Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
My Time machine/external drive suddenly gives me only Read permission. I did a first aid run on the WD "My book for Mac 4T" external drive and it said all was fine. It is formatted APFS. In the "get info" box it does not show it locked or unlocked, nor does it show any permission list; just "You can only read". It will not let me change permissions.
pgpatt wrote:
My Time machine/external drive suddenly gives me only Read permission. I did a first aid run on the WD "My book for Mac 4T" external drive and it said all was fine. It is formatted APFS. In the "get info" box it does not show it locked or unlocked, nor does it show any permission list; just "You can only read". It will not let me change permissions.
What you describe is normal.
pgpatt wrote:
My Time machine/external drive suddenly gives me only Read permission. I did a first aid run on the WD "My book for Mac 4T" external drive and it said all was fine. It is formatted APFS. In the "get info" box it does not show it locked or unlocked, nor does it show any permission list; just "You can only read". It will not let me change permissions.
What you describe is normal.
@pgpatt - Open a terminal window and type the following command mount. What does it show?
My Time Machine external USB drive shows up as the following:
/dev/disk4s2 on /Volumes/LaCie (hfs, local, journaled)
Make sure your's doesn't show as read-only.
That external drive is used only for Time Machine and it is backing up as it should. But I can't do anything with the backup files except copy them, which I suppose I can do and then reload them, probably after reformatting the drive. But I'd rather not do that is I don't have to. I'm just concerned that if I should lose those files on my computer I wouldn't be able to use the backup files to replace them.
Mine reads: Volume name : My Book for Mac 4T
Volume type : APFS Volume
BSD device node : disk5s2
Mount point : /Volumes/My Book for Mac 4T
File system : APFS (Case-sensitive)
Connection : USB
Device tree path : IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/XHC1@14
Writable : Yes
Is case-sensitive : Yes
File system UUID : 016C8DF3-5418-4BA1-9440-1FCFA4B321ED
Volume capacity : 4,000,408,625,152
Available space (Purgeable + Free) : 3,176,528,846,400
Purgeable space : 5,721,664
Free space : 3,176,523,124,736
Used space : 823,400,124,416
File count : 776,681
Owners enabled : Yes
Is encrypted : No
System Integrity Protection supported : No
Can be verified : Yes
Can be repaired : Yes
Bootable : No
Journaled : No
Disk number : 5
Partition number : 2
Media name :
Media type : Generic
Ejectable : Yes
Solid state : No
S.M.A.R.T. status : Not Supported
Parent disks : disk5
A Time Machine drive should be used with Time Machine only.
If Time Machine can successfully backup to this drive, then I would not try to change anything.
It shows it is mounted
TM is only read. TM handles all the writing and wants to be dedicated without user interference.
I had begun to think the same thing. Your comment and one other cemented that conclusion. Thanks!
tbirdvet, the way you explain it is excellent and my problem is solved. Thanks.
My Time machine/external drive suddenly gives me only Read permission.
