External Hard Drives Changing Permissions to Read Only

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.

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.

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?

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

Message was edited by: Kappy

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

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.

Dear all,
I have the same problem. My user profile is stating I have read & write privileges, but 'custom access'. I have changed the staff and everyone access to 'write only' (drop box). If I hook my MSI external drive, it still states at sharing & permissions: you can only read in grey (not changeable). Any further tips on how to change this?
Thanks,
Maaike

ps I am not sure where to check whether I am registered as the owner etc. Any tips?

ps tried the terminal thingie, but somehow I am not able to type a password - not by writing, not by copying externally, not by copying from terminal itself. Any clue?

In disk utility I had a look. I cannot verify or set permission (greyed out). The data coming back from info. How can I change this??
Name : FUJITSU MHZ2320BH G1 Media
Type : Disk

Partition Map Scheme : Master Boot Record
Disk Identifier : disk2
Media Name : FUJITSU MHZ2320BH G1 Media
Media Type : Generic
Connection Bus : USB
USB Serial Number : 560A48A291F9
Device Tree : /PCI0/EHC1@1D,7/@3:0
Writable : Yes
Ejectable : Yes
Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed : No
Location : External
Total Capacity : 298,1 GB (320.072.933.376 Bytes)
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
Disk Number : 2
Partition Number : 0


Name : NieuwVolume
Type : Volume

Disk Identifier : disk2s1
Mount Point : /Volumes/NieuwVolume
File System : Windows NT File System (NTFS)
Connection Bus : USB
Device Tree : /PCI0/EHC1@1D,7/@3:1
Writable : No
Universal Unique Identifier : C7B58C48-D6BC-4078-9DAE-CB125901A4D6
Capacity : 298,1 GB (320.070.288.384 Bytes)
Free Space : 127,1 GB (136.438.530.048 Bytes)
Used : 171,0 GB (183.631.757.312 Bytes)
Number of Files : 85.578
Number of Folders : 0
Owners Enabled : No
Can Turn Owners Off : No
Can Be Formatted : No
Bootable : No
Supports Journaling : No
Journaled : No
Disk Number : 2
Partition Number : 1

That's because the devices are partitioned and formatted for Windows, not OS X. That's why you cannot change anything nor see normal OS X permissions. NTFS volumes are read-only on OS X.