Andrew asks:
I recently got a Mac, and am having a problem using my external hard drive. I only have “permission” to read files on my external hard drive. I am not allowed to write or edit files on the hard drive when using Mac OS. The only solution I have found is to format the drive with the Mac OS.
Is there any easier option to change the drive’s “Sharing & Permissions”?
Tagged: hard drive, read/write permission
19 Answers -
Oron Joffe
May 9, 2010Hi Andrew, there is no general problem with using external drives with Macs, so you need to provide more information. Was the external drive used with a Mac previously, or with a PC? Is the disc formatted in NTFS, FAT32 or another system?
Hi, The drive was previously used with windows (which is why the mac OS won’t give write permissions). I can still write files to it on windows OS, but can only read files with my mac.
May 9, 2010It is formatted in NTFS.
Dude, I dunno if you still have the problem but I totally figured it out (And for anyone else that finds this). Go applications-Utilities- Disk Utilities and heres the part I couldn’t find on the net: Go to Erase tab and click Erase (Obviously back everything up first) Then when you go back into the First Aid options, the Repair Disc option will now be available. This will automatically reformat and fix your problem. Boom.
August 15, 2011thanks for sharing the solution here.
August 15, 2011thx!!
September 9, 2011what do you do when its your hard drive your backing up to that turned its self into a ‘read only’ it used to work and randomly changed and won’t let me change the permissions?
October 4, 2011Sean,
if the solutions above don’t work for you and if no one responds with an alternative solution for you, I recommend asking a new question. The reason is that few people will see your question within this thread and hence you will likely not receive an answer.
October 5, 2011This really helped me! Solved my problem right away! Thanks a lot!
October 18, 2011Thanks.. That helped a lot.!!! it really works
December 9, 2011Thankyou!!!
December 13, 2011Ooooh, thank you, this helped!
December 30, 2011thank you very much, you help me a lot.
January 5, 2012omg it worked!! truly!! TQ SOOO MUCHHH~ XDDD
February 5, 2012Thanks so much! Worked for me
February 12, 2012thanks a lot !!!
February 27, 2012I was nervous to try this, mainly because I have a 500GB hard drive and it took several hours to back up all the files, but it worked perfectly.
March 18, 2012When you say back everything up and then use repair disk option does this option then put everything back onto the hard drive? (My computer hard drive does not have enough space to back up everything on my hard drive)
March 20, 2012exactly .. my macbook pro have 500gb size bt my data is more dan 650 gb .. n nw m face d same sharing n permission problem .. n nw m stuck here ..
April 9, 2012ny other option plzz ..
April 9, 2012Oron Joffe
May 10, 2010Aha! In that case, you need to write-enable NTFS on your Mac, as explained on http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20090913140023382 . Or you could Google:
how to write enable ntfs on os x
for additional links.
Good luck!
That still doesn’t work
April 19, 2011Anonymous
May 13, 2010I don’t know whether this will work on your case, but the easiest way to change disk permission in Mac is by opening the disk/folder/file info (right click and choose “Show Info” or select and use Command + I). The lower part of the info window – “Sharing And Permission” will allow you to change the permission just by choosing the kind of permission you want from the drop down menu: Read Only, Write Only, Read & Write, and No Access, for different users.
there are no options on the bottom part of the info… tried the terminal thing (diskutil…sudo… etc.) but no UUID No. appears so there’s no use to continue. Help is still needed please!
January 14, 2011Thatzzzlife
April 19, 2011I have the exact same issue! And based on research, so does hundreds of other mac users!
So why in the world doesn’t. APPLE respond and fix this crap!!
No one has an answer that works. Pathetic!
ginariggiomusic
April 27, 2011Yeah, I have this problem at work. We create files on a PC and analyze them on a Mac. The external hard drive we use to transfer the files between the two computers will only allow read-only access when the drive is used on the Mac. So, if I need to change anything on the drive, overwrite files, move files around, rename things, etc then I just plug it into the PC to do it. For now, that’s how I work around it but it’s a pain.
Andrew
April 27, 2011There is a post here on makeuseof that addresses this problem and the solutions; http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/macnifying-os-x-introduction-and-working-with-ntfs-drives/
G E
June 19, 2011I recently bought a MAC book pro and am having the same issue as you guys. This is my first mac experience and wish there was a refund policy for this thing. It is lacking in so many ways compared to windows. Oh well thanks for fusion I just start fusion 3 and mange my folders through win 7. Maybe that will help.
Hmessec
July 10, 2011Well, I guess I’ll join the club too
I have a MacBook Pro that I purchased almost 1 yr ago, and my formerly trusty iMac. I have two 1 Tb external drives that I used between my iMac, MacBook Pro and Windows 7 OS PC. It wasn’t right away that I noticed the same problem with read/write permissions, but it showed up quickly.
I agree Apple needs a utility, or routine that sets up a user ID (+/- a password) to allow the creator of files or partitions on an auxiliary drive to retain permissions.
Cheers.
******THE SOLUTION******* YOU NEED TO RE FORMAT YOUR HARD DRIVE TO FAT32. MAC IS UNABLE TO WRITE TO NTFS. BACK EVERYTHING UP (TO A PC IF NEEDED) USE DISK UTILITY AND RE FORMAT DRIVE TO FAT32…VOILA!!!!
December 30, 2011James Schantz
July 25, 2011I was unable to find a solution as far as using this with OSX. However, I also use parallels on my mac with a copy of windows XP sp3. I do not have a problem using any type of external hdd to USB drive through virtualization. Again, this is not a solution for apple’s problem but its another option.
Dan Coogan
July 26, 2011I have the same problem… I want to modify a photoshop jpeg and save the changes, but I get a message that says I am unable to write to the disk… I am the admin. When I get Info on the external drive, under Sharing & Permissions it says “You can read only” and the names and privileges are grayed out, so is the + – and Action menu.
Dan,
I recommend that you ask a new question!
July 26, 2011I have to say your answer “I recommend that you ask a new question!” to be rude and arrogant.
I have been dealing with this same problem for years. In my work I produce large amounts of data and I prudently back everything up. Some how 4 of my 11 external HD’s are now read only.
I have been able to get around this by plugging the problem drives into my Airport’s USB port and can write to the drive that way. A slow process but has helped me out in a pinch. The 4 drives effected are 2 TB each and nearly full. To simply copy to another drive and reformat will fix the problem only in the short term since it doesn’t address how this happened in the first place. It’s like changing your tire every time it has a nail in it but not bothering to sweep up the barrel of nails that some one spilled in your garage. I would rather sweep up the nails and patch the tire.I expect better from apple.
August 12, 2011Jwhitsch,
my answer was not intended to sound rude nor arrogant.
I manage this forum and I’m probably the only one who reads all the comments on this forum. Unfortunately, I don’t have all the answers!
I know from experience that a reply to an old question rarely receives a response because it doesn’t receive any fresh exposure. People who have previously replied are notified of the new comment, but they may not be able to help more than they already did. And someone who finds the more recent comment through Google usually does so because they have the same problem.
Hence, I recommend people to ask a new question, giving them the chance that someone who knows the answer will see it and respond with a solution.
August 13, 2011Tina,
I’m sorry I misunderstood you. The exclamation point at the end of your post threw me. Having moderated a forum and a chat server in the past I can appreciate the work you do. I was having a BAD day and then the drive I have my current projects had this permissions mess up and I felt sympathy for any one in the same predicament. Again I’m very sorry.I searched for answers and found your site and it seemed to have a good number of people with the same hair pulling problem. Being self employed I’m my own IT dept. so forums such as this are a godsend so I often look to them for answers.
There is a solution of sorts I posted hope it can help some one.
Thanks again,
Jenn
August 13, 2011No problem, Jenn. And thank you for sharing your solution!
August 13, 2011Torrey
August 1, 2011I’ve asked this question to someone that has switched from a PC to MAC they suggested I copy everything from the external drive to the laptop. Reformat the external drive for MAC and then transfer everything back. The transfer process will probably take longer than the format. Either that or buy another external drive.
Torrey,
that sounds like a sound solution, although complicated. But since the formatting of the hard drive appears to be the problem, moving the data and re-formatting is the logic consequence.
The only other way I can think of is finding a hack that will help your Mac to read and write to the file system that the hard drive is currently formatted in.
August 1, 2011Pooppoo
August 6, 2011damn yo i have the same problem does anyone know what type i have to convert my external hard drive into for my macbook pro to write to it. It is is NTSF now. daaaaaaaaaaaaamn i need some genius tech right now
http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/ancient/whatismacosx//arch_fs.html
August 6, 2011Westwon
September 26, 2011http://www.lagentesoft.com/bm_instructions/index.html
this is the best little program i have came across … i used it today again on a external hd after running VMWARE … cause it seems to cater to the pc side of life.
~
Guest234234
October 26, 2011Tuxera also has a similar app, works like a charm on Lion OS X!
The Ultimate Apple Fan!
November 6, 2011all you have to do is go to the hard drive, right click and go to “Get info”. Then scroll down to the little lock on the bottom right and type in your password. Once your done that then click on the options on any of the users and you are done! Now thanks to me your problem should be solved!
hi ur comment is old but in mac lion ther is no option like that !!! plz help i have a fat32 usb stick in permision it says on read dont hv any lock or anything like that plz help
May 4, 2012Are you using any backup software?Usually,Carbon copy cloner software has this issue and every time you use it,one has to change the permission to read write only.
You can try the method below -
Repair User Permissions in Mac OS X Lion -
http://osxdaily.com/2011/11/15/repair-user-permissions-in-mac-os-x-lion/
May 6, 2012Hello Fahad – I’m not an expert of this subject, but if the flash drive was formatted as FAT32, you should be able to read/write to it in Lion. However, if it was formatted as NTFS, then you can read but not write files to it. The best way of dealing with this issue is to repartition the drive as FAT32 in Windows.
http://frankieinguanez.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/ntfs-readwrite-support-on-mac-osx-lion/
You can format a drive in Mac by following these directions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqifXPk7mi4
Hope that works! Good luck!
May 6, 2012Slabslab
November 12, 2011there is no little lock on the bottom right after the GET INFO click
Cssrex
November 24, 2011On thing that can express my feelings here : THANKS
HOPKINS_CRAIG1
December 30, 2011YOU NEED TO RE FORMAT YOUR DRIVE TO FAT32. BACK EVERYTHING UP (TO PC IF NEEDED) AND USE DISK UTILITY TO FORMAT DRIVE TO FAT32. RESTORE EVERYTHING FROM PC TO THE HARD DRIVE IF NEEDED. YOU WILL STILL BE ABLE TO READ AND NOW CAN WRITE TO DRIVE
Hosany Noor
March 11, 2012Hi, i’ve got a little problem… I was using an external hard-drive on my macbook now am trying to copy my files to my windows 7 laptop but the thing is that the external hard-drive doesn’t recognized the hard-drive. I don’t see that drive icon in the my computers. Can anyone help me please with this.
I recommend asking a new question. You are unlikely to receive a solution within this thread, at least not quickly.
March 12, 2012