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I have a second hard drive installed on my Mac. On its several root-level folders there's only one I can't get write access to.

I've tried right-clicking it, select "Get Info", unlock it, click the plus sign, select my name, change my name, & everyone to "Read only to "Read & Write", click the gear icon, "Make Me the owner" & "Apply to enclosed items."

Even after repeating those steps I still can't rename or delete this folder. How can I gain write access to it?

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To rename or delete a folder, you need the proper permissions on the parent folder. – ughoavgfhw Mar 26 '11 at 1:47
@ughovavghfw There isn't a parent folder; this is a root-level folder I'm trying to rename/delete. – Ryan Mar 26 '11 at 4:05
@am1rr3za That posts regards an NTFS hard drive. This is a Mac OS (Journaled) hard drive. – Ryan Mar 26 '11 at 4:05
If it's a folder at the root of a volume, then the parent folder is the volume itself. What're the permissions on that? Also, the Finder doesn't always show all permissions -- try from Terminal with ls -leOd and then drag the folder and the volume onto the Terminal window before pressing return. – Gordon Davisson Mar 26 '11 at 16:02
@Gordon - thank you. I didn't realize the actual drive itself had permissions. Changing those and applying to enclosed items did the trick! – Ryan Mar 26 '11 at 19:50

1 Answer

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Do you need permissions to exist on this volume? If not use the "Ignore permissions on this volume" checkbox, and that will take care of all of the problems.

Also - I would run disk utility's verify to see if there are any problems with it.

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