Question WD external hardrive read only on a mac

[justinpenrod88]

Hello, I just bought a Macbook Air, and I have WD external 1 TB that I purchased back in Feb 2011. I have had no problems writing files to the external harddrive in the past on my previous windows based laptop (asus), but now that I have a macbook air I can only pull files from the drivedrive and place them onto my mac, I can't write anything to the external harddrive from my mac. I believe this is called read only. Is there anyway that I can fix this issue without reformatting my WD harddrive?

 

[HugoStiglitz]

The drive will be NTFS formatted which is READ ONLY in Mac OSX.

being that you have a OSX Lion machine your options are limited.

A. Reformat the HDD in HFS (using disk utility) - WILL NOT WORK IN A WINDOWS PC AFTER.
B. Buy Tuxera (so you can write to a NFTS drive (http://www.tuxera.com/products/tuxera-ntfs-for-mac/)
C. Format the drive in exFAT so you can read / write on both windows and Mac computers

 

[festerovic]

The drive will be NTFS formatted which is READ ONLY in Mac OSX.

A. Reformat the HDD in HFS (using disk utility) - WILL NOT WORK IN A WINDOWS PC AFTER.

I didn't know the first part. But there are ways of making windows able to access and write on HFS file systems. Making the mac do anything is harder than just making the PC compatible with mac.

 

[HugoStiglitz]

if the computer is boot camped you can "READ" the HFS partitions

so im sure there is a tool avaliable to READ HFS without bootcamp. neva looked tbh.

 

[amdfangirl]

I didn't know the first part. But there are ways of making windows able to access and write on HFS file systems. Making the mac do anything is harder than just making the PC compatible with mac.

Well it would be wise to invest in a Fat32 USB device and transfer larger files across a network.

Mac OS X Server is capable of NTFS read and write.

Here is an advanced hack to enable NTFS in Mac OS X.

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/06/howto-readwrite-to-ntfs-drives.html

I have prepared a new sticky designed so that people will not ask this question in future.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/1079-69-before-post-ntfs-guide

 

[Jorgeaat66]

Just get this application, no need to reformat disk, it will install driver to read / write on NTFS formatted drives

The first solution to support OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion!
Using a Mac® is a wonderful experience – until you try to use a NTFS-formatted drive, which includes most Windows® hard drives! Because in order to create, delete or modify any files on Windows NTFS drives you need Paragon NTFS for Mac® - after minutes you won’t remember there ever was a problem. Remove the barriers between NTFS and HFS with ease and confidence!
The first solution to support OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion!
$19.95

 

[Jorgeaat66]

Just get this application, no need to reformat disk, it will install driver to read / write on NTFS formatted drives

The first solution to support OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion!
Using a Mac® is a wonderful experience – until you try to use a NTFS-formatted drive, which includes most Windows® hard drives! Because in order to create, delete or modify any files on Windows NTFS drives you need Paragon NTFS for Mac® - after minutes you won’t remember there ever was a problem. Remove the barriers between NTFS and HFS with ease and confidence!
The first solution to support OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion!
$19.95

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/

 

[Ben Verberck]

works great - thanks

... going it the Microsoft way, i was looking for the mystery check-box, I do not yet know that exists that I forgot to check somewhere????, but hey, Mac is made to be user friendly so a simple software upload seemed to do the trick!!!! - thanks for you development guys - a 20 $ well spent

 

[AndyPac]

This is pretty easy.
Back up if you have files on it.
Got to utilities in applications.
Go to disc utility.
Click on the HD symbol of the Toshiba HD.
Click on the RAID button.
Click on format and make it MS DOS (FAT).
Name your drive in the panel above.
Now go to erase.
Title the HD again and click erase.
It'll take 30-40 seconds and it'll be ready to copy onto and work with.

 

[ladyrogue]

This is pretty easy.
Back up if you have files on it.
Got to utilities in applications.
Go to disc utility.
Click on the HD symbol of the Toshiba HD.
Click on the RAID button.
Click on format and make it MS DOS (FAT).
Name your drive in the panel above.
Now go to erase.
Title the HD again and click erase.
It'll take 30-40 seconds and it'll be ready to copy onto and work with.

Hi,

I have the same problem. I have files frm a PC in this HD and now want to transfer updated files to this HD from my imac but its only read only. If I do the above and change to MSDOC (FAT), will i be able to retrieve these files in a PC later?

 

[Pisnaz]

Do not use plain FAT, it will not support 1TB. FAT32 is good but you will be limited to files no larger than 4GB on it.