not able to modify permissions on external hard drive from Mac

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not able to modify permissions on external hard drive from Mac

Hi, I recently got an external hard drive (Seagate 2 TB) which came in with Mac OS Extended (not NTFS) which I thought would work great with Mac but there were no write permissions. I formatted the external hard drive several times as suggested in the forums, thinking re-formatting will resolve the permissions issue but it never did.

I have finally decided to stick to MS-DOS (FAT32) for cross-compatibility, but still need to resolve the permissions issue. When I check the permissions using "Get Info", it says "You can only Read" and I do not see the lock sign at all.

In my situation, I thought the solution on this post (kmosx: I accidentally set a disk's permissions to No Access) could work but it didn't, I am getting the message Unable to change file mode on /Volumes/volumename/: Read-only file system

Users-MacBook-Pro:~ user$ sudo chmod 1775 "/Volumes/volumename/"

chmod: Unable to change file mode on /Volumes/volumename/: Read-only file system

If anyone can recommend a solution, that will be great.

I already spent about a couple of days on this. Why is this so hard to use External Hard Drive with Mac?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS High Sierra (10.13)

Posted on Nov 30, 2018 8:28 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 30, 2018 9:54 AM in response to adshere

Permission is a MacOS HFS+ Extended feature. You would need the drive in that format to support permissions. The drive also needs GUID partition Map, and most come with MBR partitioning.

You need to ERASE the drive by Hardware-name to get that changed.

Why is this so hard ?

because the default setting in High Sierra and later only shows Volumes, not devices. You need to choose Device-View.

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Answer 2

Nov 30, 2018 12:04 PM in response to adshere

The permissions system is implemented in MacOS Extended File System, also referred to as HFS+ extended. This is the standard format for MacOS Volumes, except for Boot Volumes for High Sierra and Mojave when Installed on an SSD drive.

FAT and ExFAT do not have permissions as such. Everyone should be allowed to read and write exFAT Volumes.

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Answer 3

adshere Author

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Nov 30, 2018 11:56 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Hi Grant, the Hard Drive has the GUID partition map (it displays this on the top in the disk utility: USB External Physical Disk GUID Partition Map).

Could you please provide step by step instructions on how I can ERASE the drive by Hardware-name to get that changed? I did ERASE the drive several times but this method never worked for me.

Also, I am not sure what you mean by MacOS HFS+ Extended feature. I formatted the Drive in Mac OS Extended feature, but that did not work for me.

Any help is appreciated.

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Answer 4

Nov 30, 2018 1:01 PM in response to adshere

I did another try with MacOS Extended File System but the drive is not getting mounted.

how did you decide that?

the default settings for what gets shown on the desktop have changed. be sure to use:

Finder > preferences > General

.

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Answer 5

adshere Author

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Nov 30, 2018 2:04 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

not what you are suggesting next. I called Apple, they had me try this method: Resolve issues caused by changing the permissions of items in your home folder - Apple Support, but it did not work. Then my call was disconnected and AppleCare never called me back.

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Answer 6

adshere Author

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Nov 30, 2018 12:07 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Also, I was in the Device view.

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Answer 7

adshere Author

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Nov 30, 2018 12:24 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

If there are no permissions in FAT and ExFAT, any idea why I am still seeing read-only, and how can I fix this? I did another try with MacOS Extended File System but the drive is not getting mounted.

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not able to modify permissions on external hard drive from Mac

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