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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Lacie drive cannot be modified

Winona - Feb 16, 2008 - 9:26 pm

I Have the 160 GB drive and have used it in the past just fine. Now when I try to copy files to it it sends an error window that says "lacie drive cannot be modified". I read something about repairing permissions, which I have done with my regular hardrive recently, before trying to use Lacie this last time. I wonder if that messed it up. I try to repair the Lacie drive and the option is not even available (grayed out).

I have MAC OS 10.4.11

Thanks.

tubajensen - Feb 17, 2008 - 10:35 am

Try typing (you can copy and paste):

ls -l /Volumes

in Terminal. Press the return key on your keyboard and copy the result for me.

Allan

Winona - Feb 17, 2008 - 1:09 pm

Terminal said this when I tried typing in Is -I /Volumes

-bash: IS: command not found
c-69-181-68-246:~ winonaazure$

tubajensen - Feb 17, 2008 - 1:20 pm

Try copying:

ls -l /Volumes

into Terminal and hit return. You have to be very careful with terminal commands. Apparently you typed a capital S in ls.

Allan

Winona - Feb 17, 2008 - 4:40 pm

OOps! Thanks for that.

Here is what Terminal now says:

c-69-181-70-140:~ winonaazure$ ls -l /Volumes
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 1 winonaaz winonaaz 0 Apr 22 2009 External Hard Drive
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Feb 17 13:30 Macintosh HD -> /
c-69-181-70-140:~ winonaazure$

tubajensen - Feb 17, 2008 - 4:59 pm

Well, my external hard drive has the permissions:

drwxrwxr-x

What happens if you type:

chmod 775 /Volumes/"External Hard Drive"

and press return on your keyboard? Does that make you able to write to the external hard drive?

Allan

Winona - Feb 17, 2008 - 6:07 pm

Hi Allen,

I tried it and got htis response:
c-69-181-70-140:~ winonaazure$ chmod 775 /Volumes/"External Hard Drive"
chmod: /Volumes/External Hard Drive: Read-only file system
c-69-181-70-140:~ winonaazure$

And the drive is still the same.
I think this probably happened when I did a "repair permissions" on my mac. Allow I can't use the drive on my laptop either where I have not repaired permissions.

so puzzling....

tubajensen - Feb 18, 2008 - 3:09 am

OK, what happens if you use the sudo command in front of that:

sudo chmod 775 /Volumes/"External Hard Drive"

after pressing return you will be prompted for your password. Enter it and press return once more.

Allan

Winona - Feb 18, 2008 - 12:24 pm

Hi Allen,

Here's what I got:

c-71-202-61-78:~ winonaazure$ sudo chmod 775 /Volumes/"External Hard Drive"

WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss
or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your
typing when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.

To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.

Password:
chmod: /Volumes/External Hard Drive: No such file or directory
c-71-202-61-78:~ winonaazure$

tubajensen - Feb 18, 2008 - 12:32 pm

Well, did it solve your problem. You didn't mention that.

Allan

tubajensen - Feb 18, 2008 - 12:35 pm

Sorry, I didn't read the last of your response. Did you turn on the external hard drive? It shouldn't just disappear!

Allan

Winona - Feb 18, 2008 - 12:36 pm

Oh, sorry, I didn't have it plugged in. Hmm, I tried again and it is not working. Here's the new message:

c-71-202-61-78:~ winonaazure$ sudo chmod 775 /Volumes/"External Hard Drive"
Password:
chmod: /Volumes/External Hard Drive: Read-only file system
c-71-202-61-78:~ winonaazure$

Winona - Feb 18, 2008 - 12:38 pm

Hi Allen,

No it was not plugged in, sorry, I've been having to share the usb with my printer for now. what do you think about the last message?

tubajensen - Feb 18, 2008 - 12:56 pm

That looks strange. I thought the sudo command would let you change the permissions. I'll get back to you after some research.

Allan

Winona - Feb 18, 2008 - 12:58 pm

Ok, thanks so much for your efforts so far

tubajensen - Feb 18, 2008 - 1:06 pm

What happens if you click on the drive's icon and press ⌘I or choose "Get Info" from the "Edit" menu in Finder? Can you change anything in "Sharing and Permissions" at the bottom of the window?

Allan

Winona - Feb 18, 2008 - 7:38 pm

I checked at the bottom of the Get Info window and the Ownership & Permissions section says: You Can Only Read, but it does not let me edit it.

tubajensen - Feb 19, 2008 - 4:47 pm

Can you click on the padlock?

Allan

Winona - Feb 19, 2008 - 6:26 pm

Hi Allen,

I looked at the info panel and even in the finder window of my Lacie and could not see any padlock anywhere. Do you know where one is?
Thx

Winona

tubajensen - Feb 19, 2008 - 6:58 pm

Hi Winona,

the padlock is supposed to be at the bottom right corner of the Ownership and Permissions section.

Allan

Winona - Feb 19, 2008 - 7:07 pm

There was not a lock icon in that section

Winona - Feb 19, 2008 - 9:04 pm

I did try to download another software for use with my Lacie and it did tell me that the drive is locked. But how could that have happened? I don't remember locking it, and there is no option in the software that came with it....

stumped!

tubajensen - Feb 20, 2008 - 6:38 am

On my computer the padlock looks like this:


There's even a box where you can check "Ignore ownership on this volume". Have you tried that? It might be slightly different on Tiger - I'm using Leopard and have forgotten how things worked on Tiger.

Allan

tubajensen - Feb 20, 2008 - 6:40 am

Just saw that the link doesn't work. You will have to type the address manually in the browser's address field, sorry.

Allan

Winona - Feb 20, 2008 - 12:35 pm

I wish miine looked like that! Mine is so plain with no such options. I have a screen capture of it, but not sure how to send it to you. Not sure it would help since there is no lock or anything.

tubajensen - Feb 20, 2008 - 1:29 pm

Do you want me to reopen the ticket?

Allan

Winona - Feb 20, 2008 - 7:39 pm

I'm not sure what you mean "re-open". do you think I should? what advantages would that have? Thx.

tubajensen - Feb 21, 2008 - 5:49 am

Re-opening the ticket would allow other techs to take over. However, after connecting and powering up (if necessary) your drive, could you try and open the Disk Utility application located in the Utilities folder in Applications? When the drive shows up in the list on the left, highlight it and while pressing the command key on your keyboard press the i key also. A window with info about the drive should pop up. Please copy and paste that information into your reply to this answer.

Allan

Winona - Feb 22, 2008 - 12:40 pm

Name : HDT72251 6DLAT80 Media
Type : Disk

Disk Identifier : disk1
Media Name : HDT72251 6DLAT80 Media
Media Type : Generic
Connection Bus : USB
Connection Type : External
USB Serial Number : 10000E000C570028
Partition Type : FDisk_partition_scheme
Writable : Yes
Ejectable : Yes
Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed : No
Location : External
Total Capacity : 153.4 GB (164,696,555,520 Bytes)
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
Disk Number : 1
Partition Number : 0
-------------------------

Still having the same problem. Thanks.

tubajensen - Feb 22, 2008 - 1:58 pm

Well it looks like your external drive is formatted otherwise than mine. Here's what I get:

Name : SAMSUNG HD400LD Media
Type : Disk

Partition Map Scheme : Apple Partition Map
Disk Identifier : disk1
Media Name : SAMSUNG HD400LD Media
Media Type : Generic
Connection Bus : USB
USB Serial Number : DEF107679C83
Writable : Yes
Ejectable : Yes
Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed : No
Location : External
Total Capacity : 372,6 GB (400.088.457.216 Bytes)
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
Disk Number : 1
Partition Number : 0

You see that the

Partition Map Scheme : Apple Partition Map

is Apples's partition map.

Have you always used this drive with a Mac? It's strange that you suddenly weren't able to write to it. If you have all the data on the drive backed up you could try erasing it with "Disk Utility" and choose "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" as the volume format. That was the first thing I did when I bought my Samsung drive. These drives often come unformatted or formatted for Windows PCs.

Hope this helps you,
Allan

Winona - Feb 24, 2008 - 8:27 pm

Yes I have always used it for a Mac. I do have the WIndows XP through Parallels software, but I never use that for backup since there's not much on there.
I will try to reformat the disk and get back to you, thanks for the instructions.

tubajensen - Feb 25, 2008 - 2:34 am

OK, good luck. You must know that all the data on the external disk will be erased ! And be completely sure that you are erasing the right disk - NOT YOUR COMPUTER'S DISK!!!

Allan

tubajensen - Feb 28, 2008 - 4:29 am

Well, how did it go?

Allan