"Locked" external drive - "Custom" permissions - can't unlock or open

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Nature1953 Author

Level 1

10 points

"Locked" external drive - "Custom" permissions - can't unlock or open

After some too cavalier abuse of permissions, I managed to software lock up one external drive, one internal drive and wreck my OS on a Mac G5 OS 10.5.8. The Mac is now sorted (and its second internal drive unlocked again, thanks to DiskUtility).

But my problem is a 4Tb external Iomega +UltraMax Plus 4TB eSATA/USB 2.0/FireWire 400/FireWire 800 Desktop Hard Drive+. DiskUtility won't touch its permissions.

If I unpadlock the "Get info" - which I can - the permissions all say "Custom". They won't budge from that. Altering the drive's Filesharing settings in System Preferences has no effect. The icon of the drive itself has a padlock in one corner. I also can't get into it from my MacBookPro. Same thing. Padlocked icon and I can't open the drive.

Reformatting the drive and losing the content is NOT an option.

MacBook Pro (10.5.8) Power Mac G5 (10.5.8/10.4.11) PowerBook G4 (10.4.11), Mac OS X (10.5.8), Classic rules!

Posted on Mar 11, 2011 5:47 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 8, 2017 7:53 AM in response to baltwo

This worked for me. Took only a second or so to complete, no more. (I guess I should point out that what users need to do is substitute the name of the problem drive for the asterisk.)

Niel's Guide isn't there anymore, BTW, so thanks for providing the excerpt.

Thank you, baltwo!

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Answer 2

Nature1953 Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 11, 2011 7:04 AM in response to Nature1953

Phew. Done it. In Terminal:-

sudo chflags 0 /Volumes/firstname\ secondname
sudo chown 0:80 /Volumes/firstname\ secondname
sudo chmod 775 /Volumes/firstname\ secondname
sudo chmod -N /Volumes/firstname\ secondname

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Answer 3

yoshison

Level 1

0 points

Mar 20, 2011 1:13 AM in response to Nature1953

I purchased a new macbook pro and through the network i was unable to open files. error stated io didn’t have permission. so like the genius that i am i went and authorized myself and included all subfolders. well needless to say i’m now locked out of my data drive in my system but also my 3TB external raid that has my backups on it. the permissions are all custom and not changeable and the drives both have a lock logo on them and are completely inaccessible. I would appreciate any help you could provide.

kindly,
Josh

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Answer 4

Nature1953 Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 20, 2011 1:30 AM in response to yoshison

I can tell you that using Disk Utility and running "repair permissions" on internal boot drives plus where necessary, the above Terminal instructions on external disks, worked for me.

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Answer 5

Nature1953 Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 20, 2011 1:36 AM in response to Nature1953

You can run both Disk Utility and Terminal from an OS installation DVD.

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Answer 6

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Mar 20, 2011 11:15 AM in response to yoshison

See Niel's guide.

VK said for locked HDs and volumes at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2329689

sudo chflags 0 /volumes/*
sudo chmod a+rx /volumes/*

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Answer 7

Jun 26, 2011 9:49 PM in response to Nature1953

This terminal command list saved my bacon.

Thank you for posting it.

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Answer 8

Jul 22, 2011 8:19 PM in response to Nature1953

Thanks for posting that. I had a similar problem and those terminal commands saved the day for me! I had six drives locked out with locked custom permissions. After running all 4 commands on the first one, I just ran the chflags command on the others and that allowed me to unlock and change the permissions using the finder get info menu commands.

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Answer 9

May 3, 2012 12:52 PM in response to yoshison

I have exactly the same problem, all internal and external drives except one on my Mac Pro are locked, useless. I was having glitchy permission problems so tried the same thing in an effort to stop the problems only to find myself locked out of everything. Why would Apple even make such a vicious routine? That shouldn't be part of any operating system. One-stop castration with apparently no cure.

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