Both of my 2 external hard drives suddenly started demanding that I authenticate each time I need to transfer data between them (no problems to my iMac's HD). I'm lost. I do have screenshots,
iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)
A permissions issue, most likely.
If you are not worried about permissions, you can disable them completely.
Select the drives, press command-I, click the padlock, authenticate, check the box that says
"Ignore ownership on this volume".
Your suggestion seems to have worked -- Thank You! I have several other external drives that were already set already with "Ignore ownership on this volume." However, I'm still wondering how the two regularly attached hard drives were changed without warning.
why does my external hard drive need my authentication to copy, delete, etc
