Just bought an external HD - problems writing

[charlieash1]

Hi guys im new to the forum, could someone give me a few tips - Ive just bought a new 100gb external HD off ebay (first mistake!) and i cant drag and drop files such as music files or word documents. It shows up on my desktop as 'Disk2.Vol1' and i can open the folder but nothing can be added to it.

Is it something obvious? It says the drive 'cannot be modified' sometimes when i try. Im on a macbook running OSX, the hard drive is an USB connection without external power supply, hope this helps cheers....

 

[jodelli]

Try right clicking on the drive icon, and hit Get Info. See if at the bottom, Ownership & Permissions if it's locked on Read Only. If it is, unlock it and change it to Read & Write using your User name. It'll likely ask for a password, so enter your own.

 

[plinden]

Also, did you format it or was it preformatted? It might be NTFS, which would give you read but not write without MacFUSE.

 

[mgpg89]

Open 'Disk Utility', then select the correct drive from the column on the left and erase/re-format it. (select 'HFS Journaled' as the format)

Then try again.

 

[chipchen]

was it a brand name drive or a no name drive?

I would recommend just formatting it for Mac.

 

[jodelli]

Open 'Disk Utility', then select the correct drive from the column on the left and erase/re-format it. (select 'HFS Journaled' as the format)

Then try again.

I would recommend just formatting it for Mac.

Definitely. It didn't occur to me at first that the OP would try to do this on a non Mac formatted disk.

 

[charlieash1]

All sorted thanks very much people - I erased the disk through disk utility and im now able to drag and drop..... thanks again, keep up the good work!

 

[bki122689]

Open 'Disk Utility', then select the correct drive from the column on the left and erase/re-format it. (select 'HFS Journaled' as the format)

Then try again.

this should fix it