55)
    The drive in question:
    Mount Point :          /Volumes/DATA
    Capacity : 2 TB (2,000,054,960,128 Bytes)
    Format : Mac OS Extended
    Available : 450.83 GB (450,826,641,408 Bytes)
    Owners Enabled : No
    Used : 1.55 TB (1,549,228,318,720 Bytes)
    Number of Folders : 15,989
    Number of Files : 84,118
    As you can see, everything is set to Read & Write.  However when I try to remove a file, I get:
    $ rm -f test.file
    rm: test.file: Read-only file system
    If I try to write a file I get:
    $ touch test.file
    touch: test.file: Read-only file system
    I have run the First Aid utilities and everything checks out OK:
    The volume DATA appears to be OK.
    Rebooting does not fix the issue either.  After searching here and the interwebs, I haven't found a solution.  Only references to FAT/NTFS formatted drives.
    Is there anything else I can do that I missed?

    Thank you Linc & MrJavaDeveloper!
    I'm not throwing these suggestions out the window, but they would also be exhiiting some other symptoms too.  With indexing issues, it shouldn't impact the inode or anything dealing with the filesystem.
    The good thing is that the data is all still good and is readable.
    First Aid is still the name of the tab in Disk Utility :-)
    Regardless, I got impatient and I didn't have a spare drive to copy the data off of it so that I can rebuild this drive.  So I nuked it and recreated the partition.  Now I have to wait a couple of weeks for my restore from CrashPlan to finish :-P.

  • 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.

  • Time machine failure  hard drive read only

    Hi
    I have a seagate 4tb hard drive backing up my 4tb of internal hard drives on my 2008  mac pro. It has worked perfectly for a couple of months.
    A couple of weeks ago, for no reason whatsoever that I can discern, the time machine back up failed and the message is that it is read only and I should repair or erase the disk using disk utility. As the back up is over usb 2 only and takes about two days I dont want to do this particularly as I don't see how this will convert the disk back into a read and write disk.
    The info on the disk, which I can't seem to change is
    you can only read
    system read and write
    wheel (whatever that is) read and write
    and everyone read only
    I have tried just moving  a file on to it but it is rejected as read only. I can't see any write protect button on the drive itself.
    Could you please advise as to whether this is a known macos issue or is this a drive fault. It is strange that I can't seem to alter the permissions in get info.
    Any help appreciated
    thank you

    See Pondini's TM FAQs, for details.

  • 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!

  • 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 drive - READ ONLY

    What's with the hard drives customers buy from the apple stores?
    I have had this hard drive for a few weeks now and after reformatting the drive 5 times and coped a few items to the drive a few days latter it says read only you cant copy to this drive WHAT THE F#%$
    Please help with this on going FULT with apple and its products..
    (using a iMac with a Porsche design)

    Use the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder to reformat it to MS-DOS if you need to use it with a PC, or Mac OS Extended otherwise; if for some reason you don't want to or can't erase the drive, install Paragon NTFS or MacFUSE onto Mac OS X.
    (27993)

  • How to attach an external USB drive read-only

    I would like to hook up an external USB hard drive and would like to do so in such a manner as to ensure that absolutely nothing is modified on the drive at all. Is there some way I can specify this before I connect the drive or while I plug it in? (e.g. hold down the shift key or something like that.) I have found all sorts of posts from folks who wanted to know how to turn off read-only mode, but haven't had much luck finding out how to turn it on.
    I noticed recently when I plugged in a USB stick that it sat and blinked for some time. I'm guessing that OS X was busy indexing the drive. I'm not sure if the index was written back to the USB stick, or cached somewhere locally. If it was written back to the USB stick, I would like to prevent this from happening when I plug in a real drive.
    Thanks for any tips you can give me.
    --wpd

    If the drive is formatted NTFS, it will automatically mount read-only. If it is formatted HFS+ or FAT, I don't know of any way to external drives to mount read-only without installing OS X Server for $500.

  • Hard drive "Read only"

    Hey guys,
    I am new to Mac. My hard drive has been working fine until recently it changed to "read only" mode. I tried to follow the steps form other discussion - verifying disk. When i clicked "verifying disk" , it came up as "verifying volume failed: Invalid request" and all ther options are greyed out.
    could any of you help me out with this. I got important files in this hard drive . I am running Mac OS X version 10.7.4
    Thanks heaps 

    Tuscania wrote:
    I completely agree with you.  I really don't mean to sound like an idiot or disregard what you're saying.  I'm obviously missing something, but I just don't see how that's possible because I used it last week without a problem.  I can't have accidentally reformatted it because all of my data is still there.  It would have been erased if I had.  On top of that, the process of reformatting a hard drive is a little too difficult to do accidentally.  So while I agree with what you're saying, how can it be possible when I used it just last week?
    Is it possible that it's partitioned?  Or that you thought it was saved and it didn't (which would be nearly impossible to miss with all the things a Mac does).  You don't sound like an idiot or anything.  We are missing something, but there is just no way to write to an NTFS drive, unless you've got some software that helps you do that.  Does someone else have access to the drive?  They thought they were helping you out by saying "what person has their Windows drive still in FAT.  I'll help out my buddy Tuscania and reformat it." 

Maybe you are looking for