My son's mac running 10.11 has the hard drive named this curie HD' copying and pasting reveals lots of spaces after the sequence of ' characters. I can't rename the HD in Finder. Every attempt fails with 'The name 'Curie HD' ' can't be used. Try using a name with fewer characters or with no punctuation marks. Dec 26, 2018 In this video, I'll teach you how to rename a Windows drive that appears in MacOS X as Untitled, when running Windows on a Mac with Boot Camp, or on a Hackintosh. Jun 20, 2013 Mac OS X Snow Leopard Intro Movie. HOW TO format/rename a FLASH DRIVE for MAC and PC. How to Upgrade your MacBook PRO to a SSD (Solid State Hard Drive) - Duration: 13:29.
Summary: Two methods to change Seagate external hard drives from read-only back to read-write, so that you can edit, delete, and rename files on this Seagate external hard drive. Also, if a Seagate external hard drive is read-only or files are locked on Mac due to NTFS format, you can use iBoysoft NTFS for Mac to mount it in read-write mode on Mac.
When you plug a Seagate external hard drive into your Mac, one of the worst things would be that you find your Seagate hard drive is read-only. Your photos, videos, and other files you saved from a Windows PC could be locked. Or your Seagate external drive could be write-protected. Are you facing such disk problem right now? Well, you are not the only one.
'I'm having a problem using my Seagate external hard drive. I only have permission to read files on my external hard drive, but I am not allowed to write or edit files on the drive when using Mac OS. Why this happened and how to fix Seagate external hard drive read-only on Mac?'
You might have trouble backing up or adding files to Seagate external hard drives on Mac. But it's not necessarily because the disk is locked but some other reasons. For example, the Seagate external hard drive becomes read-only on Mac.
In this article, we introduced three possible reasons for disk being read-only on Mac, and you can find solutions to change the external drives from read-only accordingly.
Table of contents
Why a Seagate external hard drive is read-only on Mac?
Case 1: The Seagate external hard drive is NTFS formatted
Case 2: You don't have permissions to access the Seagate external hard drive
Case 3: The Seagate external hard drive has some disk errors
Why is your Seagate external hard drive read only on Mac?
You may be wondering why my Seagate external hard drive is read-only. In fact, read-only Seagate external hard drive results from various reasons. It could be the NTFS format that makes this trouble since NTFS is not writable on Mac. Generally, there are three possible reasons:
The Seagate external hard drive is NTFS formatted
You don't have permissions to access the Seagate external hard drive
The Seagate external hard drive has some disk errors
In the following part, we'll go into details about how to fix the Seagate external hard drive read-onli issue in different situations.
Case 1: The Seagate external hard drive is NTFS formatted
Most Seagate external drives are read-only on Mac because they are pre-fomatted with Windows NT file system (NTFS) by the manufacturer. So your Seagate HDD is read only on Mac, which affects Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch, Portable drive, and Slim.
However, macOS disabled the NTFS write support by default. If you connect an NTFS formatted external hard drive to your Mac, you will find that files on this disk will be locked or show as read-only. You can only read but can't add files to this Seagate external hard drive on Mac.
How to check if your Seagate hard drive is NTFS formatted on Mac?
Open the Finder and click Go at the upper right of your desktop, then choose Utilities.
Find Disk Utility and open it.
Select your Seagate external hard drive in the left sidebar of Disk Utility.
Then you can see Windows NT File System on the right.
You can click the Info icon at the upper right to check if this disk is writable.
Solution: Use NTFS for Mac to write to Seagate external hard drives on Mac
In this situation, what you need is not to unlock the Seagate external hard drive but a NTFS for Mac driver. Many people would think about converting NTFS to APFS or formatting the Seagate drive for Mac to make it compatible with macOS. However, the truth is that you can fix the Seagate external hard drive read-only issue without formatting, i.e. you don't have to lose your files on this drive.
Alternatively, you can download NTFS for Mac software to enable NTFS drive write support on Mac with no fuss. There are a great number of NTFS for Mac in the market, and iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is used here as an example.
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac: NTFS for Mac driver and more
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is a handy disk management tool, which can help you mount NTFS formatted external hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, etc. on Mac with write support. This NTFS drive mounter is also compatible with macOS 10.15 (Catalina), macOS 10.14 (Mojave), macOS 10.13 (High Sierra), macOS 10.12 (Sierra) and Mac OS X 10.11 (El Capitan), 10.10 (Yosemite), 10.9 (Mavericks), 10.8 (Mountain Lion).
How to use iBoysoft NTFS for Mac to write to NTFS Seagate external hard drive on Mac?
Step 1: Download and install iBoysoft NTFS for Mac on your computer.
Step 2: Launch this NTFS driver for Mac and connect the read-only Seagate external hard drive to Mac.
Step 3: Then, you can fully write and copy data to the Seagate external hard drive on Mac after the drive is mounted successfully.
Aside from being an NTFS for Mac driver, iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is also a wonderful tool to manage files on NTFS external drives. It lets users open, monut, repair, and erase NTFS drives on Mac natively and seamlessly.
Case 2: You don't have permissions to access the Seagate external hard drive
If your Seagate hard drive denies your access or restricts you to read-only activities, there is likely an permission issue. Being a multiuser operating system, macOS sets up access permissions for all files and folders on the system, including external drives.
Solution: Change permissions on Seagate external hard drive
To fix the read-only Seagate external hard drive issue, you need to regain full access. You can ignore the ownership or change the sharing and permissions of this disk in the Finder by following the below steps.
Step 1: Select Seagate external hard drive on your desktop or in the Finder sidebar, and then press Command + I to get information of the drive.
Step 2: Scroll to the bottom of this list and click on the triangle that is at the left side of the Sharing & Permissions tab.
Step 3: Click on the lock icon at the right bottom and type in the password to unlock this tab.
Step 4: Check the box to Ignore ownership on this volume, or you can toggle it off and then on if it's already enabled.
Step 5: Click on the gear button and choose Apply to enclosed items… to save your changes.
Then you can go to check if your Seagate external hard drive is read-only still. If not, you will be able to write to this disk.
But if you can't access the Seagate external hard drive as it's locked still. Well, the disk may be really locked by certain programs, especially for Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch. Then you need to unlock the password protection or hardware encryption with Seagate Secure software.
Case 3: The Seagate external hard drive has some disk errors
If your Seagate external hard drive becomes read-only not for the reasons above, you may need to have a check if there is any inner disk error. Some formatting errors will make an external hard drive read-only on Mac. If this is the cause, usually you will see a warning in Disk Utility that states it is only being mounted in read-only mode.
How To Rename New Hard Drive
Solution 1: Fix read-only Seagate external hard drive in Disk Utility
Fortunately, there is a built-in tool called First Aid that can check and repair some minor disk errors. When your Seagate external hard drive becomes read-only due to logical disk problems, you can use First Aid to repair it then.
Here is the guidance to fix read-only Seagate external hard drive with Disk Utility:
Open Disk Utility.
Select the read-only Seagate external hard drive on the left window.
Click First Aid in the top center and choose Run to repair this disk.
Solution 2: Reformat Seagate external hard drive
However, if Disk Utility fails to fix read-only Seagate external hard drive, the last thing you can try to remove write protection from Seagate external hard drives would be reformatting. Reformatting will assign a new file system to this disk, consequently, the Seagate external hard drive issue could be fixed.
But before you go ahead to erase this disk, you should know that reformatting will wipe the files on this hard drive. Thus, you are advised to check if you have a copy of data back in the first place , or you can recover lost data from this external hard drive with iBoysoft Mac data recovery to avoid data loss.
If you're sure that you have data backup in hand, you can proceed to reformat this read-only external hard drive with the following tutorial.
Open Disk Utility as you did before.
Select the read-only Seagate external hard drive in the left sidebar.
Click the Erase button in the top center of Disk Utility.
Fill in name, format, and scheme when the pop-up asks.
Click Erase to confirm this operation.
A final note
Besides Seagate external hard drives, Toshiba, WD, Samsung, or other brands' external hard drives will come across the read-only problem. It is common to see people complaining WD My Passport external hard drives suddenly became read-only on Mac. You can also use these solutions to fix this problem. But if you are unable to fix it with the solutions suggested above, you can only send it to local disk repair store for help, but that will cost a lot usually.
After you’re comfortable moving around the hierarchy of your hard drive, it’s a cinch to copy, move, and rename files and folders from the OS X command line.
To copy files from the command line, use the cp command. Because using the cp command copies a file from one place to another, it requires two operands: first the source and then the destination. For instance, to copy a file from your Home folder to your Documents folder, use the cp command like this:
Keep in mind that when you copy files, you must have proper account permissions to do so! Here’s what happens when you try to copy a file from the Desktop to another user’s Desktop (an account named fuad):
Denied! Thwarted! Refused!
If you can’t copy to the destination you desire, you need to precede the cp command with sudo. Using the sudo command allows you to perform functions as another user. The idea here is that the other user whom you’re emulating has the necessary privileges to execute the desired copy operation.
When you execute the command, the command line asks you for a password. If you don’t know the password, you probably shouldn’t be using sudo. Your computer’s administrator should’ve given you an appropriate password to use. After you enter the correct password, the command executes as desired.
The curious reader might want to know that sudo stands for set user and do.M audio firewire 410 driver mac os x 10.99. It sets the user to the one that you specify and performs the command that follows the username.
A close cousin to the cp (copy) command is the mv (move) command. As you can probably guess, the mv command moves a folder or file from one location to another.
To demonstrate, this command moves MyDocument from the Desktop folder to the current user’s Home folder:
Ah, but here’s the hidden surprise: The mv command can be used as a rename command. For instance, to rename a file MyDocument on the Desktop to MyNewDocument, do this:
Because both folders in this example reside in the same folder (~/Desktop/), it appears as though the mv command has renamed the file.
Again, like the cp command, the mv command requires that you have proper permissions for the action you want to perform. Use the sudo command to perform any commands that your current user (displayed in the prompt) isn’t allowed to execute.
Rename Hard Drive Mac Os X 10 12
On Unix systems, not all users are necessarily equal. Some users can perform functions that others can’t (handy for keeping your child’s mitts off important files on your computer). It also creates a hurdle should you choose to work on files while using your child’s restricted user account. The sudo command lets you temporarily become another user — presumably one who has permission to perform some function that the current user can’t.
Mac Rename File Shortcut
What would file manipulation be without the capability to delete files? Never fear; Unix can delete anything you throw at it. Use the rm (remove) or rmdir (remove directory) command to delete a folder or file. For example, to delete MyNewDocument from the Desktop folder, execute the rm command like this:
Rename Folder On Mac
Again, deleting files and folders requires that you have permission. In other words, any time you manipulate files with the command line, you’re required to have the proper permission. If your current user lacks these permissions, using sudo helps. You should also check to make sure that your target is correctly spelled and that no pesky spaces that could wreak carnage are lurking in the command.