Why does my external hard drive not allow me to save documents onto it?

My external hard drive is telling me that I have 'read only' permission! I just had to have my macbook pro whipped and I got everything back on the computer but it would also be nice to save stuff as I go since I've already had problems!
Thanks for any advice
Especially if you know where I can alter the permissions for such

Hi,
thanks for the reply, limnos, But let me explain: I have about 80gb-100gb of music.
I can't keep all of this on my computer (on iTunes) as it simply takes up too much space for the rest of my computer to run at a decent speed.
I therefore use my hard drive as a kind of library, where i store my music and occasionally transfer some music onto iTunes to listen to, and then transfer it back whe I'm done. Do you see?
I have done a bit more exploring and I think maybe I only have a problem with artwork 'disappearing' when it is albums that I have requested 'get album artwork'. i.e. the artwork downloads onto an album; then i copy the album onto my hard drive for storage; then when i want to play the album again and copy it back onto itunes, the artwork has been lost.
Do you know why?

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Why does my external Hard Drive not save album artwork? Help!

I have quite a lot of music saved digitally, so to save space I have been storing it on an external hard drive. Some of the music does not have any artwork attached (and does not download any when I select 'get album artwork').
So, as an example, starting with the music on iTunes, I have manually added some artwork via the 'Get info' option.
I then saved the music to my external hard drive.
However, when I next transfer the same album back onto iTunes, none of the artwork has been saved.
Why is this? And how can it be corrected?
Thank you!

Hi,
thanks for the reply, limnos, But let me explain: I have about 80gb-100gb of music.
I can't keep all of this on my computer (on iTunes) as it simply takes up too much space for the rest of my computer to run at a decent speed.
I therefore use my hard drive as a kind of library, where i store my music and occasionally transfer some music onto iTunes to listen to, and then transfer it back whe I'm done. Do you see?
I have done a bit more exploring and I think maybe I only have a problem with artwork 'disappearing' when it is albums that I have requested 'get album artwork'. i.e. the artwork downloads onto an album; then i copy the album onto my hard drive for storage; then when i want to play the album again and copy it back onto itunes, the artwork has been lost.
Do you know why?

Why Does my external Hard drive not show up when i plug it in?

I have a 100Gb external harddrive formatted for mac's only. It didnt show the first time but then showed the second and third time i plugged it in and now it wont show again. why is this? Is There a way this can be fixed?
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Show Hard Drive on Desktop...
Finder > Preferences > General > Show these items on the Desktop.

Why is my External Hard Drive not showing in Aperture 3.6 Import?

Why is my External Hard Drive not showing in Aperture 3.6 Import?
Only my computer hard drive is and I want to import from an external drive. I have always been able to until I updated to Aperture 3.6 and Yosemite.

Only my computer hard drive is and I want to import from an external drive. I have always been able to until I updated to Aperture 3.6 and Yosemite.
I had the same problem. On the folders on the drive with the Aperture library did show in the Import panel. After I clicked the computer icon in the upper left corner of the Import panel, suddenly all drives appeared.
You can also try to drag the folder you want to import into the Import panel, to point the file chooser to the drive.

Why does my external hard drive LACIE shut down on its own

I have an LACIE 500G external hard drive connected to my iMAC via USB which has recently (a couple of weeks) started to shut down by itself. This does not happen when I use it on a PC. What's the problem and how can I solve it?

Go to: Apple > System Preferences > Energy Saver and check to make sure that the box for "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" is unchecked.

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

Why does my external hard drive unmount?

Hi,
I am having the new problem with my Seagate Free Agent Fire Wire external hard drive. (my other external hard drive is uneffected). The drive is is connected to my 2009 Mac ProQuad Core via FW800 port. It started happening consistnatly about 1 week ago. After the Mac Pro has been asleep, when I wake it I get the "device disconnected improperly" message. If I unplug and replug the FW connection in back of the drive it is recognized again. I have my iTune music on this drive.
I have done permissions repair.
This is the message I got before repairing permissions. Anyone have any ideas on what to do about this issue?

Big Rocco wrote:
Thanks for replying, but the unit is not hot. It has been working without a problem for over a year until this past week. I think there is a different problem. Any idea what the message I posted means?
Thanks
I think it's not hot because the drive is insulated from your touch by the case, but it's cooking inside (see http://www.anandtech.com/show/3858/the-worlds-first-3tb-hdd-seagate-goflex-desk- 3tb-review/7 ) as I learned when I opened up the case. Adding vent holes let it manage full HD backups at full speed, which it couldn't do before. I wonder if the problem has started now because the drive has just been cooking inside for too long.

External hard drive not allowing me to read & write

I have an external hard drive(seagate 250 NTFS format) which i have used on my windows 7 computer now that i'm trying to load the information onto my macbook pro (10.7.4) it will not let me change the permissions nor duplicate the files. How can I be able to edit and save the information to my mac from the external drive??

You should be able to read the data... but not make any changes. The title of your thread says your can't read or write... is that correct? By default, OS X cannot write to an NTFS formatted drive (it's a licensing thing with Microsoft and their proprietary filesystem). If you wish to share the drive between a Windows machine and your Mac, you should format the drive as exFAT. This format is compatible with both OS X and Windows. Of course, make sure you have the data on the drive elsewhere before formatting it.

Why do my external hard drives not free space when I delete things?

I have a Macbook Pro running Lion 10.7. I have a problem where my external hard drives tend not to free up space when I delete items from them. I have been resorting to regularly reformatting my drives for the pen drives, but now it is happening with my large backup drives. It happens for both OS-journaled and FAT-32 formatted disks. Any answers?
Update: I checked the hidden folders, and they comprise:
.feventsd
.Spotlight-V100
.Trashes
There are no sizes given for the hidden folders and it says I don't have persmission to see the contents of the trash.
Cheers,
Heather

When you move items to the trash, no space is freed since you're simply moving a file into a different folder (the .Trashes folder). When you empty the trash, the space will be freed. You must empty the trash while the external drive is connected for it to take effect.
Matt

External Hard Drive not allowing Macbook enough Privileges - HELP PLEASE

Hi all,
Im new to the Apple Notebooks, bought my Macbook pro yesterday.
I need your help with moving pictures etc to my external hard drive which is a Buffalo DriveStation 2TB USB 2.0...
I've tried a few online video's explaining the "Change your import storage to the External hard drive" etc and holding and dragging into my hard drive but no hope.
My mac pops up with something like "OS X doesn't have enough privileges" also another note came up "Microsoft Software is not supported on the OS X"
Any tips or should I look for a different hard drive?
Any help with be much appreciated.
Thanks
Jo.

The drive is probably formatted in the Windows NTFS format. you need to format it in the Mac format. Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a partition table of GUID. You do that in Disk Utility.
Go to the Utilities folder in the Applications folder and open Disk Utility. Select the top most entry for that external, it will have the drive model and size. Click the partition tab and then select one partition from the Partition Layout area drop down. Make the Format as stated above and then click the Options button and set that to GUID. lose the Option window and click the Apply button. All data on that drive will be erased so if you have Windows files on it that you want to keep save them to a Windows computer before you start this process.

Why does my external hard drive disconnect itself/take SO long to load?

i use a Hitachi HTS545025B9A300 Media external hard drive and it is connected by 2 usb ports. it's driving me insane, and when it does so happen to behave and connect longer than 5 minutes, it takes me up to an hour to transfer something on my laptop from that range from about 600-800 MB. help!

helloangela wrote:
i use a Hitachi HTS545025B9A300 Media external hard drive and it is connected by 2 usb ports. it's driving me insane, and when it does so happen to behave and connect longer than 5 minutes, it takes me up to an hour to transfer something on my laptop from that range from about 600-800 MB. help!
It is possible that the drive is failing as suggested above but it's also possible that your cable is flakey. Have tou thought to try a new one?

Why does my external hard drive no longer work

I have a toshiba 1tb external hard drive on which I back up my Toshiba lap top. This morning when I tried to do this both USB ports on the laptop died. Thats a very short explanation for what has taken some time to establish. To get them working again I have to reboot the laptop & then I can use my wireless mouse & keyboard etc. Attach the harddrive again everything dies.
Now the point that got me to this board is that I gave my hard drive to a colleague to copy some files (which he did) but he runs a mac! Has his mac killed my hard drive & done something that somehow means when it plugs into my laptop it kills the USB drives on that too?

Bob you might just be right. He might have killed the cable though. I've managed to find a similar connection & I now seem to have access. Is that a natural breeding rainbow or one of those bloated stockies?

Boost from external hard drive not allowed

Just bought a new Maxtor 200GB, and I did mount it in a external case, the store didn't have firewire boxes so I'm using the USB2 one.
I did copy an image of my internal hard drive to it to "clean" it, rebooting from the hard drive, BUT even though the system is seen on the hard drive it doesn't boot from it after selecting it and restart.
Today I did try to instal a clean system on it and it doesn't allow it neither.
Is it because of USB2 and I could solve it changing the box for a firewire one or is it because of a SATA disk and there's no solution? (or anyhthing else)

No problem on "hello' and "thanks"
I'm no hardware expert but it also looks like you'll need to use a SATA drive enclosure:
http://www.satasite.com/external-3-5-sata-hard-drive-enclosure.htm
-mj
[email protected]

Why does my external hard drive disappear?

I've tried USB2, Firewire 800, and network connection (Time Capsule). None of the drives stays connected long enough to get a backup done. The drive just disappears and the backup stops. i tried this with a brand new drive from Western Digital, and also bought a brand new 3TB Time Capsule. They just don't work! With the new WD My Book Studio, made for Mac, it only stays connected for less than 5 minutes, then disappears. The backup stops because the Mac can't find the hard drive.
I have a 27" intel-based iMac with Mountain Lion.
I'm very frustrated that I can't do a simple backup. I'm thinking of leaving Apple computers over this. i currentlyh have two 27" iMacs, an Air Book, and iPad 3rd gen, and iPhone 4S. So I am a Mac addict.
But if I'm going to have these kinds of problems I may leave Macs forever and use Windows. Seems like Apple and the MAc computers have lost their edge, especially after going to the intel chip sets.
Will anyone out there please give me some tips on how to fix this problem!
Thanks,
Gary

Hi Gary, certainly frustrating.
Only thing I can think of trying is booting from your Restore Partition using CMD+r, then try to install on one of those drives... if it lasts long enough... thinking this may tll us if it's HW or SW issue.
Though if you had a 10.6 Install Disc to boot from I think that'd be a better test.
Or...
Open Console in Utilities & see if there are any clues or repeating messages when this happens.

External hard drive not appearing when entering time machine.

Why does my external hard drive back up on time machine ok, but when I enter time machine (and the external device isn't plugged in) i can't see it?
It appears in time machine fine when the external drive is plugged in, but just not if it's been ejected or
I want to have the ext drive backed up in case I lose it or it corrupts....and if that happens I won't be able to plug it in to see the drive in TM - does that make sense?
I am running OSX 10.9.3 on a Mid 2010 Mac Book Pro. The external drive is a samsung and is formatted to Mac OS Extended (journaled). Time Machine is a standard Apple one and has been working fine for a couple of years

Try holding down the Option Key when selecting the Time Machine menu, then select Brows Other Time Machine Disks. See if you can then browse the backup of that drive. The normal Time Machine display is kind of a “live” restore point thing, if that makes sense.
I’m not sure if there is anything in Pondini’s FAQ, but you might peruse it and see if he discusses that issue: http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

Why does my external hard drive not allow me to save documents onto it?

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