09-08-2009, 11:49 PM

Hey everyone! I'm new to the world of Mac, and I came across a problem. I posted this in the forums of apple.com....

"I have an external hard drive (iomega 500GB) which loaded files from a PC. They transferred well into my new MacBook Pro, but now I can't delete them. It first gives me a popup saying that the item will be deleted immediately when I move it to the Trash Can, and then it says this:

"Sorry, the operation could not be completed because an unexpected error occurred. (Error code -61)"

My guess is that it has something to do with permissions or something? I can provide screenshots if needed."

"I used my friend's PC to delete the files, but I still can't add or delete anything from the drive. I clicked on "Get info" and found out in "Sharing & Permissions" that "You can only read." "

Does anybody know a solution to this?

09-09-2009, 12:05 AM

Let me ask you a quick question. First, it's the external you are trying to delete the files from correct? Also how is the External formatted? FAT32? NTFS?

If NTFS there is your issue as stock OSX can read from an Windows NTFS formatted drive but can not write to it.

Let us know so we can better help you.

09-09-2009, 02:09 AM

Originally Posted by dtravis7

If NTFS there is your issue as stock OSX can read from an Windows NTFS formatted drive but can not write to it.

Let us know so we can better help you.

That's exactly it! Thanks. After I erased the drive using Disk Utility, everything is working better now.

I wonder why OSX can't read NTFS...

Anyway, I'm happy now that I have a drive to use Time Machine on!

09-09-2009, 02:12 AM

Glad to hear you got it working.

NTFS is Microsoft's file system. By default OSX, Linux, ETC can't write to it. There are drivers that allow both read and write to NTFS on OSX if the need ever arises. One is called Paragon.

06-23-2012, 09:49 AM

If you select the item you want to erase, go to Finder/Services/Disk Utility and click one of the options. Then select your device that you want to clear and click convert. Go to the erase tab and click erase. It should clear your item or device.