Iomega HDD 80Gb (USB 2) Permissions?

A

anerki

Registered
I just bought this HDD second handed (I have a USB 2 card, no worries there) from a friend, he erased the entire HD for me at his place but I'm only allowed to 'read' on the disk when I plug it in to my Mac!

I tried rebooting, and inserting later and some combinations, neither worked. When I open Disk Utility I'm not allowed to do anything on the HD (duh, since I have no permissions). Found it out when I saw a "No Writing" thingie at the bottom left corner when I opened a window in the HD. And of course a clue that I wasn't allowed to move anything over it :p

A hint as to how I can circumvent this would be great. Or do I have to go back to that friend to reformat the HD. If I do the latter, is there anything in particular I have to watch out for (something less obvious, no answers in the trend of "make sure it's not set as a private disk etc.).

Thankie,
FJ
 
I think your 'buddy' formatted this hard drive with NTFS, which the Mac cannot write to. You should be able to connect the drive, open Disk Utility, and re-partition the drive (you know you can't erase the drive). If you cannot change the partitions, then take it to your buddy, and have him re-format with FAT32 on a PC. If you WILL NOT be using this drive on a PC, then you can re-initialize as a MAC OS Extended drive.
 
You should be able to do this in Disk Utility -- just be sure you're selecting the device and not the partition below the device. The device should be shown in the left-hand sidebar, and any partitions should be shown below it and indented. Then, click on the "Partition" tab and select a new partitioning scheme (I recommend "1 Partition" unless you have a specific need for more). Then select "Mac OS Extended" as the format, click the "Partition" button, and you should have a disk ready to use with your Mac!
 
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