Write data on external harddrive

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Hi,
I've got an external harddrive, which I normally use on PC.
Now I need it for Mac as well (Mac OS X).

When I connect it, it shows up in the finder. The problem is: I can only read data, but not write data on the harddrive. When I do Apple+i, it says "You can only read" under Ownership & Permissions.

What do I have to change so that I can also write data on this harddrive?
Hopefully I don't have to format the drive, because I have a lot of data on it.

Thanks for help,
Mando
 
NTFS is read-write on MS operating systems only. On everything else, it's read only which is why you must format it as FAT32 (MS-DOS if you're formatting from OS X). NTFS is still closed off by Microsoft from everyone else, while FAT/FAT32 is used by everyone and isn't as locked out at NTFS is by Microsoft.

What you can do is transfer the data to your Mac temporarily, format it, and then transfer it back.
 
It sounds like the drive is formatted as NTFS, which is read-only under Mac OS X. Your best bet is to back the data off the drive up onto your internal drive, then reformat the drive to something more Mac-friendly (like HFS+).
 
Yes, it's formatted as NTFS.
How annoying, those politics between Apple and Microsoft.
Thanks for your help...
 
Well, it's not even so much Apple as it is with MS. You can actually write to HFS and HFS+ partitions in Linux and open source Unix so long as you have the kernel module enabled (I've transfered files from a Linux/ppc partition to a Mac OS partition on a Mac clone that I had set for dual boot).
 
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