USB/Firewire drive become locked!

Question

Level 1

9 points

USB/Firewire drive become locked!

Hi,

I changed some permissions by mistake on my boot drive... and had to use the repair disk utility to repair them in order to boot again my iMac: that worked fine.

However my external USB and FIREWIRE drives become totally LOCKED. I cannot change the permissions from the GET INFO window and they cannot be accessed by the repair disk.

Any suggestions...?

Thx
JP.

iMac G5, Mac OS X (10.6.4), USB and FIREWIRE drives

Posted on Nov 13, 2010 5:54 AM

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Answer 1

Klaus1

Level 9

52,749 points

Nov 13, 2010 6:02 AM in response to iJP

What to do if your computer won't recognize a FireWire or USB device

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1317

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Answer 2

iJP Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 13, 2010 5:31 PM in response to Klaus1

HI,

the drives are actually mounted on my desktop, they are recognized, its just that all permissions (even read) are LOCKED. SO I can't access anything even with the disk repair utility. I need to somehow have a super admin access (i thought there was a sudo command...?) to do that I believe...

JP

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Answer 3

iJP Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 14, 2010 3:29 AM in response to iJP

well... problem solved!

After reading dozen of Google help pages and trying out scary command lines and still no luck, finally found this cool free utility http://www.ohanaware.com/permissionsreset/

Click and drag to reset ALL permission and voilà!

Problem solved in about 12 seconds 🙂

JP.

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Answer 4

Nov 28, 2010 2:27 PM in response to iJP

I ran into the same problem with my new Mac Pro. I had three external Firewire drives on my old Mac that I ported over to the new one. Long story short, after a botched migration routine, when I connected the new drives, they all appeared on the DT with locked indicators. I couldn't reset the permissions from "Custom" for any user on any of these drives. I downloaded the Permissions Reset tool from Ohanaware and dropped the drive icon onto the tool. I waited approx. 15 min. (during which I time I wanted to thump myself for blindly plunging into this process with my irreplaceable iTunes library drive), but came put very relieved on the other end. Permissions problem solved! Thansk, JP!

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Answer 5

ciM55

Level 1

0 points

Feb 17, 2011 4:52 PM in response to iJP

iJP you're a life saver! Many, MANY thanks for finding and posting this!

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Answer 6

bofh1599

Level 1

15 points

Nov 27, 2011 2:56 AM in response to iJP

Excellent recommendation for the permissionreset tool. I had an USB disk from an User in an unknown locked status, I could even not access it after setting the permissions new. The only way was to enable the root user and access it via terminal. Not comfortable. But with this Tool, it was easy to completely unlock the drive from it's access permissions.

Thank you very much, Tom

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