Mac Help/Elements & Passport drives/Not Writeable

Got a new desktop Mac & haven’t been able to use my hard drives. They are read only. Tried changing it but won’t let me even though I have admin password etc…previous computer was a Mac also. Weird thing is I got a new Passport hard drive yesterday & I can have full access on both desktop & laptop. Still need to sort out this issue on my other hard drives so any Mac experts out there?
also anyone point me in the right direction to get NTFS application without having to pay out for it. Would only require it for this

Hi @tartanjulie,

Please refer to the article WD External Drive Out of Box Format & Operating System Compatibility:

Please check the article How to Partition and Format a WD Drive on Windows or macOS:

When your external drive or any storage drive shows up as “Read Only” on your mac, then you might be encountering a very common problem with the hard drive. In such a situation, the user can open and view the files on a drive but cannot copy or move files to the storage drive. The possible reasons for this issue could be:

  1. External drive is NTFS formatted
  2. Disk permission changed as “Read Only”
  3. External drive is corrupted

However, the issue can be fixed using below DIY methods:

  1. Reformat the external drive
  2. Change/Ignore permissions on an external drive
  3. Repair external drive with disk utility’s first aid

Hope this will help you fix the issue!