New to Macbook Pro, External hard drive question.

I've just made the swirch to an Apple Macbook Pro from a PC.  I've used the PC since the early 90's and all I know is Windows.  However I'm finding myself more at home in Lion.  My question is probably a simple one so I'll get to it.  I have a 1TB Seagate Mac/PC external usb powered hard drive that I've used on my PC for all my iTunes media, 95% of which was purchased from Apple (who the **** knows if that matters but information could be crucial and besides I saw someone else say that in a post, only he found his music, whatever that means, anyway....).  Now I have added all files to the library of my iTunes on the Mac while still running them from the external hard drive and everything transferd smothly (see not a complete idiot) but for some reason I can not write to the hard drive.  If I try to update an app, delete a fie, rename or otherwis change the file in itunes I get an error claiming I don't have permission to do so.  When I look at the drive itself, sure enough it says I may read only.  Now the drive was formatted and used on a Windows PC prior to today.  What do I need to do on the Mac end to make it read and writable (is that the right word?) so I can enjoy updating my apps or plain getting rid of some old things?  Thanks in advance for any help.
New Mac User

Your external harddisk uses the NTFS file system which is common for Windows PCs.
Mac OSX can read from NTFS harddisks but cannot write to them.
For full access you need a third-party helper tool like the free NTFS-3G or Fuse4X or the commercial ones from Paragon or Tuxera NTFS for Mac.
In the long run and when you don't need a "Windows-PC-compatibility" of the external harddisk anymore you should consider reformating/repartioning the external harddisk using the Mac OSX native partition and file system formats. (GUID and MacOS Extended (Journaled)).
But such an action would delete everything that is on that external harddisk so it is not that easy.
Stefan

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