Reply With QuoteWhat’s the exact error it displays? A screenshot would help.
This might be a dumb question but here goes, I have a remote hard drive which I back up any pics and docs from time to time off my Mac desktop, the other day I tried to print off a particular picture and it come up that it was locked so I couldn't, the same happened when I tried to send it to someone else to print.
I had a look to see if I could unlock the pics/docs on the hard drive but failed miserably.
Would anyone care to enlighten me on how to go about this.
What’s the exact error it displays? A screenshot would help.
Right, got it a bit wrong in my initial post, I can print from the hard drive but when I come to send a pic or doc via email I try and save to documents and this message comes up
Then I can duplicate it and save that to documents and send it, but if I hit unlock this message comes up
I bet that's as clear as mud, lol.
I suspect that the issue might be the way of 'saving'
are you doing that apple timemachine app, which may have restrictions on how files are retrieved?
Suggest a google search once you ascertain what method you are using?
Good luck - it can be harrowing!
Maybe the drive format is NTFS (Windows most common format). MacOS can read an NTFS volume but not write to one. Have you used the drive connected to a Windows PC?
Thought he backed up from his Mac.Originally Posted by Phil Lee
Was trying to think of a reason why a volume would be read only.
This article might be helpful:
https://macpaw.com/how-to/hard-drive...nly-permission
used on our old windows desktop without a problem
Just checked the info on the hard drive and it's formatted in NTFS, so I take it that is the problem.
How do I re format it without losing all the data etc stored on it.
Do not reformat it. You will lose the lot.
Do you have access to a Windows machine? You could then copy the NTFS drive files either to the Windows machine or to another external hard drive (I would format the other external HD as "exFAT", this works for both Windows and Mac machines, and doesn't have any file-size restrictions).
As others have said, do not format the drive.
Might be easiest to buy a second disk, format it as exFAT and copy the data from the NTFS volume. MacOS can read and write to exFAT. If the drive is to be used exclusively on a Mac, there are significant advantages to using APFS.
If you get stuck, I'd be happy to help you with this as long as you'd be comfortable posting the hard drive to me.
Sent through the ether by diddling with radio waves
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