Permission Problems After Clean Intall Accessing External Drives

Okay, the ubiquitous permissions problem. Perhaps apple should release a system update that strips this BS out, as single users and home users, do we really need this? I'm just driving my Ferrari to the grocery store! It is just complications that nobody needs.
So, with a fat chance of that happening, is there a DEFINITIVE paper/instruction on permissions? Please point me to it. I've tried here and there is nothing that seems to work for me. I'd like to NOT have to learn anything and continue without messing around with this crap, but it did it to me, so now I'm forced to screw around to fix it.
(I used to be a system admin years ago so I can take a fairly technical approach, but I'd rather not. (Puh-leeze! No terminal instructions.)
Here's my problem:
Having had a problem with corrupt login items and being unable to uninstall them, (the machine crashed and rebooted) I was left to perform a clean install of my system.
I have numerous hard drives attached.
Well, upon a successful install and migration of settings from Safari and Firefox and such, I was gently told that a couple of my drives are not accessible by me, the user. (I can see'em, but some apps like transmission won't write to them. Or backup software cannot backup to them.) I'm currently setup up with my daily account/user as the admin, with the super-admin account dormant and not used, as I've been instructed. (My previous system had me using my super-admin account all the time.)
How do I go about setting permissions to reaccess these drives without checking the "ignore permissions" box?
Is the simplist thing to do, to just copy/backup the drives, erase them under my present account, and re-install the data to fix this permission BS?
I've done the "fix permissions" thing and it does not help.
Do drives that you create with a former system user, retain the user profile that created them even after you install a new system, thus causing this problem?
Thanks
Herkimer

What users do you have defined on your system?
Herkime wrote:
Thanks for the help, guys. I downloaded the app and will take a look at that to fix my problems.
What user do you want to use to look at the data?
Decide what user you are going to logon as.
Use BatChmod to make this the owner of the data. The group should be whatever is the group assigned to your logon user.
Do drives that you create with a former system user, retain the user profile that created them even after you install a new system, thus causing this problem?
Files you created with root still have root permissions.
The other 5 diskes, internal, externals FW, and removeables FW toasters, were all created under the old system, using the super-admin user. That designation is gone. (Actually, I recreated the same name/login on the newly installed system, along with my everyday admin user log in.
I get the feeling I'm stuck in a little permission limbo, as the disks are looking for the old super-user and that's gone. Correct?
I assume by super-user you mean root. You can enable the root account again if you wish. There is not need.
I'm not sure what user, or group I should be setting everything too, now. Me, as the admin/user or
Who is Herk the super-admin? How did you define Herk.
By definition super-user is root. You are not allowed to rename root. So the super user isn't Herk.
A user can be given admin rights. This doesn't give the user super user/root rights. Root can read & write any file on the system. This root is the super user.
By Herk do you mine you gave Herk admin rights?
Bottom line:
[] Decide what user you will be using on your system.
[] Change all permission you your external drives to match user & group of that id.
Some people define two user on their system. This way maybe more secure, but with more hassles.
standard user
admin user
I run with one user:
admin user. This lets me install programs without have to change to another user. It doesn't let me look at system data. I cannot look at other userids data. ( I want to look at data I do not have permissions to, I can use the terminal to gain access. )
Robert
Message was edited by: rccharles

Similar Messages

Serious problems after Mavericks installation with External Drive Lacie P9220.

Experiencing serious problems after Mavericks installation with External Drive Lacie P9220 1TB. Mac Finder totally locked!
I had to format the External hard drive with a Windows PC (fat32), then format again with my IMac (mac Journal.) and hopefully restored data from time machine backup.
So far so good but system looks unstable. Some software were not able to write on the hard drive.Some strange things happens. With Mountain Lion never had an even minor issue.
I read many discussion regarding problems with WD, just wondering if anyone had the same problems with Lacie and if there is any tip to solve the
problem.
Many thanks.
Marco

Thanks very much for your reply.
Unfortunately I couldn't find a solution because the article refers to whom have configured the drive with included software and drivers that came with the drive.
This is not my case, I never used any third party soft ...only OS X disk utility ...
best
marco

Video Or Graphic Card Driver Problem After Clean And Re-Install Windows 7 32-bit

Video Or Graphic Card Driver Problem After Clean And Re-Install Windows 7 32-bit I m Tired I m Finding & Finding Drivers
But I Wont be Able To Play Games & Other Apps Please Solve This And Give Me Link For Video Card Driver Or
Graphic Card Driver For Windows 7 32-bit (x86)
THANKS
PROFESSOR TOM........................................

Hi:
See if this W7 32 bit graphics driver works...
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=ob-100029-2&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en...

Permission problems after upgrade to 10.5 on early Power PC G5 Tower

Permissions problems after upgrading to 10.5 on a client power PC (early) G5 tower.
Problems include folders that are created on XServe via this client do not allow any one else including this client to access. All other clients running 10.5, which happen to be newer Intel machines do not have this problem. Repairing permissions, updating to 10.5.1, try to manually correct permissions have all failed to repair the situation. All clients log onto the XServe with the same user/password. This client has since been downgraded back to 10.4.9 and has no issues.
The Xserve runs 10.3.9, any help would be greatly appreciated.
We have read through the forums regarding permission problems after upgrading and even tried some tips found here.

You really should check things out first before speaking.
Here are the requirements for 10.5;
Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard requires:
A Mac computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or Power PC G4 (867 MHz or faster) processor
512 MB memory or more
A DVD drive for installation
9 GB of available disk space or more
Some features require a compatible Internet service provider, fees may apply.
Some features require Apple's MobileMe service; fees apply.
Allan

I see that i have a problem after installing my new hard drive on my macbook pro mid 2009 version. I put a new hard drive, with all of my information from my old drive installed on it, into the computer. but now have the blinking question mark folder

i see that i have a problem after installing my new hard drive on my macbook pro mid 2009 version. I put a new hard drive, with all of my information from my old drive installed on it, into the computer. but now have the blinking question mark folder. I see that it means that it isn't reading the new hard drive.
did i miss a step between transferring all of my information from my old hard drive to the new hard drive and installing the new hard drive into the computer. I believe that i installed properly. it was quite easy.
thanks for your help

It means there is no bootable system on the drive. If you still have access to the old drive, then I suggest you boot from it then clone it to the new internal drive. Use OPTION boot to boot from the Recovery HD on the old drive:
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
     1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
         button.
     2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
     3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
     4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
         to the Destination entry field.
     5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
         the Source entry field.
     6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Source means the external old drive. Destination means the new internal drive.

Printing problems after installing the Epson Printer Driver 2.16

Has anyone experienced any problems after installing the Epson Printer Driver 2.16 through Software Update? I am having problems printing. It denotes an error message, specifically the rastertoescpii.app isn't working?

Oops, wanted everyone to know that the driver that Software Update downloaded and installed was 2.18, not 2.16 (which was the last one that worked for me). I just got done downloading the 2.18 driver directly from the Apple support website and installing it. Guess what? My printer is now working and everything is fine. If you are having issues, I suggest this route. Guess I solved my own problem, but hope this helps someone else.

Permission Problems Since Clean Install of Mt. Lion

I did a clean install of Mountain Lion last month. I reinstalled all my apps from freshly downloaded installers, rather than copy anything to my pristine system folder. I copied my music, photos, and other documents from my Time Machine drive. Now, I have constant permission problems on all these folders. I don't have permission to do anything to any of these folders or subfolders. I can't rip a CD to iTunes, I can't sync my iPhone. I can't download anything. I can change the permission on each folder individually, but there must be thousands of them. There must be an easier way. Changing permissions for a parent folder doesn't change the subfolders. Disk Utility reports no problems when I repair disk permissions. Thanks in advance for any help.
Also, the iPhoto app disappeared after the clean install. I don't know how to re-install it. Do I have to wipe my drive clean again and install Leopard from my original DVD that came with my iMac? That would be a huge job to get back to Mountain Lion. I'll post this question in another thread and link it here.

Back up all data.
This procedure will unlock all your user files (not system files) and reset their ownership and access-control lists to the default. If you've set special values for those attributes on any of your files, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. Do so only after verifying that those settings didn't cause the problem. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it.
Step 1
If you have more than one user account, and the one in question is not an administrator account, then temporarily promote it to administrator status in the Users & Groups preference pane. To do that, unlock the preference pane using the credentials of an administrator, check the box marked Allow user to administer this computer, then reboot. You can demote the problem account back to standard status when this step has been completed.
Triple-click the following line to select it. Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):
{ sudo chflags -R nouchg,nouappnd ~ $TMPDIR.. ; sudo chown -Rh $UID:staff ~ $_ ; sudo chmod -R u+rwX ~ $_ ; chmod -R -N ~ $_ ; } 2> /dev/null
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The command will take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear, then quit Terminal.
Step 2
Boot into Recovery by holding down the key combination command-R at startup. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.
When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select
Utilities ▹ Terminal
from the menu bar. A Terminal window will open.
In the Terminal window, type this:
resetpassword
That's one word, all lower case, with no spaces. Then press return. A Reset Password window will open. You’renot going to reset a password.
Select your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.
Select
 ▹ Restart
from the menu bar.

Failure to access external drive (Thecus N2050)

Hello,
I have recently been unable to access my external hard drive -- a Thecus N2050 with two Seagate Barracuda drives (7200.10 500GB SATA2 3GB/S 7200RPM 16MB Cache) using RAID 1. My iMac is running OS X 10.5.5 Build 9F33.
Upon turning on the external drive, all icons on the desktop disappear and the computer "freezes". I am unable to load a Finder window and access the contents of either hard drive (local or external). When the external drive is turned off, the desktop icons re-appear and everything works normally again.
I tried accessing the external drive with another computer (a Mac Mini also running OS X 10.5.5 Build 9F33) and the problem was perfectly reproducible.
I have accessed this external drive from both of these computers many times in the past without any problems, so I thought that the problem was with the external drive enclosure (a few months after the warranty expired, of course).
However, I tried accessing this drive with my PowerBook G4 (running OS X 10.4.11 Build 8S165) ... and it worked fine. I disconnected it and tried once more to access it with either of the first two computers ... and it froze.
I have been able to access this external drive from my iMac in recent months without incident; it was only last week that I discovered this problem. Nothing has been installed on these computers recently except for the regular OS updates. The only thing that the iMac and Mac Mini seem to have in common is that they are both running OS X 10.5.5 Build 9F33.
Does this problem sound familiar to anybody else? Thanks in advance.

I would consider trying the following:
How to Perform an Archive and Install
An Archive and Install will NOT erase your hard drive, but you must have sufficient free space for a second OS X installation which could be from 3-9 GBs depending upon the version of OS X and selected installation options. The free space requirement is over and above normal free space requirements which should be at least 6-10 GBs. Read all the linked references carefully before proceeding.
1. Be sure to use Disk Utility first to repair the disk before performing the Archive and Install.
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported, then quit DU and return to the installer.
2. Do not proceed with an Archive and Install if DU reports errors it cannot fix. In that case use Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro to repair the hard drive. If neither can repair the drive, then you will have to erase the drive and reinstall from scratch.
3. Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When you reach the screen to select a destination drive click once on the destination drive then click on the Option button. Select the Archive and Install option. You have an option to preserve users and network preferences. Only select this option if you are sure you have no corrupted files in your user accounts. Otherwise leave this option unchecked. Click on the OK button and continue with the OS X Installation.
4. Upon completion of the Archive and Install you will have a Previous System Folder in the root directory. You should retain the PSF until you are sure you do not need to manually transfer any items from the PSF to your newly installed system.
5. After moving any items you want to keep from the PSF you should delete it. You can back it up if you prefer, but you must delete it from the hard drive.
6. You can now download a Combo Updater directly from Apple's download site to update your new system to the desired version as well as install any security or other updates. You can also do this using Software Update.

Finder hangs when accessing external drive

My finder hangs when accessing an external drive.
It is specific to a drive the I created on my TC disk.
That drive and TC work perfectly unless I mouint it and alter anything on that disk (I can read ok but writing causes a freeze.)
The writing that I do is always ok; if I trash or move something it always ends up where I wanted it after a restart.
The process looks like:
I drag an item to the trash (or another directory) and the progress bar shows success down to 3 or 5 seconds and then it stops (curser becomes a spinning beach ball.)
I can hear the tone of a successful transfer if I wait a little while but the finder is unresponsive untill I restart.
Once restarted I can check the external disk and the file transer (to a directory or the trash) appears to have completed without corruption.
I have repaired drives and permissions all over the place with no results.
Can I just say that I tired of constant unnecessary updates that slow my computer, rearrange my settings and cause crashes and other problems that have to be researched and chased down through hours of online troubleshooting. I would love to have thoroughly tested software and hardware that just works without the hassle of having to constantly tweek my machine to get it to work consistantly.

Are you saying you have this problem only with one drive, not with others?

Does my hard drive need to be defraged after moving movies to external driv

Becuase my camera and external drive will not both operate by firewire (FW400) at the same time (a common problem according to many posts in this forum), I have to import my movies from my camera to the local drive while the external drive is turned off, then I disconnect my camera, turn on the drive, and then move the imported clips to the external drive using iMove 08. It's a pain, but it does get the job done.
Anyway, my question is: Will I need to somehow defrag my hard drive after many cycles of this process, or does OSX take care of this on its own? (yes, I'm recent Windows switcher).
By the way, I can attach my camera with firewire, and the external drive with USB to import directly to the external drive, but it pauses about every three seconds to let the drive catch up, and I just don't like to see it running that way.

If you set, in System Preferences>Energy Saver, your Mac to sleep "never", then at three in the morning it will - if necessary - look after whatever defragging needs doing.
Mac OS X is self-defragging.
(..You don't say which camera and hard drive you're using, but in my experience "daisy-chaining" a FireWire camcorder through a 2-port FireWire drive to a FireWire socket on a Mac does usually work. You may have to swap between the two ports on the drive to find out which way works best. It's usually OK with Sony cameras, but Canons, however, do like the FireWire circuit all to themselves ..shame.)

Problems moving library from old external drive to new one

I keep all my music on an external hard drive connected to my laptop at home. I am now spending several months away from home, and couldn't take my external drive with me.
I planned to handle this by using iTunes backup feature to put my whole library on DVD, then buy a new external hard drive to take with me, and sse iTunes backup feature to rebuild the library on the new external HDD.
However, I can't get the library to restore/re-load/re-import from the backup DVDs. The iTunes backup/restore instructions tell you to open iTunes then insert the backup DVD. When I do that, I get the following error message:
"The Disc "Backup2007-07-09" cannot be read. An unknown error occurred (-69)."
However, I can read the DVD using just going through My Computer, so I really don't believe it's a problem with the disc.
So, if this backup method isn't working, how can I re-create my library on the new hard drive? I have dozens and dozens of playlists, a lot of them smart playlists that depend on such things as play count, rating, and date added, so i really need to keep all my tags.
I thought of two possible work-arounds.
Plan A: Copy all the music myself (ie, not using iTunes) onto the new external hard drive, using the same filename and path as they had on the old external hard drive, then import the Library.itl file that's on the backup DVD (manually copying over the default one created by iTunes).
Would that work? The big annoyance of this plan, I should add, is that, looking at the files on the backup DVD, i can see that iTunes added a number behind each folder name (ie, "01 Al Green") and behind each album title (ie, "01 Al Green - Greatest Hits"). It seems to me I would have to go through and manually delete all the numerals in both artist and album names in order for the .itl file to point to the right place. That would take hours...
Plan B: (Really not a great plan, but I'm grasping here...)
Give up on the backup altogether. Keep adding music and podcasts to my library as is. All my music that is sitting on my far, far away home HDD will get the exclamation point next to it in iTunes. Then, when i try to sync the ipod, if i'm thinking this through right, iTunes will go ahead and add the new stuff to my ipod, but all the old stuff will just not copy over, and then at the end of syncing i'll get the error message to the effect of "itunes didn't copy song x because the file could not be found." This option is far from ideal, as my playlists won't update, but at least i'll still have the playlists.
Do either of these sound like they would work?
Any other suggestions?
Any help would be very much appreciated.

If you can you connect both external drives to the computer at the same time, it would be easier to use the "Consolidate Library" utility in iTunes to move (actually copy) your media to the new drive.
1- Open iTunes preferences and select the Advanced tab. Change the location of your iTunes music folder to a location on your new drive. Also select the options "Keep iTunes music folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library". Close the preferences dialog.
2- On the iTunes menu, select Advanced/Consolidate Library. This will gather all your media and copy it to the new location (the folder you designated in step 1).
3- After the consolidation is complete, verify that your music still plays, and check "Get Info" on some items to verify that iTunes is looking at the new location.
4- Optional. Delete the original files on your external drive. Do this only if you are certain that everything copied over to the new drive.
5- Optional. Close iTunes and locate your "iTunes Library.itl" file. This is typically in your iTunes folder, which may be on your computer's drive and not the external drive. Move this file to somewhere on your new external drive. Next, hold the Shift key as you launch iTunes and you'll be prompted to "Create Library" or "Choose Library". Select "Choose Library" and navigate to where you put the "iTunes Library.itl" file. This is a one-time step that tells iTunes where to boot the library from.

Unknown User/Incorrect Password when trying to access external drive

I just set up my airport extreme base station, plugged in USB hub with two printers, and all worked excellent. Then I hooked up an external hard drive, again no problems at all. I was able to access the hard drive on my MacBook Pro with the password I set up and everything was great. When I try to access the hard drive on my windows computer, I keep getting a message saying "unknown user, incorrect password, contact administrator" I am using the same password I used on my MacBook. The drive was formatted in Fat32 and works on my MacBook and on my windows PC when connected directly via USB. The only problem seems to be when I try to access the drive on the windows PC. The drive shows up no problem and the dialogue box opens and asks for the password, but then I keep getting that error message. I contacted apple tech support and they pretty much told me they have nothing to do with windows, even though the product can by run entirely on windows machines with no macs at all. Has anyone else had any problems like this, or have any clue what I might be able to do???
Thanks

Will windows recognize a drive formatted in Mac OS
Extended? I had originally tried that, and my
windows pc wouldnt even recognize it.
Well XP/Vista will not play nice with it unless you buy and install a Windows shareware/boxware program called MacDrive. This way you can make that PC read/write a Mac OS X Extended formatted drive. Bonus is you can use that drive for a central iTunes Library that both machines can use.
Rev A. Dual 1.8 G5 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Accessing External Drive Over Internet

I have an Airport Extreme Base Station and have recently purchased a 1TB external hard drive which I have connected to it by USB. I can access the added disk fine when using my home nework.
I also have a MobileMe account so I would also like to access the drive from anywhere with an internet connection. However, despite it being a documented feature of the base station, I can't actually find any clear instructions or a step by step guide to doing so. Does it mean turning on the 'Back To My Mac' feature? What else needs to be configured?
Any help would be much apprreciated.

Thanks for your reply.
I followed your instructions but I although I can see the drive as shared in the Finder (http://idisk.me.com/brogan/Public/Pictures/Skitch/Applications-20100910-092842.p ng), I am unable to connect to it.
When trying to connect, I get the following:
http://idisk.me.com/brogan/Public/Pictures/Skitch/NetAuthAgent-20100910-093015.p ng
I notice that the following is also displayed in my 'Back To My Mac' tab under MobileMe preferences.
http://idisk.me.com/brogan/Public/Pictures/Skitch/MobileMe-20100910-093133.png
I am trying to access from my Work Network (it was fine from home) and can currently access my iDisk with no problems. Any ideas?

Accessing external drives freezing computer

I posted 2 weeks ago thinking it was an iTunes problem. I've realized it's bigger than that. I have 4 external drives with everything from my iTunes, to thousands of photos, work files, back up drives, etc. For some reason, if the drives go into "resting" mode or whatever you call it, if I try to access them again, they will freeze. I first noticed it trying to play iTunes files, and iTunes would freeze every time I tried to play a song. I thought it was a specific drive, but moved my whole iTunes folder (all 250 gigs of it) to a different drive, and same thing.
My biggest problem is that I can't backup my home drive now because the externals freeze half way through trying to back every thing up. It's happened 6 times in a row now. I can't start in safe mode to run disk utility. My computer freezes on the Apple logo screen for 10 minutes before my computer sounds like it is going to blow up. I can verify and fix permissions, but if I try to verify disk, my computer freezes.
I can't ever force quit the applications either. It won't work. I have to hard restart every time.
I'd like to be able to reinstall my operating system... but because I can't back up my home disk, I'm at a loss.
What in the world can I try??

In the majority of cases, like cases by Seagate, Western Digital, LaCie, Maxtor, yes, they go for cheap.
You could pull those drives from those cases, (assuming they're SATA), & use something like what I've gone to, and the Drives will actually run cooler than even Fan equipped enclosures...
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/FWU2ES2HDK/

Remounting 'No Access" external drive.

Hi All,
Ok I did a silly thing fooling around with an external drive trying to make it more secure. I selected the drive and went 'Get Info' and changed the tab to 'No Access'. I assumed whenever I clicked on the drive it would ask me for my admin password to get in. But instead after removing it and plugging it back in it won't mount. I assume because there is no access. Is the a terminal trick I can use to find the drive and switch permissions back to 'Read & Write'

Click here and follow the instructions.
(39319)

Permission Problems After Clean Intall Accessing External Drives

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for