External drive is locked for writing

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42 points

External drive is locked for writing

I have used my external drive for many years to backup files, now all of sudden it says I only have read privileges on it and cannot write to it even next to my name 'xxxx (Me)' still says 'Read & Write'. Why is this happening and what do I need to do to have write access again? I tried unlocking and changing privileges but everything remains greyed out and cannot be changed. There is still 89 Gig free space left on the drive so that's not the problem. My system: 2011 MacBook Pro with High Sierra.

In terminal ls -l gives me this, 'My Passport' is the external drive:

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Nov 30, 2020 3:03 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 6, 2020 2:39 PM in response to Blade0817

If it is formatted NTFS you were/are using a third party app to allow writing to the drive. Did you upgrade your OS without also upgrading that third party app? Did you uninstall that third party app? The app may be Tuxera or Paragon.

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Answer 2

Dec 6, 2020 5:08 PM in response to Blade0817

Format the drive using Disk Utility as GUID partition and exFAT so that you can have 4GB+ file sizes and still be able to share the drive between macOS and Windows.

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Answer 3

Blade0817 Author

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42 points

Dec 6, 2020 2:57 PM in response to BobTheFisherman

Yes it has an app that unlocks the drive. I think I will just to move all the content to another drive then reformat this drive as FAT32. That SHOULD solve the problem .. fingers crossed.

Thanks for response Bob!

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Answer 4

Nov 30, 2020 7:27 PM in response to Blade0817

What file system is on the external drive?

Is "Ownership" disabled on the external drive?

Did you run Disk Utility First Aid on the external drive?

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Answer 5

Blade0817 Author

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42 points

Dec 7, 2020 10:48 AM in response to HWTech

Thanks for the tip HWTech!

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Answer 6

Blade0817 Author

Level 1

42 points

Dec 6, 2020 2:29 PM in response to HWTech

Hi HWTech,

Sorry for the late response. It is an NTFS format, it was originally setup on my PC several years ago before switching to Mac again. To answer the questions, not sure where 'Ownership' is enabled or disabled, I did search for answers but couldn't find any. Unfortunately First Aid also will not run on the drive, this option is greyed out, Disk Utility only gives me the option to erase or restore the drive (see screenshot).

I am not sure why this is happening, this drive is password protected and the password is working but somehow privileges have changed and will not let me write to it or even change permissions under Get Info.

Also plugged it into another MacBook Pro and results were the same, password unlocked the drive but only read access.

Thanks for help again!

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External drive is locked for writing

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