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custom privileges setting help!

Hi, I have a 2010 macmini running MAC OS 10.6.8. I am having some grief with an external drive (Home 136rv)I have been setting up as a media centre HDD.

I was attempting the setup the sharing for this drive so I could copy files (music+video) from eyetv through my MBP.

The problem seems to be only with the privileges on the external HDD.

I had setup sharing and and then went to 'apply to enclosed items' so all the files could be shared.

The next time I started the MacMini and mounted the drive all the privileges had been set to custom:

cmp (me)-custom

Staff-custom

everyone- custom

I've tried disk utilities and after ages and freezing twice it asked me to repair disk, which I did. However my access is still messed up.

I can't even open the HDD -message "The folder Home_136RV can't be opened because you don't have permission to see its contents

I have seen discussions on the use of terminal but haven't had any experience using this.

Where do I start to repair my HDD as there are lots of files, including are family videos

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Sep 29, 2011 3:59 PM

Reply
19 replies

Sep 29, 2011 7:29 PM in response to cmp1952

The quickest way to restore access will probably be to ignore ownership. This means everyone and anyone can browse the drive. To ignore ownership, Get Info on the drive and in the Sharing & Permissions section, click the padlock and authenticate. Then enable the Ignore ownership on this volume checkbox. That should allow you to browse the volume.


When the Finder says your permissions are custom, that means that there is something other than read & write or read only as your permissions. If you want to get a better idea of what those permissions are, you need to browse the filesystem in Terminal and use the ls -l command.

Oct 1, 2011 5:54 PM in response to cmp1952

It's not a dumb question. I doubt that a restart will solve this problem. I am going to give you some instructions on how to enable root access. This will let you see the contents of Home_136RV.


WARNING: Root access allows you to do very dangerous things, including making OS X unusable or deleting data with no hope of recovery. I am not responsible for anything bad that happens when going through this process. If you can, backup your data before proceeding.


1. Go to /Macintosh HD/System/Library/CoreServices and launch Directory Utility.

2. Click the padlock at the lower left of the window and authenticate as an admin level user.

3. From the Edit menu, choose Enable Root User.

4. When prompted, set a password for this user.

5. Quit Directory Utility.

6. Log Out.

7. At the login prompt, type root for the username and the appropriate password.

8. Browse to the Home_136RV directory and copy any data you need from within to another hard drive.

9. Repeat steps 1 and 2.

10. From the Edit menu, choose Disable Root User.

11. Quit Directory Utility.

12. Log Out.

13. Login as your regular user.


Hopefully you now have the contents of the Home_136RV in a place where you can now get to them.

Oct 2, 2011 2:37 PM in response to cmp1952

Hi,

Thanks for the advice. It seems to be working but with 1.5Tb of data its going to take some time. I have alraedy encounted several files/folders that are giving me problems.

I don't know how I got myself into this situation. All I wanted to do was setup a shared external HDD that the family could access from several computers around the house.

Oct 5, 2011 4:55 PM in response to cmp1952

I am going to give you two (2) Terminal command that may resolve this problem for you. Note that the name of the folder you are sharing should have any spaces in its name replaced with underscores to simplify this process. You can remove the underscores afterwards if you want.


WARNING: I am not responsible if something bad happens after running these commands.


1. Go to /Macintosh HD/Applications/Utilities.

2. Launch Terminal.

3. Type cd and then drag the folder that you want to share into the Terminal window. It's path will appear after the cd.

4. Press return.

5. Type "cd .." (without the quotes) and press return.

6. Type sudo chown -v -R 501:staff <name_of_folder_you_are_sharing>.

7. Press return.


What this does is set the owner of the folder to the only login account you have, and it sets the group associated with the folder to staff. The -v gives verbose output so you can see what it is actually doing. The -R means to apply this command recursively, so that all of the files and folders inside <name_of_folder_you_are_sharing> are assigned the same owner and group. It's all executed as a super user (sudo).


When this command is done, you will see a prompt symbol and a blinking cursor in Terminal. Now you want to run the other command, which is sudo chmod -v -R 777 <name_of_folder_you_are_sharing>. This command gives read and write privileges to the owner of the file, those associated with the group assigned to the file, and everyone else. It effectively makes the file readable and writeable for any user.


Message was edited by: HociMan

Oct 7, 2011 6:08 AM in response to cmp1952

Hi H man, I gave yourinstructions a go.

I shouls start with the obvious first.

My'folder' is in fact an ext HDD.

I hope this doesn'tvchange things!

Ok, when I typed cd and dragged folder in all good so far.

When I gotto item#6 after press return, got message stating"no such fe or direcrory"

Also, when doing #7 got the same message!

I assumethat on item 6 I type the following(sudo chown -v -R 501:staff Home_136RV) and press return.

Is this corrct?

Because if it is......I have a problem I think, yes!!!!?

Thanks for UR help to date.

Regards

Chris

Oct 8, 2011 7:08 AM in response to cmp1952

I am going to suggest that instead of trying to share the root directory of your HDD (Home_136RV) that you create a folder at the root level and then share this newly created folder. It will make Terminal commands such as this slightly less dangerous, and it reduces a security risk where a file sharing user has access to your entire HDD.


Having said that, if you still have a problem after sharing a folder instead of the disk, then we can try to focus on where the Terminal commands might need tweaking.

Oct 8, 2011 5:42 PM in response to cmp1952

Thanks again for your help and persistance, greatly appreciated. I wouldn't be bothering except the videos are important to us. I shall try your latest suggesting, however I have a couple of questions.

When you state "that you create a folder at the root level and then share this newly created folder"


Do you mean;

-create a new folder on thetop level of my external HDD,

- place the contents of my drive-Home_136RV- into the top level folder,

-follow the Terminal instructions you gave in your previous post targeting this newly created folder?

Oct 10, 2011 2:11 PM in response to cmp1952

Ok, thanks for the clarification.

To be clear with what we are dealing with, there is no MacOS on my external drive only data files(predominately video).


I have attempted to create a new folder on the top level of my troublesome ext. HDD but was not able to as the option in file was greyed out.


I have enbled ROOT user on and have logged on as root user.

In this situation I can open 'see' the Hdd. This is the only mode in which I can see the contents.


Have things just got a whole lot worse?

Thanks again for your help. Chris

Oct 10, 2011 6:50 PM in response to cmp1952

I don't think they are worse, but it does show that you have a permissions issue.


WARNING: I am not responsible if something bad happens after running these commands.


While logged in as root, launch Terminal and do the following.


1. Type cd /Volumes and press return.

2. Type sudo chown -v -R root:admin Home_136RV

3. Type sudo chmod -v -R 777 Home_136RV.


These commands will change the owner and the group of the HDD to root and admin (respectively), and then set the permissions so that all users should be able to read and write to all of the files and folders on the HDD.

Oct 10, 2011 8:08 PM in response to HociMan

hi again, tried as U suggested got the following response:


chown: Home_136RV(file name): Invalid arguement


This appears to be entered for all the files.

Sorry our internet is down at the moment and I'm sending this post via phone.

Any further suggestions?

Chris


ps, thanks again for all UR help, greatly appreciated.

custom privileges setting help!

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