External Hard Drive & Unsolvable Problem

[Beachin]

I am having problem that I have researched and can't seem to find an answer to, so I am hoping that some of the pros here will be able to help.

I have a Macbook Pro that I have been using for 6 months. The hard drive is too small for what I do for work (graphics) so while I have been waiting to be able to upgrade it, I have been relying on an external.

With this external, I have been taking files from my laptop and putting them on the eh. I have been taking files from the eh and putting them on my computer. Everything was fine until the other day.

My files all of a sudden won't go onto the eh. I looked and it is now a read only eh. I have no idea how this happened, only that it did.

I looked into the problem and found that if I went into disk utilities, I should be able to fix it.

Upon going into disk utilities, my eh was listed on the left, but the check permissions button was not lit for me to click on.

I haven't been able to find any type of fix for this except for formatting the eh. Doing this would be a huge problem because of all the information on it. I really don't have a computer that all the info will fit on. So I am in a bit of a mess.

Any ideas?

Oh, I am running the newest version of Snow Leopard if that helps.

 

[walterwhite]

You can change permissions on a volume or folder or file by... clicking on the harddrive icon once to just highlight it... then use command "i" and youwill get a screen to the left that has all the info about your hard drive.... at the bottom is the permissions and you will need to add yourself or change yourself to read&write - check back if its still an issue

 

[Beachin]

Thank you for such a quick answer!

When I did that, the same box came up that comes up when I would click on "get info"

I don't see a way to change any permissions. It does say read only down the bottom, but there doesn't seem to be anything to click on.

Sorry I can't figure it out. I am really new to the world of Mac