Help, cannot change permission on external HD

[janabanana]

I cannot change the "read only" selection under permissions for my external hard drive. I need to delete some files off of this drive, is there a way i can change this, i have tried restarting. The drive is from a pc that crashed and i can view all the files just can't delete anything.


Thanks

Jana
Powermac G5, 2ghz, 1gb ram, OSX tiger

 

[swiftaw]

I cannot change the "read only" selection under permissions for my external hard drive. I need to delete some files off of this drive, is there a way i can change this, i have tried restarting. The drive is from a pc that crashed and i can view all the files just can't delete anything.


Thanks

Jana
Powermac G5, 2ghz, 1gb ram, OSX tiger

If the hard drive is from a PC it is probably formatted using NTFS. OS X can read NTFS disks but cannot write to them, that is why you cannot change permissions.

 

[Linkjeniero]

If your disk was being used under Windows, probably it's in the NTFS file system. If that's the case, you can't write anything to it, because that file system is read-only in Unix systems, including Mac OS X (thanks to M$, I might add). If you will use the disk only in Macs, I recommend you format it to the Mac file system (HFS+ if I recall correctly). If you need Windows compatibility, format it to FAT32, wich is the older Microsoft file system, and its read and write compatible with Mac OS X.

 

[freauwaru]

I wonder if this is still the case with Intel-based Macs.
If so, is it possible to save my files to my Mac, reformat the drive, and then put the files back onto the reformatted external drive?
Well, I guess I can move the files to my desktop, eject the drive, and then see if they are safe to use.

I did notice that my Mac cannot even recognize my hard drive with eight-year-old Linux formatting but can mount my external drive with SUSE 7.1.