TM drive became read-only, only to be fixed by Verify Disk ?!?!

Could one of you experts out there please explain this to me. My small brain can't wrap my mind around what happened -
Yesterday I had to restore my system from a TM backup. After this, I decided to erase the TM drive and start backing up fresh. I did this, and for the past 5 hours, Time Machine has been happily backing up to this newly-erased partition.
However, just a few minutes ago, I got an error message from TM. It said that the backup couldn't be completed because the volume was "read only". I couldn't believe this, so I checked out Get Info, and indeed it said that I only had read access to the volume that Time machine's been writing to for the past 5 hours! I found the KB article HT3275 that said to do a Repair on the TM drive. But Repair Disk was grayed out; only Verify Disk was lit.
I checked around further, and couldn't come up with what caused this change in permissions, so I decided to do the Verify Disk just to see if there were any HD errors, but the partition came up clean. But then I couldn't believe my eyes - the Repair Disk button was now active! I switched back to Finder and did a Get Info on the TM partition, and it was back to allowing me Read/Write access!
How could a Verify Disk operation cause the permissions to change from Read Only to Read/Write? The only system operation I did during those 5 hours of good TM backups was to change my Computer Name and uncheck "Use dynamic global hostname".
Please, one of you Time Machine/OS X/UNIX gurus explain to this feeble mind what occurred here. I really need to know so that this won't happen again.
Thanks.

I tried running
sudo fsck /dev/sdb1
and got the following error:
fsck from util-linux-ng 2.18
fsck: fsck.ntfs: not found
fsck: Error 2 while executing fsck.ntfs for /dev/sdb1

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External Hard Drive became read-only [SOLVED]

I have a seagate external hard drive formated to ntfs. I have been using it successfully with arch until recently. Now when I try to add files to it it refuses. I tried changing the permission back with
sudo chmod ugo+rwx -R /media/FreeAgent\ Drive
But, it returned a "Read-Only file system" error for every file. I'm not sure what caused this, any suggestions? Thanks in advance for the help.
Last edited by briff (2010-09-06 18:46:48)

I tried running
sudo fsck /dev/sdb1
and got the following error:
fsck from util-linux-ng 2.18
fsck: fsck.ntfs: not found
fsck: Error 2 while executing fsck.ntfs for /dev/sdb1

My external USB drive became read-only

I migrated from a Macbook (black) to a new Macbook Pro (late 2008 model) a week ago. Everything seemed to work fine except that I can't write to an external USB drive (worked fine with the Macbook) from my new Macbook Pro. Disk utility indicated I only have read-only access and didn't give me a way to change the permissions. The drive still works normally (read-write) with the old Macbook.
The drive was formatted as Mac OS extended (journaled.) Both computers are running 10.5.5 when this happened. I have since upgraded my Macbook Pro to 10.5.6 but won't have an opportunity to test it with my drive till January.
I know I can re-format the drive with Macbook pro but I don't want to lose the data. I have no other storage to temporary hold the data (about 450G worth.) I tend to change computers every 6 months or so. This will continue to be a problem for me. I am looking for a nice permanent solution.
Thanks.

Welcome to Apple Discussions:
You probably do not have write access to the drive, if it came from a Mac with another account.
In a terminal run the command
ls -al /volumes
and see what permissions the drive has.
You should see something like
drwxrwxrwx 1 nero nero 16384 Dec 18 13:02 TravelDrive
Where "nero" is the name of the user who has access to the drive. Notice that on my drive, everyone has read, write, execute privileges on the drive.
Message was edited by: nerowolfe

Hard Drive / Volume (DroboPro) has suddenly became read only!? I think its due to a permission issue and i cannot correct it

Bit concerned, my iMac seemed to crash yesterday... when i restarted the iMac .. i got the following message:
OS X can’t repair the disk “DroboPro.”
You can still open or copy files on the disk, but you can’t save changes to files on the disk. Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can
At the time the iMac crashed, i was downloading some files over the web... and at the same time importing a movie into iTunes. I believe it was iTunes that possibly crashed first... it seemed to be taking longer than normal to import a movie into iTunes, but left it running and went and ate dinner. when i returned, i couldn't wake the machine from the screen saver. it appeared to have locked up. I had no choice but to hard-reset the imac. when it rebooted, the external drive (drobopro) was in read only mode - i can read from it but can't write to it.
I have been initially trying to trouble shoot this as a DroboPro issue - but that drive seems fine. most of the reading i have done points to a permissions issue which is something in OS X that needs fixing.
I found these support articles on the drobo website
1) http://support.drobo.com/app/answers/det...d-only-and
2) http://support.drobo.com/app/answers/det...ld-i-do%3F
Per the first article, I tried using drobo dashboard app to shut down the drobopro, then restart my imac and then bring the drobopro back up again to clear the permissions issue. that didn't work. (I actually tried that twice)
When I go into disk utility on the imac, and click on the drobo disk... i cannot click on the repair permissions button, its greyed out. i can click on verify disk... when i readthe details that come up.. in red it says Invalid Node structure, The Volume DroboPro could not be verified completely, the File system check exit code is 8; Error: The disk needs to be repaired, click Repair disk.
i checked the tools in drobo dashboard and according to drobo dashboard the disk is healthy. its about 50% utilised; so definitely no space issues. i have 4 x 2TB disks in it and setup i a high redundancy mode so actual available space is about 5.4TB, and there is 2.62 TB available.
I then looked back at the first article again - and it says to get cocktail disk utility. i got that and went to PILOT tab as suggested, but the only option is to repair permissions on Mackintosh HD. so i went ahead and repaired the permissions on Mackintosh HD, but that hasn't fixed the issue either. The last options seems to be to do a super user move via the Apple Terminal, which i am a little apprehensive about doing - so i have avoided that.
Drobo support suggested i try DiskWarrier - i have downloaded that app and tried to repair permissions using that. again i can only run that on the imac disc, but that doesn't work either!?
I am stuck now, what shall i try? look forward to see if anyone can help.

Ok, so I have to apologise for that fact that a minute after making this post I managed to fix the problem...
Blew the dirt from the connector port. Really...? You ask...
This sure did fix my problem and after doing some more hard searching through the forums here looks like it fixed others too.
Dirt in the connector port meant the iPhone thought (for some reason) it was connected to a dock or such, thus removing the controls.
Anyway, cheers and hope this might help someone else.

A mounted drive became as read-only file system.

I have a 3 TB partition on a 4 TB LaCie drive connected via Firewire 800. Up until a week ago, the partition was dedicated to TimeMachine. Since only 682GB of the 3 TB was used, the other day, I copied three directories of 500 mb, 25 gb and 45 gb to this partition using CarbonCopyCloner. Now several things have happened.
1. Time Machine reports the drive is read-only and fails.
2. Get Info for the partition and the four directories (fourth on is the sparse bundle ceatec by Time Machine) are reported as read only
3. I am unable to delete the directories I copied or any files in them.
Anyone know what went wrong and how to correct it.
I should mention that the partition is formatted as Mac OS Extended and the Drive is partitioned as GUID Partition Table.
Thanks,
Bruce

You mustn't copy files to a Time Machine disk. Open Disk Utility, select it and repair the disk

External Hard Drive suddenly "Read Only"

I have been successfully using an external drive (WD Passport, Mac OS Extended) as my "Home" folder for about a year. Yesterday it started acting funny, not letting me open applications then my iPhoto library began running very slow. So I relaunched iPhoto and it would not let me use my iPhoto library saying it was on a locked drive.
I rebooted the computer and than I was greeted with an error window saying the drive was damaged but I could still access my data. I tried to run repair tools (Disk Utility, Disk Tools Pro and Techtool) but it couldn't repair anything because the disk somehow became read only.
When I did a "Get Info" all my users had "Read & Write" privileges, except "Everyone" was "Read Only".
I clicked on the padlock to make changes but it was grayed out.
Do I have to do a full Back up and reformat? Does anyone know why this would happen and how to fix it and avoid it in the future? Is there a terminal command or a different way to change access to my drive?
FYI - also the "Ignore ownership..." box on the drive is unchecked.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks!!
Message was edited by: Skip

Mickey and Skip,
I get very suspicious about "strange happenings" like this.
As an old hand in computing, I suspect that these are symptoms of imminent drive failure. I'd waste no time at all in getting a new drive and backing everything up.
You could then try reformatting the dicky drive, but I'd never trust it again…
Good luck,
Archie

NTFS External Hard Drive now read only

Hello Everyone,
For months I have been connecting a NTFS 1 TB Phantom Labs external hard drive to my mac book, to access my music collection, as well as store additional large files. Today, however, I found my external hard drive to be "read only," rather than read and write. Interestingly, the folder where I keep my music, also includes the lock image as the external hard drive icon.
When I look in Disk Utility, the Phantom Drive is originally listed as read/write. However, the mounting point, named disk2s1 is listed as read only.
Does anyone have any idea how to resolve this situation and return to the read/write status I originally enjoyed?
Thanks.

I have got the exact same problem!!
have a 320 seagate ext HD formatted as NTFS that I have been using for the last 3-4 months that suddenly became read only.
I'm running macfuse with 3G to read and write to the drive and prior to this have never had an issue.
Have another ext HD formatted as NTFS that reads and writes fine. I have tried disk utility but verify and first aid are greyed out for the seagate drive, One minute I was writing to my drive fine and next time I plugged it in Read only (yes I ejected properly as always)
Any ideas?? I hope it's not a re format and start again..

My external hard drive is read only

Hey guys,
I'm just transferring stuff from a windows pc and i had all my music on my external hard drive. Well i set my default iTunes folder back to my external on my new mac but my hard drive is read only so it won't let me download anything after i buy it. How can i change it from read only?
Thanks

If the external drive is formatted NTFS, OSX can read but not write to it.
MacFUSE is supposed to add NTFS write support to OSX
<http://julipedia.blogspot.com/2007/03/ntfs-readwrite-support-for-mac-os-x.html> , but it may be safer to copy the data from the drive, the re-format it to Mac Extended (or FAT32 if you still want to use in on Windows). Re-formatting will erase the disk, so save the data first.

I am connecting an external USB HDD and I can see it on my Apple Macbook Air. BUT this drive is READ only. How can I write to it?

I am connecting an external USB HDD and I can see it on my Apple Macbook Air. BUT this drive is READ only. How can I write to it?

Drive Partition and Format
1.Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

External Drive is read-only

When I start up my external drive, which used to be my Time Machine drive (but hasn't been for 4 months) I get a message: "The disk "" was not repairable by the computer. It is being made available to you with limited functionality. You must back up your data and reformat the disk as soon as possible." Does this mean I have to get another external drive (I'm running low on cash - thanks, college!) back up all my files on this drive to the new one? I've tried DiskUtility, and this is what happens:
Invalid sibling link
The volume "" needs to be repaired.
*Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.*
Help, please!!

kibbles1053 wrote:
I've tried DiskUtility, and this is what happens:
Invalid sibling link
The volume "" needs to be repaired.
*Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.*
If you did a +*Verify DIsk,*+ do +*Repair Disk.+* There's a (small) chance it can fix it.
If that gets the same results, and you already have a heavy-duty 3rd-party disk repair app, such as +Disk Warrior+ (4.1.1 or later), it might be able to repair it.
If not, your only choice is to reformat the disk. This will, of course, erase it, so if you want to keep whatever's on it, you'll have to copy it elsewhere (if it can be copied), reformat, then copy back.
That may or may not work; if the disk itself is failing, there's nothing you can do to fix it.

Error says my External backup hard drive is read only

I have a WD External drive that I use for my Time Machine backup. I turned on the computer today and it says it cannot backup because the drive is read only. It appears on the desktop and in the Finder window. When I open Time Machine preferences, it's identified as the backup disk. But when I choose "backup now", I get that message (it's read only).
Do I have to partition this again using Disk Utility or is there a simpler solution? Thank you,

See #C6 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

External Hard Drive Becomes Read Only

I have a LaCie Hard Drive that Time Machine has been backing up to for about 4 days now. All of a sudden, the external hard drive is read only. When I go into Get Info for the hard drive, I can't even change the read/write permissions - it's all grayed out. This is the second time it's happened. The first time was on a Western Digital MyBook. TM fried that drive. At least this drive hasn't disappeared like the last time.
I've now changed the Time Machine backup to my second hard drive on my Mac Pro (which is screaming along, as opposed to the FW800 [!!] backup on my La Cie, whose file transfers are slo-o-o-w).
The idea behind backing up onto the external was so that if I ever needed to leave during a fire or earthquake, I could bring this with me and not worry if my computer was destroyed. Insurance would replace the computer, and I could replace my system.
If it weren't formatted properly, it wouldn't have been backing up for the last few days.
Can anyone help?
Message was edited by: Theresa Mesa

Thank you to everyone who has posted about this issue -- it just happened to me AGAIN this morning (this is my 3rd time), after I installed the 10.5.2 update. The first two times were right after I hooked up my external Iomega 500GB drive to use with Time Machine and I thought it was something I was doing. Then it seemed to work fine for a couple months so I thought the problem was over. Guess not! It is frustrating because I just lost about 2 months worth of backups. So finally I searched Apple's discussion forums and saw that I am not alone. However, no one was really posting a solution other than to say "reformat the drive".
So I did a Google search about this topic and encountered the following article. I have just gone through the steps he outlines and although I won't know for awhile if it works, I figure at this point it can't hurt to try. I hope this proves useful to others as well. (One note -- in his article, he says to skip the Erase tab and go right to the Partition tab. If you don't see the Partition tab, first erase your corrupt Time Machine backup disk and then follow his steps.)
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/apple/leopard-disk-utility-format-issue-screws-with-t ime-machine-but-theres-an-easy-fix-316573.php
Cheers ~
Message was edited by: sneebish

External hard drive becomes "read only" and won't let Time Machine back up

I have an external hard drive for back up, and it has been working fine until recently.
There is a version of 10.6.6 loaded on it also.
The back up will fail every few days. When I do some checking, the back up drive is "read only" but I am not able to switch it to read/write. I cannot repair it with Disk Utility as the repair buttons are grayed out.
I can run DiskWarrior and it will fix it, but it runs super slow and takes all the memory to do it. I can barely use my e mail while it's running.
Anyone know what's going on?

System log says:
3/27/11 8:01:19 AM com.apple.backupd-auto[1559] Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup - time machine destination not resolvable.
It's read only because:
A: I cannot do repairs under Disk Utility, the buttons are grayed out.
B: I right click and "Get Info" and if I click on the lock icon, nothing happens.
C: The disk is not listed in the Time Machine backups.
I will try to take better notes the next time it happens and give you the exact messages.
There is another drive daisy chained to this external drive which holds my music. The music drive does not have a Mac OS installed on it and is only for storage. It works properly.

How do I change permissions on my seagate expansion drive from read only to read and write? Thank you!

I don't seem to be able to change the permissions on my Seagate 1TB Expansion Drive from read only to read and write.
Are there expansion drives compatible with both Windows and Mac as I have a Windows computer at work and use my Mac at home?
Thanks

It is a question of formats. That drive probably is formatted for Windows. You will have to reformat it to ExFAT on the PC, then it will work both on the Mac and the PC.
REFORMATTING ERASES ALL DATA ON A DISK!
There is a software option which will allow you to write to the HDD with reformatting:
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/
Ciao.

TS1550 OSX Upgrade (Mountain Lion) turned external drive to "read-only" and now I can not do back-ups on time machine. How do I fix this?

I recently upgraded to mountain lion, latest version OS and now my external drives are read-only. They are formatted Mac OS Extended and I have been using one of them for Time Machine. How do I fix?
Thanks

http://pondini.org/TM/C6.html

TM drive became read-only, only to be fixed by Verify Disk ?!?!

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