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My Time machine/external drive suddenly gives me only Read permission.

My Time machine/external drive suddenly gives me only Read permission. I did a first aid run on the WD "My book for Mac 4T" external drive and it said all was fine. It is formatted APFS. In the "get info" box it does not show it locked or unlocked, nor does it show any permission list; just "You can only read". It will not let me change permissions.

Posted on May 28, 2021 3:29 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 30, 2021 9:59 AM

pgpatt wrote:

My Time machine/external drive suddenly gives me only Read permission. I did a first aid run on the WD "My book for Mac 4T" external drive and it said all was fine. It is formatted APFS. In the "get info" box it does not show it locked or unlocked, nor does it show any permission list; just "You can only read". It will not let me change permissions.


What you describe is normal.

9 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 30, 2021 9:59 AM in response to pgpatt

pgpatt wrote:

My Time machine/external drive suddenly gives me only Read permission. I did a first aid run on the WD "My book for Mac 4T" external drive and it said all was fine. It is formatted APFS. In the "get info" box it does not show it locked or unlocked, nor does it show any permission list; just "You can only read". It will not let me change permissions.


What you describe is normal.

May 29, 2021 11:08 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

That external drive is used only for Time Machine and it is backing up as it should. But I can't do anything with the backup files except copy them, which I suppose I can do and then reload them, probably after reformatting the drive. But I'd rather not do that is I don't have to. I'm just concerned that if I should lose those files on my computer I wouldn't be able to use the backup files to replace them.


May 30, 2021 9:51 AM in response to ksaro1

Mine reads: Volume name : My Book for Mac 4T

Volume type : APFS Volume

BSD device node : disk5s2

Mount point : /Volumes/My Book for Mac 4T

File system : APFS (Case-sensitive)

Connection : USB

Device tree path : IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/XHC1@14

Writable : Yes

Is case-sensitive : Yes

File system UUID : 016C8DF3-5418-4BA1-9440-1FCFA4B321ED

Volume capacity : 4,000,408,625,152

Available space (Purgeable + Free) : 3,176,528,846,400

Purgeable space : 5,721,664

Free space : 3,176,523,124,736

Used space : 823,400,124,416

File count : 776,681

Owners enabled : Yes

Is encrypted : No

System Integrity Protection supported : No

Can be verified : Yes

Can be repaired : Yes

Bootable : No

Journaled : No

Disk number : 5

Partition number : 2

Media name :

Media type : Generic

Ejectable : Yes

Solid state : No

S.M.A.R.T. status : Not Supported

Parent disks : disk5


My Time machine/external drive suddenly gives me only Read permission.

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