How do I remove custom privileges on my drive.

After MANY frustrating hours of trying everything mentioned above and more to regain permission to my external hard drives I found an easy and fast solution! The best part about this solution is you don't personally have to mess with Terminal. FYI- I'm on Snow Leopard 10.6.8, though I believe this solution will work for anyone on Mac OS X 10.5 or later.

1. Download BatChmod.app (http://www.lagentesoft.com/batchmod/index.html).

2. Click on the "File" button and choose the external drive in question.

3. Under Owner, choose "root" and check all 3 boxes (R, W and X). Under Group, choose "admin" and again check all 3 boxes. Under Everyone, again check all 3 boxes. **make sure you've checked the boxes and not just put a line in them...

4. In Options box, check "Change ownership and privileges," check "Clear ACLs (10.5+)" and check "Unlock." Do not check "Clear xattrs."

5. Finally, DO NOT check the box at the bottom that says "Apply to enclosed folders and files," because this is probably similar to what got you locked out of your own external hard drive in the first place!

6. Click on the "Apply" button.

7. Now open finder and open your external hard drive!

run the following terminal commands (copy and paste, please)

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

you'll have to enter your admin password (which you won't see). that's normal. this should unlock your drives.

V.K.'s post here

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2329689?start=0&tstart=0

You can change the permission on the hard drive by right clicking on the hard drive icon then selecting get info, take a look at the bottom of the window to change the permissions. You will need to click on the lock icon and input your password.

I've been having the same problem with external HDD locking me out with custom privileges. Yes, BatChmod does unlock the drive but eventually they lock themselves again and revert to custom privileges. I would like to understand why this just started happening but not able to find an explanation on the forums. Both LaCie 2TB drives contain only movie files.

I don't think "everyone" should have write privileges and it is not wise to clear the ACLs either. If this drive has a system on it, they are there by default and serve a purpose. If Apply to enclosed had been checked, it probably would have made the situation unrecoverable. I don't think that's what causes this.

Thanks for bringing this up. It would absolutely be worth trying your suggestions applied to my solution prior to following mine exactly! If it works, then there's no need to give "everyone" write privileges or clear the ACLs, which of course is preferred. All I know is it worked for me, and the issue caused me SO much frustration I felt compelled to share. Regards!

Did you try repairing your permissions with disk utility? Take a look at this link, it may help https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1729797

Try using this program BatChmod http://www.lagentesoft.com/batchmod/index.html to change your permissions.

Thanks for suggesting Batchmod....worked like a charm!

I had the problem on my external drive and now I can access all my files on that drive.

Thanks for posting!

Thanks for the easy solution!

Perfect! Your instructions were so clear - thanks so much!!