external hard drive locked with custom access

Hey guys,

I'm new to this forum hope you can help me.

I'll start from the beginning...

A friend and i were trying to set up file sharing across the internet, we came across loads of problems and were told many different things to sort it. One being to change the permissions of certain folders. Well after eventually getting it working I switched off my computer to go to bed for the evening. Next morning woke up turned on my macbook and all of a sudden, all my files required an admin password to delete them and also i couldn't rename certain files. Well after a lot of forum searching I finally found a terminal code which sorted all that. (can't remember what it was now but it basically made me staff or something).
Anyway, during the process above i had to re-install leopard and boot from time machine (god bless time machine by the way).

My hard drive privileges are all good now apart from one - my external hard drive. Which has a locked symbol on the icon. When going to get info, there is no unlock tick box as normal, and when looking at the privileges i notice that me (mark maconnachie) only has custom access.

I have been searching a host of forums, it seems there are a lot of people having similar problems. A few fixes were decribed in various forums such as this.

http://forums.macworld.com/message/625216#625216

and also another terminal code where its supposed to unlock the hard drive . However after performing this, nothing could be changed because i have custom access so sorry permission denied. I've also tried repair permissions but this is greyed out for the external HD.

Can anybody out there help me. I really don't want to reinstall everything and my time machine backup has only one volume on it which i've already tried.


Thanks in advance.

Maca

[henrique@fm.ul.p]

I am having the same problem. My external disk permissions (when I get INFO on the icon) says CUSTOM to everybody (Owner, staff and everyone) and I cannot modify it. So, when I try to change ownership or alter the permissions using the Terminal commands, this doesn't work -Permission denied.
How to unlock my external disk? Anyone can help. Thanks

[operator207]

sudo chown -R <user>:<group that user is in> /Volumes/<external drive>

Have you tried that terminal command? with "sudo" in front of it? If you cannot do that with sudo, then your permissions are really screwed up.

BTW, the above command will change ownership to which ever user and group you want. It will recursively change them throughout the entire external drive. Use with Caution.

[trevor]

What version of OS X?

With your external hard drive connected, can we see the results of the following informational commands, copy/pasted into your Terminal?

ls -alO /Volumes # Use this command for Leopard
ls -alo /Volumes # Use this command for Tiger or previous
id
diskutil list
df
echo "done"

Trevor

[Agent GGD]

Greetings again Trevor,

Thanks again for your previous help with my permissions issue. I have re-formatted the drive and am currently re-installing software. Thanks to our backup strategy I didn't lose much of my content and materials, BUT....

I also am having trouble accessing an external drive that is currently still locked.
The details you left in this thread provide some great info on the users and drives using Terminal, but I don't know where else to go from there. A lot of info came up and I wasn't sure about posting it on the thread.

It did seem like the thread here ended, but there was still possibly more that could be done. And since I still have a locked drive is there more steps I need to take using Terminal and codes.

I will keep searching. But again thank you for your responses to previous troubleshooting concerns.

have a good week
GGD

[trevor]

Greetings Agent GGD,

Please show us the results of the terminal commands above. They should show us information about your connected volumes. The only thing above that might be of concern if you're worried about privacy is the id command, which lists your short and long username, and the ls commands, which may show your short username as the owner of some files or directories. The reason that I include those is so that I can craft the commands to fix your problem, which may include transferring ownership to your user in some cases. If you don't want to let this information out (as it might include your real name), then issue the commands, but in the results change each instance of your name to something generic or obfuscated. For example, you could change each instance of your name to "agentggd" if you wish.

Trevor

[Agent GGD]

Thanks for the reponse and privacy suggestion. Here are the results:

Last login: Sun Aug 10 23:05:35 on console
agent-ggd-power-mac-g5:~ agentggd$ ls -alO/Volumes
ls: illegal option -- /
usage: ls [-ABCFGHLPRSTWabcdefghiklmnopqrstuwx1] [file ...]
agent-ggds-power-mac-g5:~ agentggd$ id
uid=501(agentggd) gid=20(staff) groups=20(staff),98(_lpadmin),81(_appserveradm),101(com.apple.sharepoint.group.1),79(_appserverusr),80(admin)
agent-ggds-power-mac-g5:~ agentggd$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *931.5 Gi   disk0
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         31.5 Ki    disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS GRFX_1                  267.2 Gi   disk0s3
   3:                  Apple_HFS GRFX_2                  263.6 Gi   disk0s5
   4:                  Apple_HFS GRFX_3                  400.4 Gi   disk0s7
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *465.8 Gi   disk1
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         31.5 Ki    disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Internal 1              465.6 Gi   disk1s3
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *1.8 Ti     disk2
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         31.5 Ki    disk2s1
   2:             Apple_Driver43                         28.0 Ki    disk2s2
   3:             Apple_Driver43                         28.0 Ki    disk2s3
   4:           Apple_Driver_ATA                         28.0 Ki    disk2s4
   5:           Apple_Driver_ATA                         28.0 Ki    disk2s5
   6:             Apple_FWDriver                         256.0 Ki   disk2s6
   7:         Apple_Driver_IOKit                         256.0 Ki   disk2s7
   8:              Apple_Patches                         256.0 Ki   disk2s8
   9:                  Apple_HFS OWC Mercury Elite AL Pro RAID1.8 Ti     disk2s10
/dev/disk3
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *372.6 Gi   disk3
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         31.5 Ki    disk3s1
   2:  Apple_Driver_OpenFirmware                         512.0 Ki   disk3s2
   3:            Apple_Boot_Raid                         372.6 Gi   disk3s3
/dev/disk4
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *372.6 Gi   disk4
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         31.5 Ki    disk4s1
   2:  Apple_Driver_OpenFirmware                         512.0 Ki   disk4s2
   3:            Apple_Boot_Raid                         372.6 Gi   disk4s3
/dev/disk5
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *372.6 Gi   disk5
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         31.5 Ki    disk5s1
   2:  Apple_Driver_OpenFirmware                         512.0 Ki   disk5s2
   3:            Apple_Boot_Raid                         372.6 Gi   disk5s3
/dev/disk6
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *372.6 Gi   disk6
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         31.5 Ki    disk6s1
   2:  Apple_Driver_OpenFirmware                         512.0 Ki   disk6s2
   3:            Apple_Boot_Raid                         372.6 Gi   disk6s3
/dev/disk7
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            Media Drive            *1.5 Ti     disk7
/dev/disk8
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *931.5 Gi   disk8
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         31.5 Ki    disk8s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS GraFX 1 BU              200.0 Gi   disk8s3
   3:                  Apple_HFS GraFx 3 BU              200.0 Gi   disk8s5
   4:                  Apple_HFS GraFX 2 BU              200.0 Gi   disk8s7
   5:                  Apple_HFS CLIENT GRFX BU          331.0 Gi   disk8s9
agent-ggds-power-mac-g5:~ agentggd$ df
Filesystem    512-blocks       Used Available Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk1s3   976510944   24855168 951143776     3%    /
devfs                260        260         0   100%    /dev
fdesc                  2          2         0   100%    /dev
map -hosts             0          0         0   100%    /net
map auto_home          0          0         0   100%    /home
/dev/disk0s3   560313400  348059976 212253424    63%    /Volumes/GRFX_1
/dev/disk7    3125686528 3052994648  72691880    98%    /Volumes/Media Drive
/dev/disk0s5   552741592  418811320 133930272    76%    /Volumes/GRFX_2
/dev/disk0s7   839683664  647424632 192259032    78%    /Volumes/GRFX_3
/dev/disk2s10 3906786000 3130413728 776372272    81%    /Volumes/OWC Mercury Elite AL Pro RAID
/dev/disk8s7   419430400  418678784    751616   100%    /Volumes/GraFX 2 BU
/dev/disk8s5   419430400  347970496  71459904    83%    /Volumes/GraFx 3 BU
/dev/disk8s3   419430400  309676864 109753536    74%    /Volumes/GraFX 1 BU
/dev/disk8s9   694185312  335644856 358540456    49%    /Volumes/CLIENT GRFX BU
agent-ggds-power-mac-g5:~ agentggd$ echo "done"
done
agent-ggds-power-mac-g5:~ agentggd$

Please note, even though all the drives are listed the locked drive is Media Drive under /dev/disk7.

Again your help has been most appreciative. Thank you.

GGD

[trevor]

Quote: agent-ggd-power-mac-g5:~ agentggd$ ls -alO/Volumes ls: illegal option -- /

Please copy/paste the commands, and hit Return at the end of the line. This one, probably the most important thing that we need to see, is missing a space before /Volumes. The correct command for Leopard is:

ls -alO /Volumes

Trevor

[Agent GGD]

apologies. Here is that info:

Last login: Mon Aug 11 17:50:04 on console
agent-ggds-power-mac-g5:~ agentggd$ ls -alO /Volumes
total 8
drwxrwxrwt@  8 root          admin  hidden  272 Aug 12 09:29 .
drwxrwxr-t  30 root          admin  -      1088 Aug 11 17:44 ..
drwxrwxr-x  21 agentggd  staff  -       782 Aug 11 03:40 GRFX_1
drwxrwxr-x  15 agentggd  staff  -       578 Aug 10 23:08 GRFX_2
drwxrwxr-x  22 agentggd  staff  -       816 Aug 10 23:09 GRFX_3
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root          admin  -         1 Aug 11 17:49 Internal 1 -> /
drw-rw-r-T+ 18 agentggd  staff  uchg    680 May 28 08:56 Media Drive
drwxr-xr-x@ 64 agentggd  staff  -      2244 Aug  7 12:19 OWC Mercury Elite AL Pro RAID
agent-ggds-power-mac-g5:~ agentggd$

[trevor]

drw-rw-r-T+ 18 agentggd  staff  uchg    680 May 28 08:56 Media Drive

OK, you've got a couple of issues there. Ownership looks fine (so we didn't need to worry about your username after all), but you've got the user immutable flag set (the "uchg" above) and permissions are odd. The following commands should fix it:

chflags nouchg /Volumes/Media\ Drive
sudo chmod 1775 /Volumes/Media\ Drive
echo "done"

The + in the permissions that you originally had above means that you have "extended security information", so let us know if the commands above don't take care of all the problem, and we'll look further at that.

Trevor

[Agent GGD]

Success!! I have access to the external Media Drive which was locked.

although,
The plus sign is still in there when I enter code:
ls -alO /Volumes

Should I be concerned about this?
and because of your comment "permissions are odd" is there any way or reason to clean up this oddity? Will leaving it be alright?

Again, thank you so much for your assistance in helping with my permissions situation earlier and the locked drive. SO MUCH more for me to learn, but I'm thankful to find your forum a valuable resource.

Be communicating again soon.
GGD

[trevor]

Quote: Originally Posted by Agent GGD Success!! I have access to the external Media Drive which was locked.

Excellent.

Quote: Originally Posted by Agent GGD although, The plus sign is still in there when I enter code: ls -alO /Volumes

Nope. The plus sign is nothing to worry about by itself. It's only important if things aren't working.

Quote: Originally Posted by Agent GGD and because of your comment "permissions are odd" is there any way or reason to clean up this oddity? Will leaving it be alright?

Permissions are already fixed (no longer odd) with the sudo chmod command in my previous post above. If you look at your ls -alO /Volumes command, you'll notice that the permissions for "Media Drive" should now be drwxrwxr-t, where before they were drw-rw-r-T.

Trevor

[trevor]

By the way, if you'd like to learn more about ownership and permissions, here is a very informative link, written by an acquaintance of mine, Adrian Mayo:
http://www.osxfaq.com/Tutorials/Lear...x/ugp/index.ws

Trevor

[Agent GGD]

Trevor,

Thanks for the response and explanation regarding my last post.

And thanks for the link to Adrian's page on ownership and permissions. Something I was looking for so I'm reviewing and bookmarking it now!

Again thanks and be communicating soon online!

Have a good weekend.
GGD

[keyser]

Hello Trevor,

It's heroes like you that the rest of us can't live without. I'm a guy with almost exactly the same problem, however after issuing your commands, this is the result. Please help me, I hope the below doesn't wrap.

Cheers,

Marc

keyser-sozes-computer:~ keysersoze$ ls -alO /Volumes
total 8
drwxrwxrwt@  5 root        admin       hidden  170 Aug 22 18:30 .
drwxrwxr-t+ 40 root        admin       -      1428 Aug 22 18:26 ..
drwxrwxr-t  23 keysersoze  keysersoze  -       850 Oct 12  2007 Mac OS X Install DVD
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root        admin       -         1 Aug 22 18:29 UnterMac -> /
drw-rw-r--+ 46 root        admin       uchg   1632 Jul  5 15:53 ÜberMac
keyser-sozes-computer:~ keysersoze$ id
uid=501(keysersoze) gid=501(keysersoze) groups=501(keysersoze),98(_lpadmin),80(admin)
keyser-sozes-computer:~ keysersoze$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *74.5 Gi    disk0
   1:                        EFI                         200.0 Mi   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS UnterMac                74.2 Gi    disk0s2
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *7.5 Gi     disk1
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         30.0 Ki    disk1s1
   2:         Apple_Driver_ATAPI                         401.7 Mi   disk1s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Mac OS X Install DVD    7.1 Gi     disk1s3
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *931.5 Gi   disk2
   1:                        EFI                         200.0 Mi   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS ÜberMac                931.2 Gi   disk2s2
keyser-sozes-computer:~ keysersoze$ df
Filesystem    512-blocks      Used  Available Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2   155629664 106671680   48445984    69%    /
devfs                222       222          0   100%    /dev
fdesc                  2         2          0   100%    /dev
map -hosts             0         0          0   100%    /net
map auto_home          0         0          0   100%    /home
/dev/disk1s3    14911928  14904880       7048   100%    /Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD
/dev/disk2s2  1952853344 833885376 1118967968    43%    /Volumes/ÜberMac
keyser-sozes-computer:~ keysersoze$ echo "done"
done
keyser-sozes-computer:~ keysersoze$ chflags nouchg /Volumes/ÜberMac
chflags: /Volumes/ÜberMac: Permission denied

[keyser]

Quote: Originally Posted by operator207 sudo chown -R <user>:<group that user is in> /Volumes/<external drive> Have you tried that terminal command? with "sudo" in front of it? If you cannot do that with sudo, then your permissions are really screwed up

Hello Operator,

Posted a little while ago to Trevor, but it hasn't shown up. I tried your command on my 1 TB external and am endlessly watching chown attempt every file with the same horrid response: Operation not permitted.

How does one recover from being, "really screwed up?"

Same as I said to Trevor, without you, we'd all perish.

Many thanks.

[trevor]

Quote: Originally Posted by keyser keyser-sozes-computer:~ keysersoze$ chflags nouchg /Volumes/ÜberMac chflags: /Volumes/ÜberMac: Permission denied

You need to use

sudo chflags nouchg /Volumes/ÜberMac

...since your ÜberMac is owned by root.

You can also do a

sudo chmod 1775 /Volumes/ÜberMac

...to give the ÜberMac volume more permissive permissions.

Trevor

[JanS]

I also have messed up access privileges after doing an archive and install, however, the drive I have lost permissions to is an internal drive installed in the lower bay of my G5 PowerPC. I am using Leopard (version 10.5.4). It looks like I should take the same action as Agent GGD. When I enter the commands described I get the following:

drw-rw-r-T  18 JanS  staff  uchg    680 Aug 14 21:57 HD-2
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root          admin  -         1 Aug 24 19:13 Macintosh HD -> /
[G5-tower:~] JanS% id
uid=501(JanS) gid=20(staff) groups=20(staff),98(_lpadmin),101(com.apple.sharepoint.group.1),80(admin)
[G5-tower:~] JanS% diskutil list
d/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *465.8 Gi   disk0
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         31.5 Ki    disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS HD-2                    465.6 Gi   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *149.1 Gi   disk1
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         31.5 Ki    disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            148.9 Gi   disk1s3
[G5-tower:~] JanS% df
Filesystem    512-blocks      Used Available Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk1s3   312319584 297210552  14597032    96%    /
devfs                211       211         0   100%    /dev
fdesc                  2         2         0   100%    /dev
map -hosts             0         0         0   100%    /net
map auto_home          0         0         0   100%    /home
/dev/disk0s3   976510944 693993048 282517896    72%    /Volumes/HD-2
[G5-tower:~] JanS% echo "done"
done
[G5-tower:~] JanS%

Is it appropriate for me to fix the problem using the commands described, namely:
chflags nouchg /Volumes/Media\ Drive
sudo chmod 1775 /Volumes/Media\ Drive
echo "done"

Seeing as thinking I knew more than I do led me to the problem that resulted in me having to do an archive and restore, I thought I had better check with you before taking action.
Thanks so much.
Jan

[keyser]

AHHHhhh, Trevor, next time you're in DC look me up and I'll buy you a beer (or the beverage of your choice, but I'll be having a beer.)

I have access to the files in ÜberMac - Mille Grazie!

I hate to ask you about what must be trivia to you, but should I be concerned that both my internal and external drives are owned by root instead of keysersoze? Which is preferable? I've read your friends brief on permissions and other articles, but nothing definitive has been found.

keyser-sozes-computer:~ keysersoze$ ls -alO /Volumes
total 8
drwxrwxrwt@  5 root        admin       hidden  170 Aug 24 20:56 .
drwxrwxr-t  38 root        admin       -      1360 Aug 24 20:33 ..
drwxrwxr-t  23 keysersoze  keysersoze  -       850 Oct 12  2007 Mac OS X Install DVD
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root        admin       -         1 Aug 24 20:56 UnterMac -> /
drwxrwxr-t+ 46 root        admin       -      1632 Jul  5 15:53 ÜberMac
keyser-sozes-computer:~ keysersoze$

Is operator207's direction of sudo chown -R <user>:<group that user is in> /Volumes/<external drive> the correct command if I should want to change the ownership to keysersoze or is there a better command?

Again, Mille Grazie or a thousand thanks.

[trevor]

Quote: Originally Posted by keyser AHHHhhh, Trevor, next time you're in DC look me up and I'll buy you a beer (or the beverage of your choice, but I'll be having a beer.)

Thanks. Beer is definitely the overwhelming beverage of my choice.

Quote: Originally Posted by keyser I hate to ask you about what must be trivia to you, but should I be concerned that both my internal and external drives are owned by root instead of keysersoze? Which is preferable? I've read your friends brief on permissions and other articles, but nothing definitive has been found.

No, you don't need to be concerned. In my opinion, root ownership of most volumes (with permissions that allow users to do what they need to do) is preferable. When a volume is owned by a single user, in some cases other users on the computer are locked out of using that volume. So unless locking others out is what you want, you can leave it as root-owned, with fairly permissive permissions like we set up.

Quote: Originally Posted by keyser Is operator207's direction of sudo chown -R <user>:<group that user is in> /Volumes/<external drive> the correct command if I should want to change the ownership to keysersoze or is there a better command?

Well...it's not wrong, it's just not what I'd personally do.

The -R in that command means recursive, so it's not only changing the root directory of the volume, but every single file on that volume. I'm not a big fan of recursively using chown in most circumstances, although of course it does have it's place. But in most cases that I've run into, you just need to change the root directory of the volume, not every single file.

Changing the ownership of every single file on a bootable volume (one that has OS X or another operating system installed on it, not just a data drive) will destroy that operating system, and you'll need to reinstall. Never ever use chown -R on something bootable.

To change just the root directory of the volume to be owned by keysersoze, the command would be

sudo chown keysersoze /Volumes/ÜberMac

If you want to change the group ownership to keysersoze as well, then it's

sudo chown keysersoze:keysersoze /Volumes/ÜberMac

...and if you really want to change the ownership of every single file on the drive and it's a data-only drive, then you can add the -R flag. But I wouldn't.

Trevor