External Disk Permission issues

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Level 2

152 points

External Disk Permission issues

I share my laptop with a colleague using 10.6.8

Tonight I had to do some shuffling of files on external disks. I kept getting asked to put in her password. The external disks were "read only" and only read/write under my log in, not hers.

I know how to "Find Info" and set the "Ignore permissions" check box so I can fix that... but I've wondered if that means there is some underlying installation error.

What causes external disks to suddenly become read only?

Random facts:

I've repaired permissions in her log in.

She has administrator privileges.

Thanks for any insight.

Posted on Aug 5, 2012 5:09 PM

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Answer 1

softwater

Level 5

5,556 points

Aug 6, 2012 12:17 AM in response to Daniel McCabe

Is the disk that you are writing to also a bootable disk? In other words, is this the disk she uses to startup the mac from?

If so, you can't write to that disk without messing up the permissions. The general rule of thumb with any bootable disk is only ever copy from it when you're not booted into it. Changing the permissions from your end does not get around this. If you write into another bootable disk from 'outside' of it, you'll just corrupt the permissions for that user when they start up from it.

If you want to make things available to her from your disk, put them in your 'shared' or public folder, or even easier is use Dropbox or Skydrive.

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