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WD My Passport Ultra 4TB (Mac OS Extended) sometimes read only on Mac

It seems that my WD My Passport Ultra 4TB (Mac OS Extended) sometimes go to read only mode on my Mac. I've been looking on the web and most people had this issue because it's formatted to NTFS. But mine is bought with Mac OS pre-formatted and it sometimes show it's custom access in 'Get Info' popup. The way I can tell is that if I open Photos (my file is on this drive), Mac would say 'The library could not be opened'. On different day, it can open and the drive is on custom access mode. Why is this happening? (I've tried to reboot the machine already)


iMac Config: macOS High Sierra 10.13.3

Posted on Mar 3, 2018 7:24 PM

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Posted on Mar 3, 2018 10:58 PM

Try setting up another admin user account to see if the same problem continues. If Back-to-My Mac is selected in System Preferences, the Guest account will not work. The intent is to see if it is specific to one account or a system wide problem. This account can be deleted later. Please post if this worked or not.


Isolating an issue by using another user account


If the problem is still there, try booting into the Safe Mode using your normal account. Disconnect all peripherals except those needed for the test. Shut down the computer and then power it back up after waiting 10 seconds. Immediately after hearing the startup chime, hold down the shift key and continue to hold it until the gray Apple icon and a progress bar appear. The boot up is significantly slower than normal. This will reset some caches, forces a directory check, and disables all startup and login items, among other things. When you reboot normally, the initial reboot may be slower than normal. If the system operates normally, there may be 3rd party applications which are causing a problem. Try deleting/disabling the third party applications after a restart by using the application un-installer or by using the developer’s uninstall instructions. For each disable/delete, you will need to restart if you don't do them all at once. Please post if this worked or not.




Safe Mode - About El Capitan
also Sierra


Safe Mode Startup – El Capitan. also Sierra


If it works in the Safe Mode, try running this program when booted normally and then copy and paste the output in a reply. The program was created by Etresoft, a frequent contributor. Please use copy and paste as screen shots can be hard to read. Click “Share Report” button in the toolbar, select “Copy to Clipboard” and then paste into a reply. This will show what is running on your computer. No personal information is shown. You can run the report for free at least once, but if you run it several times, at some point it will ask you to pay a license fee.

Etrecheck – System Information

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5 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Mar 3, 2018 10:58 PM in response to hojingah

Try setting up another admin user account to see if the same problem continues. If Back-to-My Mac is selected in System Preferences, the Guest account will not work. The intent is to see if it is specific to one account or a system wide problem. This account can be deleted later. Please post if this worked or not.


Isolating an issue by using another user account


If the problem is still there, try booting into the Safe Mode using your normal account. Disconnect all peripherals except those needed for the test. Shut down the computer and then power it back up after waiting 10 seconds. Immediately after hearing the startup chime, hold down the shift key and continue to hold it until the gray Apple icon and a progress bar appear. The boot up is significantly slower than normal. This will reset some caches, forces a directory check, and disables all startup and login items, among other things. When you reboot normally, the initial reboot may be slower than normal. If the system operates normally, there may be 3rd party applications which are causing a problem. Try deleting/disabling the third party applications after a restart by using the application un-installer or by using the developer’s uninstall instructions. For each disable/delete, you will need to restart if you don't do them all at once. Please post if this worked or not.




Safe Mode - About El Capitan
also Sierra


Safe Mode Startup – El Capitan. also Sierra


If it works in the Safe Mode, try running this program when booted normally and then copy and paste the output in a reply. The program was created by Etresoft, a frequent contributor. Please use copy and paste as screen shots can be hard to read. Click “Share Report” button in the toolbar, select “Copy to Clipboard” and then paste into a reply. This will show what is running on your computer. No personal information is shown. You can run the report for free at least once, but if you run it several times, at some point it will ask you to pay a license fee.

Etrecheck – System Information

Mar 3, 2018 10:58 PM in response to Eric Root

Eric,

Thanks for the information. here's what happened.


1. I had other Admin users, login as them did not make the drive custom. So I created a new Admin user and Finder does not show this drive when logged in as that. Disk Utility shows the drive mounted though.

2. Unplugged all peripherals (leaving ethernet, sound wire and the drive connected), Booted up in Safe Mode and the drive shows as custom. I can created a directory on it and open Photos without issue also. I noticed in 'Get Info' the drive's format had this Journaled after Mac OS Extended. I don't notice any difference in Disk Utility for this drive.

3. Then I logged as my original user (admin) and the drive shows custom also. The format is also Mac OS Extended (Journaled). No problem creating directory and opening Photos.


So looks like something happened either because of the Safe Mode boot up or other peripherals (I have a USB hub connecting to a few things like printers CD drive etc) connecting to it. I'll try to reconnect to see if everything stays the same. If that works, maybe something to do with the cache?? maybe. If not, then they may be the problem.


If this issue comes back in the future, I will try the same (with all peripherals) and Safe Mode to see. One question is that why is that Journaled suddenly shows up. Does that have anything to do with it?


Thanks again for your help.

Mar 17, 2018 11:37 AM in response to majortom1967

So just wanna to post some more experiment on this to see what might be going on.


The WD My Passport (Black) 4TB continue to have this issue at seemingly unpredictable time. So I bought a new Seagate 6TB (which was format in NTFS). I reformatted it to mac OS Extended (Journaled) and copied all the files to it, no problem so far. I kept these for a few days and noticed the new Seagate 6TB starts to have the same issue - sometimes read only again. (I was hoping to transfer the files to this Seagate drive to reformat the WD drive) So this tells that maybe reformatting won't be enough to solve this problem?


I unplugged all peripherals, reboot, the Seagate 6TB is still showing read only.


So I login as another Admin user, the Seagate 6TB wasn't visible in Finder at first. In Disk Utilities, it's mounted. So I unmounted the Seagate 6TB and mount again. Finder shows Seagate 6TB and it is read write again.


Then login as my original Admin user, Seagate 6TB is read write now. (Maybe next time I see this issue, I can remount to see?)


The WD 4TB seems to be read write most of these few days.


Does it have anything to do with mounting these drives at start up? Any other settings I need to set for them to be able to mount correctly?

WD My Passport Ultra 4TB (Mac OS Extended) sometimes read only on Mac

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