write-protected external hard drive

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Level 1

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write-protected external hard drive

I was previously a Window user, and I frequently backup all my documents using an external hard drive

Fed up with Windows, I purchase a macbook pro a week ago (13')

The problem: When I plug in my external hard drive to my macbook, I am able to access, view, and use the documents and videos within my external hard drive. But when i try to save documents into the external hard drive, it prompts me to say that "Disk is full or write protected"

I am certain that the disk isn't full, and so i suspect that it is write protected. Any one can advise me on the steps to disable the write protection?

Greatly appreciate it

Regards,
Zac

MacBook Pro, iOS 5.0.1, External harddrive->write-protected

Posted on Dec 31, 2011 8:43 PM

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Answer 1

Shootist007

Level 6

16,709 points

Dec 31, 2011 8:51 PM in response to Zaclukelee

That is because the external drive is formatted NTFS, Windows format. OS X Lion can read NTFS formatted drive but it can not write to them. You will need to save all that data someplace and format that drive either FAT32, exFAT or Journaled (Apple format).

If you want to read that drive on both systems then either FAT32, that is if you don't have any files over 4GBs in size (FAT32 can't handle files larger then that) or exFAT.

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