My External Drives are locked

dor some reason my external drives are locked and I can read only.
I am the administrator and only user on the computer.
how do I unlock them ?

You can also unlock with a simple Terminal command. Launch Terminal from your Utilities folder, then issue this command:
chflags nouchg /Volumes/"Name of Drive"
If that doesn't clear lock then it may be necessary to run the command as a super user do command:
sudo nouchg /Volumes/"Name of Drive"
That requires you to give your admin password.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Similar Messages

Firewire drives are locked in custom mode

I did and archive and reinstall on my notebook hard drive and after completing it all my external firewire drives are locked and in custom mode. I am unable to change them to read/write. I can unlock the drives, but appears that it has no effect. When I try to access the drives it tells me I have insufficient privileges. I have run apple disk utility and disk warrior on permissions with no success.

I just had a client who encountered this. What causes it and is there a simpler way to resolve it?
My client had 6 drives that had all their permissions set to custom and they were all in a locked state.
How is that even possible at all and why doesn't the permissions routine in Drive Utility solve it?
This was a seriously frightening ordeal and had I not found this thread all the data on those drives might have been lost.
Does anyone have any explanations?
As for the above fixes, I was able to utilize the terminal to solve the issue but not with any ease. I had to attempt it numerous times per drive and after about 20 to 30 attempts, I was able to finally get them all unlocked.

Cannot install Yosemite as it keeps telling me both my internal and external drives are time machine backups

Cannot install Yosemite. Keeps telling me that both my internal and external
drives are backing up with TIme Machine. Any suggestions?

Is it actively backing up, or are you encountering a dialog stating that Yosemite cannot be installed because the disk is being used for Time Machine backups?
Read OS X: Cannot install on a volume used by Time Machine for backups
If for some reason you have a folder called Backups.backupdb at the root level of the hard disk on which you want to install Yosemite, move it to the Trash.

External Drive is Locked After Archive and Install

Hello,
I took my iMac to the Apple Store this morning to have the Hard Drive worked on. (Permissions on the Library were messed up somehow) The woman at the Genius Bar did an A&I (keeping the home folder the same) which did the trick. I now come home to find my external drive for Time Machine locked!
It is a Western Digital My Book Studio, and is partitioned into two: one for data storage, one for Time Machine (500 GB each). Both partitioned sections are locked (little lock sign on the lower-left). Here is what the Permissions say under Get Info for the drive:
*My Admin. Account (Me) - Custom*
*My Other Account (also admin.) - Custom*
*My Admin. Account (Me) - Read & Write*
*Staff - Read & Write*
*Everyone - Read only*
*Ignore ownership on this volume is checked.*
I did not set the permissions to this, nor did I ever fool with the permissions on the external. I now can't access the data on the disk, nor use Time Machine.
Thanks in advance,
C h r i s t o p h

I suspect if it was run on the Time Machine partition something funny happened with all the gazallion hard links utilized by Time Machine, because of the use of the recursive function (the "-R") with the change flags commands. To simply unlock the volume you would just use:
sudo chflags nouchg /Volumes/"Partition Name"
The recursive command would have started going thru the entire file hierarchy looking for things to unlock, and, with a Time Machine drive, you can get rather startling results with Terminal commands, because of the way Apple set-up the file system.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

How to unlock a locked folder on external drive when locked checkbox greyed out

I use an external hard drive for Time Machine backups and to store some larger video files in a folder called Videos. The Videos folder on the external drive is now locked and I can't unlock it. I go to Get Info, hit the lock icon and enter my password, but the "Locked" checkbox is greyed out in the General section. In the Sharing and Permissions section, instead of displaying my name, it says "Fetching . . ." and I can't change the Privilege from "Write Only".
Anybody know what's causing this or how to fix it?
Thanks.

Launch Terminal and copy/paste this command at the prompt…
chflags nouchg
Then drag the files you are having a problem with into Terminal. It will create the path, then press Return.

Final Cut Studio crashing upon opening whenever external drives are active

Hello folks,
I've gotten some great advice on this forum for a while now, through reading other posts. But now I'm hoping I can get some directly tailored advice, as I'm floundering a bit. Thanks in advance for your time, as I've tried to be as thorough as possible in my description of the problems and as-yet failed attempts at solutions.
The project is a full length documentary, and I'm having repeated, regular problems with Final Cut 6.0.5 crashing when I try to open the application.
Now, here are some of the details. FCP will open just fine, if the external hard drives that contain all the media for the project are NOT turned on. However, if the drives are turned on, Final Cut will begin to open, the white box with the application name, registration information, and whatnot will begin, and it will freeze up, hanging there until I force quit. When I force quit, and look at the report, the only information I can get out of it is that the cause is "hanging", though as I'm no expert on reading crash reports, I'm sure I'm missing a lot.
Once I force quit, FCP will not entirely quit. It remains "open", in that I can't open the application again, and my FCP icon in the dock has the little white dot next to it (I'm OS 10.5.6). However, if I eject the drives (which I am sometimes allowed to do, other times I'm told that the drives are still in use by an application), then FCP does resolve its force-quit, and is entirely quit. I can reopen it again immediately afterward with no problem, assuming I haven't turned the drives back on. If I'm not able to eject the drives, then I have to restart.
My workaround so far has been to open FCP without the drives being active, turn on the drives, and then open the project file I want. This works, but seems to be evidence of some serious problems. If I'm opening FCP, and I have the user preference of "open last project upon launch" switched off, why would the hard drives affect FCP? Is FCP trying to read the drives even though it doesn't need any media from them to open in a brand-new project file?
Other issues that have arisen are occasional freezes while in FCP. I will have FCP open (using the workaround), playing fine, and suddenly a click somewhere in the timeline will lead to the spinning beachball. This happens most frequently if I am quickly changing clips, or if I have just brought another application to the foreground and then gone back to FCP. When this happens, and I force quit, once again FCP does not entirely quit, but has to have all the drives ejected to fully quit.
About the drives themselves - I am using 4 GTech 1 TB drives, all of which spin up normally, though two of them are now over 2 years old.
About the software - I reinstalled FCP, and the problems existed beforehand and afterwards. I may do it again.
About the operating system - I archived and installed Leopard, I did not back everything up and zero the drive before installing Leopard.
About the project files - All project files are under 75 MB, most are much smaller. Since it is a long-form piece with over 200 hours at this point, I've been creating multiple projects.
About the render files - I've flushed them repeatedly.
About corrupt files - I've looked through my capture bins and trashed any suspiciously small QuickTime files.
About FCP preferences - I've used FCS Remover a couple times, and the problem reappears.
About permissions - I've repaired permissions repeatedly, and the problem reappears.
About the rest of the system - Compressor won't allow me to submit batches, but from what I understand that is an issue with Apple QMaster. Also, the problems with FCP were there before Compressor was not working. I just today had a problem with System Preferences crashing once it opened, but after deleting the plist for System Preferences it seems to be back up and running fine.
Machine details:
MacPro
2 x 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
6 GB memory
667 MHz processor speed
FCP 6.0.5
Thanks again!
Daniel Littlewood
Editor, Don't Think I've Forgotten <Edited by Host>

Hi Michael,
Thanks for your input on this. I went through several steps, including most of the ones you recommended, and came upon what seems to be the problem (knock on wood).
My editing setup is one MacPro, 4 G-Raid drives, and one Sony DSR-11 digital video deck. After clearing up more space the G-Raid drives to bring them to about 10% free space, things seemed to be running smoother - there were less crashes within FCP. However, I was still getting crashes on opening FCP, at the same "splash screen" point (after all the AE Effects and Video Effects had loaded).
Running Disk Utility on all drives showed no problems, and unfortunately I don't have DiskWarrior (though that may be an upcoming purchase).
It wasn't until I went through your suggestion of starting FCP with the individual drives connected that I got somewhere. FCP would start up fine with one or even two drives connected, but not with three or four. Doing a little research on that brought me to two threads on Creative Cow about G-Raid drives and daisy-chaining:
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/176/856609
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/176/856570
Once I put two of the drives onto the rear FireWire800 port, and two of the drives into the front FireWire800 port, with the DSR-11 still in the back FireWire 400 port, my problems disappeared. Huzzah! The G-Raid folks recommend no more than three FireWire devices connected at a time, and lightening the load on the FireWire port by uncoupling the four-drive long daisy-chain has immediately helped. Now, I'll keep an eye on it, and may potentially buy a PCI card if something goes wonky again, but I am very happy to have gotten things up and running again. Cheers!

Crashes every time 2 external drives are disconnected

Wether it be two external USB drives or 2xesata drives (via expresscard)
Ejecting the drives is fine, but once ejected the problem comes from powering down the second drive (switch off power). It doesn't matter which way around the drives are plugged into the USB ports.
This also happens when I have dual external hard drives connected via esata expresscard, ejecting is fine but switching the drives off causes a crash.
crash: grey line down the screen (irrecoverable) Permissions repaired and and no main disk problems.
Any help really appreciated because i have to constantly work with multiple external hard disks.
*Report sent to Apple:*
Interval Since Last Panic Report: 527229 sec
Panics Since Last Report: 3
Anonymous UUID: A5AF85C3-5EEF-4DEB-8D40-D44B2380FE93
Sat Jul 18 14:54:33 2009
panic(cpu 0 caller 0x001AB0FE): Kernel trap at 0x00000000, type 14=page fault, registers:
CR0: 0x8001003b, CR2: 0x00000000, CR3: 0x0111f000, CR4: 0x00000660
EAX: 0x08e53700, EBX: 0xe00002d9, ECX: 0x08e50800, EDX: 0x01d4abf8
CR2: 0x00000000, EBP: 0x57ca2628, ESI: 0x00000000, EDI: 0x06eb7380
EFL: 0x00010282, EIP: 0x00000000, CS: 0x00000008, DS: 0x08e60010
Error code: 0x00000010
Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)
0x57ca23e8 : 0x12b4c6 (0x45ec20 0x57ca241c 0x13355c 0x0)
0x57ca2438 : 0x1ab0fe (0x468ecc 0x0 0xe 0x468678)
0x57ca2518 : 0x1a1703 (0x57ca2530 0x0 0x57ca2628 0x0)
0x57ca2528 : 0x0 (0xe 0x8e50048 0x56ea0010 0x6eb0010)
0x57ca2628 : 0x56eac551 (0x8e50800 0x0 0x0 0x8e58f80)
0x57ca2688 : 0x56eb5a95 (0x8e50800 0x0 0x0 0x8e58f80)
0x57ca26c8 : 0x56eb5977 (0x8e53c00 0x8e50a00 0x0 0x0)
0x57ca2738 : 0x572cab14 (0x8e53c00 0x8e50a00 0x0 0x0)
0x57ca2778 : 0x572b2524 (0x676af44 0x0 0x0 0x8e58f80)
0x57ca27b8 : 0x572b2bd0 (0x4266a004 0x0 0x0 0x1)
0x57ca27e8 : 0x572b75dd (0x4266a004 0x57ca2800 0x7bb4060 0x57ca2880)
0x57ca2a18 : 0x572b76d4 (0x4266a004 0x8e50a00 0x0 0x1)
0x57ca2a38 : 0x572cb529 (0x4266a004 0x0 0x1 0x572cbf4c)
0x57ca2a58 : 0x572ccc4f (0x676af44 0x57ca2a88 0x1 0x200)
0x57ca2aa8 : 0x572ccf26 (0x57ca2adc 0x676af44 0x57ca2ae8 0x43437f)
0x57ca2ae8 : 0x572c76a8 (0x676af44 0x0 0x0 0x1)
Backtrace continues...
Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.pgp.iokit.PGPwdeFilter(1.0.1)@0x572b1000->0x572dffff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily(1.5.6)@0x56ea4000
com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily(1.5.6)@0x56ea4000->0x56ebbfff
BSD process name corresponding to current thread: PGP Engine
Mac OS version:
9J61
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 9.7.0: Tue Mar 31 22:52:17 PDT 2009; root:xnu-1228.12.14~1/RELEASE_I386
System model name: MacBookPro5,1 (Mac-F42D86C8)
System uptime in nanoseconds: 6868630212316
unloaded kexts:
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireSBP2 1.9.8 - last unloaded 5202552169158
loaded kexts:
com.vmware.kext.vmnet 2.0.5
com.vmware.kext.vmioplug 2.0.5
com.vmware.kext.vmci 2.0.5
com.vmware.kext.vmx86 2.0.5
com.Logitech.Control Center.HID Driver 2.6.0
com.pgp.iokit.PGPwdeFilter 1.0.1
com.apple.driver.iTunesPhoneDriver 1.0 - last loaded 308664805472
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageClass 2.0.6
com.apple.filesystems.msdosfs 1.5.4
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIReducedBlockCommandsDevice 2.0.9
com.apple.driver.LSIFW500 2.0.6
com.apple.driver.Oxford_Semi 2.0.7
com.apple.driver.StorageLynx 2.0.7
com.apple.driver.initioFWBridge 2.0.7
com.apple.driver.IOFireWireSerialBusProtocolSansPhysicalUnit 2.0.7
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireAVC 2.2.3
com.apple.driver.IOBluetoothHIDDriver 2.1.6f8
com.apple.driver.AppleHWSensor 1.9d0
com.apple.filesystems.autofs 2.0.2
com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver 1.0.6
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothSerialManager 2.1.6f8
com.apple.driver.AppleUpstreamUserClient 2.7.5
com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyDriver 1.6.8a3
com.apple.driver.AppleHDA 1.6.8a3
com.apple.driver.DiskImages 199
com.apple.nvenet 1.0.48
com.apple.driver.AppleHDAController 1.6.8a3
com.apple.driver.BroadcomUSBBluetoothHCIController 2.1.6f8
com.apple.DontSteal_Mac_OSX 6.0.3
com.apple.driver.AGPM 100.6.5
com.apple.driver.AirPortBrcm43xx 363.35.0
com.apple.driver.SMCMotionSensor 2.1.1d2
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireIP 1.7.7
com.apple.driver.AudioIPCDriver 1.0.6
com.apple.kext.AppleSMCLMU 1.4.3d2
com.apple.driver.AppleIRController 110
com.apple.driver.AppleGraphicsControl 2.8.11
com.apple.GeForce 5.4.4
com.apple.driver.ACPISMCPlatformPlugin 3.4.0d10
com.apple.driver.NVSMU 1.1.7
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBusPCI 1.0.1d1
com.apple.driver.AppleLPC 1.2.12
com.apple.nvidia.nv50hal 5.4.4
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBTCButtons 1.7.4f1
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBMultitouch 189.32
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBTCKeyboard 1.7.4f1
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBMergeNub 3.4.3
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIMultimediaCommandsDevice 2.0.9
com.apple.iokit.SCSITaskUserClient 2.0.9
com.apple.driver.XsanFilter 2.7.91
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCISerialATAPI 1.1.1
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIBlockStorage 1.2.1
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHub 3.4.0
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBUserClient 3.3.1
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBEHCI 3.4.3
com.apple.driver.AppleEFINVRAM 1.2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort 1.6.0
com.apple.driver.AppleFWOHCI 3.8.2
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBOHCI 3.3.5
com.apple.driver.AppleRTC 1.2.3
com.apple.driver.AppleSmartBatteryManager 158.10.0
com.apple.driver.AppleHPET 1.4
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPCI 1.2.4
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIButtons 1.2.4
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBIOS 1.4
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIEC 1.2.4
com.apple.driver.AppleAPIC 1.4
com.apple.security.seatbelt 107.12
com.apple.nke.applicationfirewall 1.6.77
com.apple.security.TMSafetyNet 3
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement 76.0.0
com.apple.BootCache 30.4
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireSerialBusProtocolTransport 1.5.2
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireSBP2 1.9.8
com.apple.iokit.IOSerialFamily 9.4
com.apple.driver.DspFuncLib 1.6.8a3
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBusController 1.0.1d1
com.apple.iokit.IOHDAFamily 1.6.8a3
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBBluetoothHCIController 2.1.6f8
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothFamily 2.1.6f8
com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family 216.1
com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily 1.6.1
com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily 1.6.9fc3
com.apple.kext.OSvKernDSPLib 1.1
com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily 3.4.0d10
com.apple.driver.AppleSMC 2.2.1d2
com.apple.NVDAResman 5.4.4
com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport 1.7.3
com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily 1.7.3
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver 3.2.2
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBComposite 3.2.0
com.apple.iokit.IOBDStorageFamily 1.5
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIBlockCommandsDevice 2.0.9
com.apple.iokit.IODVDStorageFamily 1.5
com.apple.iokit.IOCDStorageFamily 1.5
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIArchitectureModelFamily 2.0.9
com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily 1.5.6
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIFamily 1.5.0
com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireFamily 3.4.7
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily 3.4.3
com.apple.driver.AppleEFIRuntime 1.2.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSMBusFamily 1.1
com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily 1.5.5
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform 1.2.4
com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily 1.2.0
com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily 2.6

After you eject the drive, disconnect the USB cable before you power down the drive. Some drives will try to pull power from the USB port if their separate power supply is not on. They typically come with a USB cable that has two plugs on the end that connects to the computer to provide more power for the drive.

External drive is locked.......

I have an OWC external drive and out of nowhere a lock appeared next to the icon on my desktop. When I double-click to open it says "The folder 'Back Up Disk' could not be opened because you do not have sufficient access privileges." The icon also changed from silver to orange. When I get info I can't change privileges. It just says custom and I can't change it to anything else. Does anyone know how I can access my external again. I use it for back up and need to access my files. Thanks in advance.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2029052?start=0&tstart=0
Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at the top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
If all the above fails, then it appears to be time for a relatively painless Archive & Install, which gives you a new/old OS, but can preserve all your files, pics, music, settings, etc., as long as you have plenty of free disk space and no Disk corruption, and is relatively quick & painless...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120
Just be sure to select Preserve Users & Settings.

Which External Drives are compatible with Time Machine. I plan to utilize it for backups and to connect to an Airport Extreme.

MBP Retina, 15 inch, Late 2013. Intel Core i7. OSX 10.9.4
Which External Hard Drives are compatible with Time Machine.
I plan to use one drive for automatic backups connected to an Airport Extreme.
The connection can be USB or Ethernet and should be expandable.
OR
should I just buy the Time capsule and avoid the compatibility, connection and interference issues.
Thanks

Hi Kappy,
I just saw that on the Apple Support site that "Time Machine is not supported with USB hard drives that are connected to an AirPort Express or AirPort Extreme device", just as you have suggested.
Why is the newest model of the Airport Extreme, which is the model I have, an exception to the Time Machine compatibility?
The following information is from Apple website:
Time Machine works with:
AirPort Time Capsule's built-in hard drive (any model)
External USB hard drive connected to AirPort Time Capsule (any model)
An external hard drive connected to your Mac
Use the Time Machine pane of System Preferences to choose your backup disk(s).
Additional Information
Time Machine is not supported with USB hard drives that are connected to an AirPort Express or AirPort Extreme device.

[Solved] Wierd boot order when external drives are connected

So, I've got two external drives, an ntfs drive and ext4 drive. After a recent upgrade, I get this error message when starting up the computer with them connected.
Bootloader: syslinux.
For the ntfs drive:
::performing fsck on '/dev/sda1'
fsck: fsck.ntfs: not found
fsck: error 2 while executing fsck.ntfs for /dev/sda1
ERROR: fsck failed on '/dev/sda1'
::mounting '/dev/sda1' on real boot
mount: unknown filesytem type 'ntfs'
For the ext4 drive (Megadrive is the name of the hard drive):
::performing fsck on '/dev/sda1'
Megadrive: clean, 230913/188148544 files, 193365856/732566385 blocks
ERROR: Root device mounted successfully, but /sbin/init does not exist. Bailing out, you are your own. Good luck.
With both of them connected, it gives the same message as for when the ext4 external is connected. When they are both disconnected, it finds the proper drive that I recorded in syslinux.cfg file.
What could be causing this? If someone could point me in the direction of how to troubleshoot this, that would be a great help?
Last edited by anark10n (2013-03-24 22:42:11)

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UUID#by-uuid

External Drives are not being recognized

Why is my Brand New Macbook Pro not recognizing any external drives? Neither Flash nor external?

CClinton, thank you very much. I did as you suggested, with one day to spare! Took it to the Genius Bar, although the computer passed spec tests, the computer did present external drive issues, some sort of lag-time and he said the computer was not storing things properly. Apple replaced the computer with no problem. The replacement computer is running much better, it is almost inexplicable....but ther is a noticeable difference somehow. The computer is faster and more responsive, and the battery does not poop out as quickly.
Thanks again....
reslyn

My PB won't start up when my 2 external drives are plugged in...

My PB won't start up when my 2 Lacie drives are plugged in. I've used this configuration for the last year and a half with no problems. However it will start up when only one of them is connected. Are they drawing too much power? Why would this happen all of a sudden?
Thanks for any help here.

Are these USB or Firewire drives? Do these LaCies have their own power supplies? I've seen plenty of weird stuff happen with LaCies that have dying/marginal power supplies. The power supplies seem to have a reputation.

HT1444 Loaded 10.7.5 ...Now JPGs on external drives are corrupt!

Can I reinstall 10.7.4 to recover my drives and photos???

You said---Seagate drive was faulty, so we replaced the case
Well, its enclosure with SATA card was faulty, not the HD itself.
Ive heard about failing SATA cards so much over many years, I decided to write USER TIP on it.
Alas its so common a problem.
Your dead external hard drive is likely fine! Great hope for your 'faulty' external HD
There are no hard facts whatsoever, especially since so many people discard their assumed “dead/faulty” hard drives, but a good educated conclusion from years of examining and seeing this issue is that for hard drives made since 2010, and not dropped or generally abused, is that a minimum of 50% conservatively are perfectly fine! I personally estimate however that it likely approaches 60%+.

Secondary drives are locked and unuseable

I can not access either of my 2 non-startup drives. One on an internal bay the other and external USB drive/esata drive. When I am logged in as a user I get an error message that states I do not have sufficient priveleges. When I log in as a root user I can access the drives, but only as read only. When I try to change permissions in any way, I can't. There is always a lock icon in front of the drive in Disk utility as well as the info panel. When I moved the USB drive to another computer it was also locked.Disk utility does not show any errors on the drive.
My startup drive works seems to work just fine.
This all started when I applied permissions to my startup drive. I did the permission repairs and reset the password which allowed the computer to work, but what now?

Never mind this post. I found and applied these two commands in terminal from my user account and after rebooting the drives work fine.
sudo chflags nouchg /Volumes/"my drive name" and sudo chmod 775 /Volumes/"my drive name"

What external drives are compatible with mac g5 osx 10.5.8?

Hello, I have a Mac g5 osx 10.5.8 and I am trying to copy the DVDs for motu's Mach Five2 to an external harddrive. I had everything copied to a La Cie external harddrive, but it seems not to be working any more, so I got a Toshiba Canvio 3.0, version 1 tb and then version 1.5 tb, but the DVDs I mentioned won't copy to it. I get error messages of either 0 or -36, which seems to mean that there is not enough space on the Toshiba external harddrive. The Toshiba has a 500 GB capacity, and the DVD I am trying to copy is 83.3 GB, so I don't see what the problem might be. I have gotten replacement dvds from motu, tried and exchanged the Toshiba, used disk utilities from the Mac, and checked all cables and connections, talked to motu technical support and the people who sold me the Toshiba, but nothing seems to work. Does anyone have any suggestions? They would be much appreciated. Thanks, OJ

These are my #1 choice for desktop Macs regardless of processor type. One with FireWire is great for PPC Macs:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
Too many "on sale every day" name-brand externals at the local office stuporstore are so Windows-centric that they are often ill-behaved on Macs. I even had a WD external marketed as "Mac Edition" that was nothing but trouble. I tore open the WD enclosure, rescued the decent drive inside, and put it in an enclosure with USB2 and FW800 from the family of units I linked above. Works perfectly now.

My External Drives are locked

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