read only on external hard drive conundrum (1 Viewer)

[robitusson]

I have an external hard drive which I used to use on my old (non Mac) computer. I can open the files on it with the Mac but it's "read only" now, can't edit or delete or add anything. Whassupwithat?

 

[Gambra]

Different file format?

 

[pete]

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6551275

 

[robitusson]

Different file format?

They;re all different files. They work on the Mac so I dunno why I can't add new ones onto the hard drive.

 

[pete]

NTFS

 

[robitusson]

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6551275

Thanks for the link. I think it says yes, you can read the files but no you can't add anything new to it. I don't understand a lot of the language on those kinds of sites to be honest.

 

[pete]

your external drive was formatted with NTFS, but Macs can only read from NTFS drives not write to them. Bring it to a proper computer, copy the files off it, reformat it as FAT32 and dump the data back on.

bear in mind that (i think) there's a 4Gb file size limit on FAT32. notused it in yeeeaarrss though so not sure.

 

[Wicker]

... Bring it to a proper computer....

 

[ernesto]

EDIT: Robitusson, PM your email address. i have a thingy that makes NTFS mac compatible