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Osx Recovery Mode Read Only File System

Sometimes when you connect an external hard drive to your Mac, you'll find that it's set up to read merely. This happens considering the drive is formatted with Microsoft's NTFS filesystem, which macOS doesn't support by default. Fortunately, it's easy to prepare and so that your external difficult drive is no longer read just.

There are a number of means to unlock an external hard bulldoze on a Mac, from reformatting the drive to installing software that allows you to write to NTFS volumes. For more advanced users, there are as well riskier, more experimental solutions.

Let's get started.

1. If Your Drive Is Blank

If you can't write to an external difficult drive on Mac but the drive is bare, you're in luck. Y'all can hands format information technology to any you need and move on.

To brainstorm, mount the disk on your Mac, then open Disk Utility. Now select the bulldoze in the sidebar and click Erase.

format external mac drive

The all-time format option for an external bulldoze depends on what you lot intend to use information technology for:

  • Time Car backup: If you program to employ the bulldoze to back upward your Mac with Time Machine, y'all'll desire to format the drive to APFS for macOS ten.13 or later. Set up the Scheme to GUID Partition Map to make the selection bear witness up. On older systems, cull HFS+, which shows up every bit Mac Os Extended.
  • Portable drive: If you're looking to create a portable bulldoze to utilise with your Mac and other operating systems like Windows, choose exFAT. If you are but working with Macs, APFS is the preferred option, unless yous need to use the drive on a pre-10.13 system.
  • Working with onetime PCs: This is rare, but if you'll apply the deejay with an erstwhile Windows computer that doesn't support exFAT, you may take to choose the older Fatty pick. In most cases, yous shouldn't apply this as it limits drive sizes to less than 32GB.

2. If You Need a One-Time Fix

Alert! The following steps describe a method of enabling the experimental NTFS support in macOS. There is a very real adventure that something could become wrong, resulting in a loss of data on the target drive. We recommend yous do not rely on this method for writing to important volumes or as a long-term solution.

Sometimes y'all may need to write some files to a locked drive simply once, and you can practice this with built-in Mac tools. Simply while macOS tin can read NTFS drives by default, its write capability hides behind a Terminal hack. Yous need to follow these instructions for each bulldoze you want to write to.

Open Concluding and blazon:

          nano etc/fstab        

So re-create this line into the file, replacing DRIVENAME with the actual name of the drive you want to access:

          Label=DRIVENAME none ntfs rw,automobile,nobrowse        

Hit Ctrl + O to relieve the file, then Ctrl + X to quit Nano. At present disconnect and reconnect your drive. Once it has remounted, it will be available in /Volumes.

You lot tin but get at that place in Finder; click Go in the menu bar and select Go to Folder. Enter /Volumes and click Go. You'll see your drive listed here, and you tin can now copy files onto it.

ntfs drive in finder

3. A Free Open-Source Solution

Even if you lot're comfy using Terminal, no one wants to edit a preference file every time they bargain with a new drive. If you're in IT and bargain with Windows drives regularly, you lot may need a better option. 1 of the most popular solutions is an open up-source product: macFUSE for macOS.

Download macFUSE to get started. The program is a handler; it doesn't contain anything to mountain and read the files themselves. You'll need a couple of extra tools to complete the job, bachelor in a Mac Homebrew bundle called NTFS-3G.

Starting time, install Homebrew by pasting this line into the Last:

          /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/Caput/install.sh)"        

In one case y'all run the commands to install Homebrew, and you lot get a confirmation in Concluding, you demand to install the NTFS-3G package. That is another single control:

          brew install ntfs-3g        

Sometimes Terminal doesn't recognize that you have already installed the macFUSE package. If that happens, run this command likewise:

          brew install --cask macfuse        

You'll and then be prompted to reboot your Mac. In one case y'all've done that, try re-running the NTFS-3G command.

How to Write to an NTFS Drive With NTFS-3G

NTFS-3G enables your Mac to write to NTFS drives, but it is non automatic. You need to run a few extra commands to get information technology working.

First, notice the address of your mounted read-merely drive. You lot can get this in the Final using the control:

          diskutil list        

You lot need to run the following commands each fourth dimension that you want to mount a drive with write permissions. Supplant /dev/disk1s1 with the drive address that you plant higher up:

          sudo mkdir /Volumes/NTFS        

Then:

          sudo /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g /dev/disk1s1 /Volumes/NTFS -o local -o allow_other -o auto_xattr -o auto_cache        

If yous don't desire to run these commands each fourth dimension, at that place's a set. Yous can boot your Mac into single-user style and supplant the built-in Mac NTFS tools with NTFS-3G. There are some warnings about security on the projection site; y'all can cheque out the steps to enable it on the developer'due south GitHub page.

The devs make it articulate that this opens up your Mac to potential exploitation, so this step is not for the faint of heart.

4. A Simple, Paid Option

The solutions we've described above are pretty technical. If you'd rather only click your mouse a few times to get this working, y'all tin use a paid tertiary-political party app to simplify the unabridged process.

There are some different choices, but the longtime favorite is Paragon Software's NTFS for Mac. It costs $19.95 per Mac license, though you lot get a discount for ownership a 2nd or 3rd license at the same fourth dimension. You lot can examination bulldoze the software with a ten-day trial also, and it's fully uniform with Apple tree silicon.

ntfs for mac paragon software

It'southward a simple install, which and so provides a menu bar particular that shows your NTFS drives. Better still, your NTFS drives now show upward in Finder normally, and you can treat them like any other drive.

Download: Microsoft NTFS for Mac by Paragon Software ($19.95)

Tuxera NTFS for Mac is another programme that's worth looking at. It'south built on meridian of the open up standard we used above, NTFS-3G. The licensing is a bit simpler, equally you pay $15 to utilize it on iii Macs at the aforementioned time.

With a 15-day free trial, you can put the program through its paces before shelling out any money. Rather than a card bar item, Tuxera installs every bit a preference pane. You can format drives from in that location, but not much else. Similar Paragon, you tin can employ Finder to piece of work with the drive.

Download: Microsoft NTFS for Mac past Tuxera ($15 for iii computers)

Solve Other Mac External Drive Problems

Both paid options offer a painless mode to mount an NTFS read-only drive on your Mac and make it writable. The open-source and Terminal options are more work, and y'all shouldn't rely on experimental support total-time. You can besides write equally much information as yous need to and from your drives while trialing both paid options.

Only having a read-merely drive is not the only external disk problem you can face on a Mac. Sometimes you can mount an external drive and it isn't fifty-fifty recognized. Take a look at our guide on how to get your external bulldoze to show up on a Mac for tips on how to solve that issue.

External Hard Bulldoze Not Showing Up on Mac? Here'due south How to Fix It

External hard drive not showing upward on your Mac? Hither's a troubleshooting guide to assistance get your external hard drive or flash drive working again.

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