Resolved Unable to delete certain folders and files from Seagate hard drive

[AnnieBee]

I have removed an old hard drive from a windows laptop and have used an adapter so I can access the files. I have used my macbook (Macbook Pro early 2015 - MacOS Monterey 12.6.7) to do this. I am able to see and access the files but not write to the hard drive which is as I expected.

I would like to move the files off the old hard drive, and onto a different Seagate external hard drive (I don't have enough memory to transfer the files directly to my macbook). Not sure if it's relevant but I use the Seagate hard drive for my time machine back-ups, but there is about 250GB free and the files I want to transfer take up about 45GB. The Seagate hard drive is MacOS formatted.

So I tried to copy the relevant folder from the old hard drive to my Seagate hard drive, and the files started to copy but a number of files "failed" and wouldn't transfer, so stopped the partially completed transfer with the idea that I would delete it and then redo the transfer in smaller chunks, dealing with the rogue files as I go. [The files that were transferred over successfully as part of the partial transfer are fine in that I can open and view them].

However, when I tried to delete the partially completed transfer it wouldn't let me, saying that some files need to be unlocked and/or permissions changed to read/write. I therefore started going through the files/folders individually and found some locked files, which I successfully unlocked and deleted - so far so good!

However, I have now come across some folders I am unable to delete. I have deleted all of the files within the folders in question (none were locked or had read only permissions), but the empty folder itself won't delete - it isn't locked and I have read/write permissions to the folder.

Any idea what is going on and how I can delete these folders?

Also while I am on, can anyone tell me what this file is "Win10_1511_English_x64.iso" on my hard drive?

Many thanks for your help!

 

[NoBoMac]

A) the drive is NTFS format. Macs can read them but cannot write/modify them. Need a third party tool for write access. For example, Paragon has a solution.

2) the file looks like a Windows 10 install image. And looks to be very old version of 10 (EOL 2018-ish).

 

[AnnieBee]

A) the drive is NTFS format. Macs can read them but cannot write/modify them. Need a third party tool for write access. For example, Paragon has a solution.

2) the file looks like a Windows 10 install image. And looks to be very old version of 10 (EOL 2018-ish).

Thanks for responding. Thanks for the info about the file. How odd. I assume I don't need that and can just delete it?

The drive I am trying to delete folders/file from is the Seagate drive - it's MacOS formatted.

 

[NoBoMac]

Sorry for my misunderstanding about which drive.

Might want to check your permissions.

If you don’t have permission to use files on a Mac disk

If you can’t access a disk on your Mac, ask your computer’s administrator for help. If you’re an administrator, you can ignore ownership of the files.

support.apple.com

 

[AnnieBee]

Sorry for my misunderstanding about which drive.

Might want to check your permissions.

If you don’t have permission to use files on a Mac disk

If you can’t access a disk on your Mac, ask your computer’s administrator for help. If you’re an administrator, you can ignore ownership of the files.

support.apple.com

Thank you - I had checked permissions on the folders and files, but not on the drive itself which didn't include an administrators permission - I added this and it has allowed me to delete everything I needed to! Weird I could delete some folders/files and not others. Thanks for your help.