Can't reformat external drive - Disk Utility grayed out

[pkoch1]

Hi all,

I have a stubborn external drive. I can access the files, but get errors sometimes and the permissions are all messed up. It shows as read-only now and I can't change it. In Get Info, after I click the padlock, all the names are grayed out and I can't change anything. I have a backup of the drive, so I tried to just reformat it, but those options are also all grayed out in Disk Utility. Any ideas?

 

[Br0kenWheel]

I notice that in Lion I have to, after opening the lock, triple-click on the permission I want to change, at least the first time. Like where it says 'Read only'. Single clicking doesn't always work.

My favorite application to change ownership and permissions is BatChmod, its freeware (nagware). BatChmod is basically a GUI to unix 'chmod' and 'chown'. These commands can be used in Terminal, but I'm not geeky enough to give instruction .

 

[Edie Brickell]

Try to use any third party tool to reformat your drive if disk utility is able to reformat it.