Yesterday I installed Catalina. I have now lost access to the file system on my startup disk. Get Info says only "System" has read/write access. I am an administrator but can't change my access. Apple Help on permissions reset (for Mojave) does not help.
How can I regain access to my drive?
iMac Line (2012 and Later)
That is what you expect to see on get info for Catalina Macintosh HD in your Finder>Locations>Macintosh HD
Don't let that confuse your issue. (more info: https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/working-apfs-volume-groups)
I would boot to Internet Recover
Recovery: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904
or from a bootableUSB Stick and reformat/initialize the "Parent drive" from DiskUtility.app
How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support
Disk Utility>View>Show All Devices>
This formatting GUID/apfs will erase all data. Quit DU and reinstall the macOS—Catalina or otherwise— Now on first launch of this new Catalina use the "Setup Assistant" to move your user/data/etc. from your Time Machine backup et al.
Set up your new Mac - Apple Support
This will sort your corruption issues.
3-2-1 Backup Strategy: three copies of your data, two different methods, and one offsite.
Boot clone https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-10081
How to use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201250
Use DiskUtility Restore feature https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/restore-a-disk-dskutl14062/mac
Hello Mad_Oak.
Welcome to Apple Support Communities.
If I'm understanding correctly, you are having some trouble with permissions since updating the macOS to Catalina. As an administrator you should definitely have access, and I will be glad to assist.
Let's use Disk Utility to see if it helps:
Repair a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac
Cheers.
Sterling,
Thank you for your reply. I do hope you can help. The suggestion to use Disk Utility does not seem to be adequate to my situation, so I will go into further detail. First, I had the problem with Catalina 6 days ago, could not figure it out on my own, so I sent the plea for help on the 11th. What happened was that all the files that usually show on my startup disk (Mark's SSD) were not appearing. As I looked around, I tried "Get Info" on the hard disk and discovered that only the System user had read&write access. My user was listed as admin but had read only access. When I tried to change the permissions, I was denied. So I decided to revert to Mojave.
I attempted to restore Mojave from my Time Machine backup, and it took three tries with different backups from October 10 (same day as Catalina install but earlier in the day) before I succeeded. The problem was not solved, however. Now my SSD startup disk shows in Finder twice: once as Mark's SSD and once as Mark's SSD - Data. The SSD still has only System with R&W access, and it has a new user "Wheel" with read only access. The SSD - Data version shows my userid with R&W access, but things are not fixed. My SSD has 1TB of space, and both the SSD and SSD - Data images each show 1 TB (about 3/4 occupied, 1/4 free) but all my files appear to have been restored to the system's version of the disk, and the Data version is still empty of any file listings (although it does show itself 75% full).
In the current configuration I have several problems. First, if I try to save any files onto my SSD anywhere outside my personal user space, I get an error message that I do not have permission. Second, if I try to print any document from Adobe Reader DC, the print job goes into the ether, giving me only the most fleeting of error messages about not being able to open something.
Can you help? In my attempts to restore Mojave I learned to use the disk utility and the other MacOS utilities, at least minimally. I did run First Aid and it said the disk was fine. I believe there must be some step I missed when I restored the 10.14.6 OS and my data. If I can get things back to normal in Mojave, I would be willing to try Catalina again. Or would you recommend reinstalling Catalina and then recovering all my data from the Time Machine backup, which is now nearly a week old.
Thank you for whatever help you can provide.
Has anyone come up with a solution to this yet? I am having the same issue and 'First Aide' didn't fix it.
Catalina system is denying me access to my files. I am an administrator but can't change my access.
