External hard drive permissions have changed... locking me out?

[zachz]

I have a Western Digital Black P10 gaming HDD (2TB) that I've been using for about a year to store photos, as well as other random things I don't want to save internally.

Everything was working fine, I was able to transfer things in and out, view things, and do typical external storage tasks with it... until today. I have three Photos libraries as well as all the photos in each library saved as actual images in folders vs. a library.

Now, when I use it on my Mac, in "get info" under "sharing and permission" it is read only for "everyone" -- it will not allow me to change it to read and write.

I am trying to clone this drive in Disk Utility so I have two copies of my data (I did have this but had to restore one of my drives a few weeks ago, good timing!). When I go to clone it or do first aid it fails.

Whenever I try to change permissions, it says "The operation can't be completed because you don't have the necessary permission"

I've always used this drive on my M1 iMac running Ventura (and Monterey before), and for the last two months on my 16" 2021 MBP also running Ventura. These are the only two computers that have been using this drive, and as far as I can tell, I've never adjusted the permissions. I am the only account on both Macs and am obviously the admin account with no restrictions on both.

I've tried on both Macs and I still get the error, and now I am unable to transfer the photo libraries or folders with the actual photo files to my second drive... I've attached images of what I get when I try.

When I transferred the folder containing the Photos libraries (attached picture here), it transfers nearly the entire thing (~350Gb) and then gives an error about read/write permissions. Then it sits greyed out with a retry arrow button which I've never seen before in 11 years of using Macs. Smaller folders transfer no problem, but the one's I'm concerned with do not...

As well, when I plug in the storage drive it takes a minute or two to show up in Finder (although it shows up in Disk Utility quickly).

I've attached some screenshots of what I see.

Is there any way to change the permissions under "everyone" so I can transfer my photos? I'm worried about depending on this drive for all of my photos going back nearly a decade... and I regret restoring the second copy I had without ensuring I had a third ready to replace the second...

Any help is appreciated, thanks. I'm not too familiar with how this stuff works or the technical side of things so I'll be more than happy to provide more information as needed.

Edit: under "get info" I've unlocked it and have ticked the "ignore permissions" box and it hasn't helped

 

[stradify]

"Get Info" under Name/Privilege should show your admin account as Read&Write. If you don't have an admin account, unlock the Get Info window, click the (+)button and add an admin account which should default to Read & Write. Click: Ignore ownership on this volume then lock the Get Info window. I, like you, employ an external SSD to store pictures. Mine looks like this (the blocked out part is my admin acct name):

If

 

[zachz]

"Get Info" under Name/Privilege should show your admin account as Read&Write. If you don't have an admin account, unlock the Get Info window, click the (+)button and add an admin account which should default to Read & Write. Click: Ignore ownership on this volume then lock the Get Info window. I, like you, employ an external SSD to store pictures. Mine looks like this (the blocked out part is my admin acct name): View attachment 2116677 If

Thanks for the reply!

I do have "Read & Write" selected for admin and it's also on for "staff" too, however for "everyone" it's stuck on "read only" -- the +/- are greyed out and I'm unable to change that, even if I unlock the panel on the bottom right. I do have "ignore ownership on this volume" selected. I'm unable to change the privileges for admin and staff as well... very strange.

If I transfer folders individually, most go, however certain ones give me an error about individual files being locked... very strange!

 

[galad]

The file system is broken beyond Disk Utility ability to repair it, that's the reason it's read only. Probably the disk is dying too, better copy what can be still copied out before it's too late.

 

[zachz]

The file system is broken beyond Disk Utility ability to repair it, that's the reason it's read only. Probably the disk is dying too, better copy what can be still copied out before it's too late.

Ah I was hoping it wasn't that, the drive is fairly new and doesn't get used too often, but nothing is perfect...

I'll try to salvage whatever I can, although it seems like I'll lose a majority of my photos.

 

[gilby101]

I do have "ignore ownership on this volume" selected.

So you don't have a permissions issue.

Copy whatever you can to another disk. If you have to do it small chunks, then so be it.

For a Photos library open the package (right click and "Show Package Contents"). You can then copy files from the "originals" folder. That hopefully gets you some/all of the photos.

Question: when copying are you copying to an APFS or HFS+ formatted drive? If yes, ignore the question. If no, error -36 can be caused by destination drive format - e.g. is exFAT, etc.

 

[stradify]

Zachz,
You might want to give DriveDX a try. It's an app that monitors the SMART status of all your drives. If there's a problem it will warn you and potentially keep you from losing data. Getting an early warning of imminent HD failure can be really helpful in saving data.

edit: fixed name of DriveDX

 

[zachz]

So you don't have a permissions issue.

Copy whatever you can to another disk. If you have to do it small chunks, then so be it.

For a Photos library open the package (right click and "Show Package Contents"). You can then copy files from the "originals" folder. That hopefully gets you some/all of the photos.

Question: when copying are you copying to an APFS or HFS+ formatted drive? If yes, ignore the question. If no, error -36 can be caused by destination drive format - e.g. is exFAT, etc.

Awesome, I will do that! Thanks for the tips about the Photos library better some than none.

As for the question, both drives are formatted to Mac OS Extended yet I still get the error -36...

Zachz,
You might want to give DriveX a try. It's an app that monitors the SMART status of all your drives. If there's a problem it will warn you and potentially keep you from losing data. Getting an early warning of imminent HD failure can be really helpful in saving data.

Haven't heard of that but will definitely get it on my computer to prevent this from happening again. I'll probably buy an SSD and use that for long term storage. Thanks for the tip!

 

[gilby101]

Haven't heard of that but will definitely get it on my computer to prevent this from happening again.

I also recommend DriveDX for monitoring SMART status of external hard disks and some external SSDs. But be prepared for tricky installation because it has to use a kernel extension (kext) to read the data. Read the DriveDX instructions carefully.

 

[aesFLA]

Zach, did you ever find a solution to this? I have a WD 4TB external HDD and I am having the same exact issue. Read-only permissions that I cannot change on my admin account and the "+/-/..." buttons are greyed out even after unlocking the sharing & permissions options in Get Info. Let me know, thanks.