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Level 1

69 points

external drive - can't write to it

I have a brand new 16" MacBook Pro that came with Monterey 12.0.1

I want to create a directory on an external drive (that I have used for years on my older Catalina MacBook Pros) but I can't. Sharing and Permissions show brianthomas (Me) - Read & Write, Staff - Read Only and everyone - Read Only. Probably something to do with this...? I unlock the padlock and try to change the Read Only to Read & Write for the Staff and Everyone. "Operation can't be completed...don't have necessary permissions."

I investigate and apparently I have to go into Recovery mode and in Terminal I should run CSRUTIL DISABLE to resolve this. Eventually I find that for M1 Macs I get into Recovery Mode by keeping my finger on the Power button. I run the CSRUTIL command, I reply Y to the question, restart normally but I still can't change the Staff and Everyone users for the external drive to Read & Write. Should I even have to do this?

Surely connecting and using a simple external drive has to be easier that this? Please, please where am I going wrong?

MacBook Pro (2020 and later)

Posted on Dec 14, 2021 3:50 AM

Best reply

briantho Author

Level 1

69 points

Posted on Dec 23, 2021 5:19 AM

You will all no doubt be massively relieved to hear that I have solved my problem. Years ago I installed the very versatile Tuxera NTFS driver on my two MacBook Pros (2015). It was the sort of thing you do once and then the driver just sits there modestly treating Windows and Mac drives alike. Six years later there I was, stumped as to why my G-Drives had no problems (used for FCPX) but my WDs (used mainly for archiving) presented problems as described earlier. I researched and suddenly a large lightbulb flashed in my head!

I installed the Tuxera driver (which required at one stage going into the slightly scary "Startup Security Utility" and entering my password lots of times), restarted the new machine several times and all that much appreciated functionality is back. So please stop panicking on my behalf and hopefully enjoy the coming days in one way or the other according to your preferences.

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external drive - can't write to it

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