I have a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk external hard drive, which i've loaded movies, pictures, videos, and documents on to. I have only used up about 100GB of 1.5TB and for some reason when I plugged it in today it wont let me load anything onto it and if you click get info on it, it says you can only read. Any idea what changed or how to fix this?
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.3), 13"
Also I have never plugged it into windows, but its format is Windows NT File System (NTFS).
That explains it, OS X doesn't support writes to NTFS, that's a proprietary format and any previous hacks were that hacks and Apple disabled it.
Connect the drive to a PC, offload the data then use a PC to format it exFAT and then you can use it on either.
If it's a XP box, there is a free exFAt download from Microsoft.
You can buy software for the Mac to read/Write the NTFS format, but then you have to pay and upgrade and just to have it break sometime when you least expect it.
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents
DanDoor wrote:
i've loaded movies, pictures, videos, and documents on to
How? Using a Mac?
If you never plugged it into a Windows PC thenn how did you load any files on it as Mac OS X can not write to NTFS formatted drives.
That is why it is Read Only because OS X can read NTFS but can't writer to it.
Shootist007 wrote:
That is why it is Read Only because OS X can read NTFS but can't writer to it.
Possibly, but there are instances where error or corruption on a non-NTFS drive caused Mac OS X to treat it as NTFS. It the OP did indeed write to it with a Mac, this may be the case.
Have you tried NTFS-3G before? It is based on NTFS-3G open source NTFS driver that is ported into numerous platforms
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24481/ntfs-3g
Regards
B.T.W. Tuxtera's official website for NTFS-3G: http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/
on the external hard drives box it says that it's compatible with mac and as i said, it was working fine with my mac, i just dont know how the hard drives format changed randomly.
Okay... If you are going to use your portable HDD only with OS X systems, then copy the files from it to a safe place and format the HDD with the native Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file format, then move files back to it.
NTFS (New Technology File System) is the standard file system of Windows NT and OS X systems can only write and copy to this kind of format.
I go along with what Fane-j said. You should copy that data someplace and then format, in apple world erase, the drive back to Mac Extended (Journaled).
DanDoor wrote:
on the external hard drives box it says that it's compatible with mac and as i said, it was working fine with my mac, i just dont know how the hard drives format changed randomly.
It didn't. The notice about NTFS is bogus. Sometimes, disk corruption fools the Finder into believing that the file system is NTFS (for which Mac OS X does not have native write support); this is probably your case. The only solution is to reformat the drive (which will destroy all data presently on it). Back up all you can from it first. IIRC, your Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk is self-powered (ie, it has its own power supply). If it is bus-powered, you should be aware that a common issue in MBPs is that they don't provide a lot of power on the USB bus, so a possible cause of disk corruption was inadequate power. You should get a power supply for it. If it already has a power supply, then the cause of corruption is something else.
On a second note, all Seagate hdd are NTFS formatted by default from manufacturer. In other words the hdd is plug and play ready for Windows OS. However, If you intend to use it on Mac, then you need to format it with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) to be compatible with OS X.
There is no data corruption at all, just limited usage on NTFS partition until you make it compatible for OS X.
BookX wrote:
all Seagate hdd are NTFS formatted by default from manufacturer.
I suggest verifying your information prior to posting. This drive
<http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/external-hard-drive/mac-deskt op-hard-drive>
is a Seagate drive, and it is not formatted as NTFS. If you consult its data sheet, you'll find it's formatted as HFS+, and compatibility with Windows is provided by a suitable driver, available for download from Seagate.
If you need further information about Seagate drives, I suggest consulting Seagate directly, or, at least, reading some of the data sheets and tech papers provided by Seagate free of charge.
I sugest you read and understand what this represents at their site:
"reformatting to HFS+ required to use backup software for Mac or Time Machine® software"
fane_j wrote:
If it is bus-powered, you should be aware that a common issue in MBPs is that they don't provide a lot of power on the USB bus, so a possible cause of disk corruption was inadequate power.
The BUS does not supply power to the USB port. If there's not enough power at USB for HDD then it won't initialize, not even spin to begin with.
BookX wrote:
I sugest you read and understand what this represents at their site:
"reformatting to HFS+ required to use backup software for Mac or Time Machine® software"
I referred you to
<http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/external-hard-drive/mac-deskt op-hard-drive>
which is a Seagate hard drive. The string "HFS+" appears on this page only twice. Here:
and here
*HFS+ driver for PC operability available by download
Compatibility may vary depending on user's hardware configuration
If you have any further nuggets of wisdom or misquotes to contribute, I suggest taking it up with Seagate.
external hard drive went read only
