External Hard Drives Changing Permissions to Read Only

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Level 1

9 points

External Hard Drives Changing Permissions to Read Only

Three of my USB external hard drives have suddenly changed to read only. One of the times I was trying to transfer/back-up the files from one drive that had changed to read only to another external. Suddenly the second drive changed permissions. Then after plugging a third external, that drive changed permissions. They all were working perfectly fine with my computer and I have only been using them on MACS. Any explanations? Could there be something wrong with my USB ports? Is it possible to have a virus of some sort?

Thank you!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Jan 7, 2011 8:02 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Institian

Level 1

15 points

Jan 23, 2011 9:19 PM in response to Kappy

Here's the thing that every forum I see keeps ignoring: The drives ALL worked BEFORE this problem NTFS or not, we were able to Read and Write with NO problems until, magically, the drive turned to read only. I am using a WD 2TB External USB Hard Drive. I have never formatted it, only used it right out the the box. I have PC's running XP, Vista, and Windows 7, and I have my Macs running OSX.

I have been Successfully transferring data between all of the computers with no problems until today. I transferred data literally 3 days ago from my Mac to my PC AND from my PC to my Mac using this drive. I always use the eject option on the drive. NTFS or not it DOESN'T matter. The issue is drives that worked with no issue suddenly becoming useless. Sadly this looks to be an issue with the Mac OS.

If we could get some true discussion and assistance on the root of the problem, or a patch from Apple, this would be great. I am not sure what is causing this but apparently it is no isolated incident as everyone is going form working to non-working without changing any settings.

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Answer 2

HWNewbie

Level 1

4 points

Feb 12, 2011 2:59 PM in response to Kappy

I am sorry but I had no idea you can be so gratituously rude and pompous to people you do not even know. Your profession says you are some professor of finance. I hope your finance teaching was better than your online manners or maybe it was not after all and thats why you are on here with so many posts!

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Answer 3

Feb 17, 2011 4:56 AM in response to Kappy

Congratulation on being one of the most unpleasant , unhelpful and arrogant people i've ever seen on a forum

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Answer 4

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Feb 5, 2011 10:10 AM in response to HWNewbie

Interesting remarks from someone who then recommends "Verifying" a disk. A wasted amount of time since verifying does nothing while repairing can fix anything that may be wrong or simply report what verifying reports. Furthermore, verifying a disk does nothing to fix any problem. If you disks became r/w it was not because of verifying them. Were you a real expert you would know that. Furthermore, Disk Utility is and always has been in the Utilities folder. One doesn't need Spotlight to find it if one were truly an expert.

Also, the fact that you've experienced a problem hardly qualifies you to critique those of us who are, not sound like, experts.

You are indeed a noob. You should take care to avoid giving bad advice about something you know nothing about. We'd all appreciate that including and especially those who are seeking help.

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Answer 5

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Feb 5, 2011 2:28 PM in response to HWNewbie

Sorry, but you are a noob without a clue. Now that's abusive. Unfortunately, you will need a few thousand more posts before you can report me to anyone here.

You did something and suddenly your problem was solved. But you have no comprehension of the fact that verifying a drive does nothing to fix it. Furthermore, repairing a drive doesn't help with any permissions problems. That would require repairing permissions. However, using DU to repair permissions only affects specific system files and will not change the permissions status of a disk drive. Now, these are the facts. If you consider them abusive then you are an odd person.

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Answer 6

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Feb 12, 2011 3:10 PM in response to HWNewbie

With each post you prove how ignorant you truly are. Please, get a life. Hopefully one without computers.

If I'm rude to you consider your earlier remarks that provoked it. Then spend some time in front of a mirror.

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Answer 7

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Feb 17, 2011 9:29 AM in response to SimonGardener

Thank you for your unsolicited remark. How come you aren't helping anyone here? I was helping the OP until you and your insulting buddies all descended on the OP's topic without so much as an apology to the OP.

It would seem that telling you and your friends when you've overstepped the bounds here that you then become offended and insulting in order to defend your wrong behavior towards the OP. You people are the unpleasant, unhelpful, and arrogant ones.

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Answer 8

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Jan 7, 2011 9:16 AM in response to beatlelili

Select one of the drives. Press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. At the bottom in the Ownership and Sharing section note the assigned owner, group, and Everyone assigned permissions. Also, note whether the checkbox labeled, "Ignore permissions on this volume," is checked or not. Report back what your find.

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Answer 9

Jan 8, 2011 12:14 PM in response to Kappy

I am having the same problem. My firewire connected drive has also changed its permissions somehow. I can unlock the key at the lower right corner to change permissions, but everything is grayed out in the Sharing & Permissions section--it does say, "you can only read" and the only thing I can change is, "Ignore ownership on this volume." What do I do?

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Answer 10

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Jan 8, 2011 12:44 PM in response to yosemiteryan

You need to tell us what all the entries say - owner, group, and Everyone.

Message was edited by: Kappy

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Answer 11

beatlelili Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 9, 2011 10:58 AM in response to Kappy

The users in the Sharing and Permissions section are grayed out. It says that I can Read & Write and the other two users are read only. There is no Details section and thus no "Ignore permissons on this volume."

Also, if I copy all the data on this drive to another external, will it corrupt that external?

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Answer 12

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Jan 9, 2011 11:18 AM in response to beatlelili

But what are the users for owner and group? Are you listed as the owner with r/w privileges? Who is assigned to group?

The normal users and privileges for a hard drive are:

Owner=system with r/w privileges
Group=admin with r/w privileges
Everyone is read-only

So I suggest you try the following and see if this fixes things:

Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt in the Terminal window paste the following command lines:

sudo chown root:admin

Put a space after "admin" then drag the icons of all three of the drives with which you are having a problem (or do it one at a time and repeat the command line) into the Terminal window. Press RETURN. You will be prompted to enter your admin password which will not be echoed.

sudo chmod a+rwx

Put a space after "a+rwx" and drag the icons of the drives into the Terminal window. Press RETURN.

killall Finder

Press RETURN.

Copying the data from one drive to another should corrupt anything assuming the destination drive is OK.

Message was edited by: Kappy

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Answer 13

beatlelili Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 10, 2011 5:42 AM in response to Kappy

I am listed as the owner with r/w privileges. There is staff and everyone with read only permissions.

I tried changing the permissions on the drive in Terminal but I kept getting the messages "Read-only file system."

Now when I plug in the drive I get the warning message. "The disk "Iomega" was not repairable by this computer. It is being made available to you with limited functionality. You must back up your data and reformat the disk as soon as possible."

I would like to back up the disk but I'm afraid that it might corrupt my other drive. You said:
"Copying the data from one drive to another should corrupt anything assuming the destination drive is OK."
Did you mean "should not"?

Thanks!

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Answer 14

beatlelili Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 10, 2011 7:59 AM in response to Kappy

On the other drive (the original corrupted drive) I just keep getting the message "Read-only file system."

Thanks for all your help!

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Answer 15

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Jan 10, 2011 11:02 AM in response to beatlelili

Apologies. Yes I meant "*should not* corrupt anything assuming the destination drive is OK."

I'm wondering if the format used on these drives is NTFS and not Mac OS Extended. NTFS is a read-only file system. Mac OS is not a read-only file system. A drive can be configured to be read-only but that is a permissions option. It doesn't change the file system.

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