Insufficient access privileges

[oYx]

A folder on my external hard drive just refuses to be renamed. Likewise for any files and folders in it. The other folders on the same level are fine. The file system is HFS+.

The problem folder can be copied to another drive, but the copy would have the same access limitations. Deleting the copy is allowed though, after I enter the admin privileges.

Any idea how to fix this without reformatting it? Any help will be much appreciated!

 

[maflynn]

A couple of different ways to accomplish this, using the terminal and issuing the chown command with the appropriate flags. I suggest typing "man chown" to get the syntax. Googling it will also work.

Also if you right click the folder in question and select get info. You should be able to change the owner from there.

One word of caution is to be very careful with either command because if you're mistakenly change the ownership on some files you could alter how OSX works. ownership and permissions is at the heart of how unix protects data, programs and system files and if a user carelessly starts changing the attributes, bad things can happen.

While the risk is minimal on an external drive, my point is to be sure you're actually working on that and not some other folder.

 

[oYx]

A couple of different ways to accomplish this, using the terminal and issuing the chown command with the appropriate flags. I suggest typing "man chown" to get the syntax. Googling it will also work.

Also if you right click the folder in question and select get info. You should be able to change the owner from there.

One word of caution is to be very careful with either command because if you're mistakenly change the ownership on some files you could alter how OSX works. ownership and permissions is at the heart of how unix protects data, programs and system files and if a user carelessly starts changing the attributes, bad things can happen.

While the risk is minimal on an external drive, my point is to be sure you're actually working on that and not some other folder.

Forgot to mention that I have tried the "Get Info" method before and I can see that I do have full "Read & Write" permissions.

Will look into the chown command.

 

[oYx]

Tried chown, but not sure if I am doing the right thing.

Any kind soul to walk me through this one?