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?
Long story short: I need to be able to access/ add&delete files to the external hard drive on my Mac and my laptop. Is this possible? My software was all pre-loaded at the Apple store so if anything regarding reloading software is needed - I'm going to be clueless on that too. I'm usually clueless anyway
If anyone has knowledge - I'd greatly appreciate a suggestion.
Thanks for reading guys!

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

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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.

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

I have an external hard drive but it is read only on my macbook. I have tried my friends which works on his macbook but this is also read only on mine. Do I need to change any settings?

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.
This is less than ideal and not a long-term solution, but I was afraid of attempting any reformatting since I have many files on my hard drive.
Just remember that Windows has to be running first, before you plug in your hard drive.

External hard drives randomly marked as read only

I have a few External Hard drives (the two I care about the most are Seagate brand and fairly new). Both of them have been set up for Mac use only and never gave me any issues on my older Mac and were used frequently. I just recently got a new Mac. I hooked up my hard drives, denied the Time Machine pop-up, and copy my work onto my new computer. Though I was able to copy my work to my new computer, I couldn't move files on my external hard drive anymore nor could I add new files (back-up work) to the hard drive. Not sure if it's just the new computer or rejecting the time machine pop-up, but my external hard drives can no longer back up my work.
Anyone know what the issue is here? I browsed these forums for a bit and it seems like the common solution is to unlock it or repair the disk. Both task I am very familiar with; however, I don't get the option. There is no lock icon for me to click to unlock and repair the disk (as well as all other options in the disk utilities) is greyed out for the external hard drives. If anyone knows whats going on here, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

machumpo wrote:
Not too thrilled that it is going to wipe the hard drive (and I prefer to avoid third party when possible), but I will give it a shot.
What you can do is use another external drive formatted to your requirements and copy the data from your current one to it. Then do the reformat. Also if you have the space on your MBP internal drive, copy the drive data to it, format the drive and recopy the data back to the reformatted drive.
Any chance you know how my external hard drives magically changed formats?
I cannot assist you there.
Ciao.

External Hard drive Permissions changed to "read only"

I use a Seagate Slim Drive (500GB) on my Macbook Pro (Late 2012, Retina, 13"), to store movies and tv shows and whatnot. Last night, I was watching a movie and everything was fine. I ejected the drive after use and it stayed that way overnight. This morning, I tried to connect it, but the partition refuses to mount. I got a friend to help me run command prompt diagnostics using terminal, which revealed that the permissions had suddenly changed to "read only". I really need to access the data on this drive because some of the movies in there are part of an important project that could hopefully land me job. Any help is welcome.

1. Select the external hard drives icon
2. Right-click > Get Info (cmd + i)
3. Expand the Sharing & Permission column
4. Click on the lock at the bottom right
* You will be prompted for an administrator name and password *
5. Once unlocked change the permission for user, group & everyone to read & write
6. Click the little gear right below and select “Apply to enclosed items…”

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

Hi all not sure where original request went but as a new apple user I have external hard drives that are now "read only" and I can't change or save documents. Went to Get Info and this did not help. Can anyone assist with solution, thanks.

I am a new user to apple and have external hard drives from previous computers. I have many documents I can no longer access and change as they say the drives are read only. How do I change the read only to read and write etc for these external drives. I tried Get Info but this did not assist. Thanks.

Hi,
Google is your Friend
10:18 PM Sunday; February 12, 2012
 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

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)

External Hard Drive changed permissions to 'read only'

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.
So, can anyone help me out here? I'm at a complete loss! I'm not a complete noob at this, but I am definitely not an expert. I'm capable of following terminal commands if that's what it takes, but I do not want to format the drive if I don't have to (it's already formatted for Mac, so I don't see why I should have to).
Thank you

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.
2. If the verification shows that the volume is OK. If so, run repair disk. If the verification does not shaw that the volume is OK, STOP. Copy the drive immediately to oanotehr drive before proceeding. Failure to do so can result in permanent data loss.
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]
For example, assume your external drives are named Mary X where X is a sequential Arabic numeral. The command line for one of those volumes will be "sudo chflags nouchg /Volumes/Mary\ X" where X is the drive number. You will be prompted for your administrator's password. Note that when you type in the password, it will not be echoed in the terminal window for security reasons . Press "Return"
If your experience is similar to mine, your external drive will no longer be in read-only mode. Hope this is helpful.

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.

FreeAgent GoFlex 500 Gig external hard drive not allowing me to write to it

I had to get a pc for work (trust me i hate it too but i wasn't given much choice unless i wanted to pay for a macbook out of pocket then buy windows) but anyways, when I got the computer it came with a 500 gig external hard drive which says its formatted for "Windows NT File System (NTFS)" and its permissions are read only. I went into disk utility and it didn't give me the option to change the permission. I want to use this hard drive to transfer information from my imac (i .e. music, movies, pictures, documents etc...) and then after that use it as a go between storage device. One I can use to back up both computers, if thats possible.
The drive is fresh out of the box and only has its stock preloaded programs on it, all I've done so far is plug it in to start transferring my entertainment stuff so business trips are more bearable.

Check the format on the EHD, my guess is it's formatted as NTFS. This format by default allows OS X to read but not write to it, therefore it's operating correctly right now. However you can easily fix the "write problem" by downloading and installing NTFS-3G. Here is a link to that download:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24481/ntfs-3g
Roger

My External Seagate Hard drive just changed to read only

my External Seagate Hard drive just changed to read only on its own?
I went to get info and scrolled down to the Sharing and Permissions
But there is nothing there but a greyed out : You can only read
There are No boxes to check or uncheck, No options to change to read and write, No name of owner or ignore ownership box. NOTHING ELSE IS THERE
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:
You should be logged on as the administrator. Click on the lock icon. It should open and allow you to make the required changes.
Ciao.

Once I upgraded to ML, I'm now finding that my Seagate Free Agent external hard drive is no longer being backed up by Time machine. Do I have to wait for Seagate to update their drivers for this hard drive?

Once I upgraded to ML, I'm now finding that my Seagate Free Agent external hard drive is no longer being backed up by Time machine. Do I have to wait for Seagate to update their drivers for this hard drive?

I tried your suggestion, and it's been giving me the message "Preparing for Backup" for the past 8 hours. Does this mean TM is backing up my hard drive? I'll give it a few more hours, but if nothing else happens, I'm not sure what else to do. I'm not sure if there are any new external hard drives that are compatible with ML yet.

Photo Smart 8250 Conflicts With Seagate Free Agent External Hard Drive

I recently installed a Seagate Free Agent External hard drive. The hard drive will not work when my printer is connected. I checked Device Manager and found that both the printer and the hard drive load a USB Mass Storage device driver that is the same version number. If I unplug the printer the driver is removed from Device manager and the hard drive works fine. Should the printer load a USB Mass Storage device driver when it is connected?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Of course. Your external drive compatibility depends on the file format it uses.
You won't have any problem reading your external drive because exFAT, FAT32 and NTFS are compatible with OS X. However, if your external drive is formatted with NTFS, you won't be able to write in it. You will notice it when you try to copy data to your external drive from the iMac. If that happens, you have two options:
1. Use a third-party application like Parallels NTFS.
2. Format the external drive with exFAT or FAT32. You have to do this in a PC. Copy your data to the internal disk of your computer before formatting the external disk.
If the external disk is formatted in FAT32 or exFAT, your external disk will work correctly

My external hard drive will not open and only shows up in Disk Utilities. When I try yo repair it, it give me and error of invalid sibling link. How do I fix my external hard drive?

My external hard drive will not open and only shows up in Disk Utilities. When I try yo repair it, it give me and error of invalid sibling link. How do I fix my external hard drive?

Invalid sibling link may not be fixable by Disk Utility. (Disk Utility is very conservative, and will not attempt repairs that might cause you to lose data.)
It is an indication of serious Directory damage.
that leaves
a) third-party Utilities that will take those risks, or
b) re-initializing the drive (which deletes all your data) and restoring from another backup source.
c) "Copying off whatever files you can salvage" has gone by, and you cannot copy anything off a drive that will not mount. You may be able to use "rescue" programs such as prosoft engineering Data Rescue to copy files to another drive, but that sounds a lot better than its reality. You may get many files, but not get ANY filenames.

Seagate 500 GB external hard drive allowing me to "read only"

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