Enable USB Write protection 2. Disable USB Write protection. Software to Enable, Disable or password Protect USB Drives. There may be a situation when you would want to restrict access to USB drives occasionally. May be you are using the computer yourself and want to copy some files to your removable drive.
I have to say your answer 'I recommend that you ask a new question!' To be rude and arrogant. I have been dealing with this same problem for years. In my work I produce large amounts of data and I prudently back everything up. Some how 4 of my 11 external HD's are now read only. I have been able to get around this by plugging the problem drives into my Airport's USB port and can write to the drive that way. A slow process but has helped me out in a pinch.
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The 4 drives effected are 2 TB each and nearly full. To simply copy to another drive and reformat will fix the problem only in the short term since it doesn't address how this happened in the first place. It's like changing your tire every time it has a nail in it but not bothering to sweep up the barrel of nails that some one spilled in your garage. I would rather sweep up the nails and patch the tire.I expect better from apple. Jwhitsch, my answer was not intended to sound rude nor arrogant. I manage this forum and I'm probably the only one who reads all the comments on this forum.
Unfortunately, I don't have all the answers! I know from experience that a reply to an old question rarely receives a response because it doesn't receive any fresh exposure. People who have previously replied are notified of the new comment, but they may not be able to help more than they already did. And someone who finds the more recent comment through Google usually does so because they have the same problem. Hence, I recommend people to ask a new question, giving them the chance that someone who knows the answer will see it and respond with a solution. Tina, I'm sorry I misunderstood you. The exclamation point at the end of your post threw me.
Having moderated a forum and a chat server in the past I can appreciate the work you do. I was having a BAD day and then the drive I have my current projects had this permissions mess up and I felt sympathy for any one in the same predicament. Again I'm very sorry.I searched for answers and found your site and it seemed to have a good number of people with the same hair pulling problem. Being self employed I'm my own IT dept. So forums such as this are a godsend so I often look to them for answers.
There is a solution of sorts I posted hope it can help some one. Thanks again, Jenn.
Well, I guess I'll join the club too I have a MacBook Pro that I purchased almost 1 yr ago, and my formerly trusty iMac. I have two 1 Tb external drives that I used between my iMac, MacBook Pro and Windows 7 OS PC. It wasn't right away that I noticed the same problem with read/write permissions, but it showed up quickly. I agree Apple needs a utility, or routine that sets up a user ID (+/- a password) to allow the creator of files or partitions on an auxiliary drive to retain permissions.