External Hard Drive Access (?ownership/ permissions?)

[hmessec]

Can't read or write to external HDs

(problem and attempted "fixes")

I have 2 One-Tb drives (one Western Dig other is Seagate and neither appears to have any hardware problems) that won't allow me to access their info. They will mount on my iMac and MacBook Pro but will not allow me to "talk" to either drive. No permissions or ownership were intentionally assigned when I first used either drive. I now am told I may not access the info for either drive FROM either of my Macs due to not having one or the other of permission or ownership. I cannot permanently change either FROM either machine.


(other attempts I have almost tried)

I have reviewed the terminal commands in an attempt to "hack" my way into MY OWN DRIVES. I do not understand the form or sytax of these commands so I have wisely chosen not to try to execute them.


(a little "aside" about my level of understanding of computers...)

I have had experience in "programming" (LITTLE test scenarios) in machine language, BASIC, and (yes I really AM this old) FORTRAN. So I thought I could understand the Mac Terminal. Wrongo! I don't even know where to BEGIN to teach myself how to use that environment.

(bottom line)

I please need tech guidance or suggestions (for drive fixing/ hacking software?) that will allow me to get my info (pictures are the main data I want) back from my own drives so I can take a hammer to them and never see them again (or at least erase and reformat them without partitions)

Thanks to any and all who can help!

 

[Dysfunction]

Can you please define 'communicate'? They mount, so they're communicating at a base level with the drive. Can you read? Can you write? If you can read, but not write, then the chances are high they're formatted as NTFS. NTFS, being a Windows specific file system, is not natively writeable in OS X. There are third party apps that allow this, but I can't recommend any of them (I simply have no need for NTFS).

If you can't read, a screenshot with the specific error would help quite a bit.

 

[gsahli]

What OS X version do you have?
please show us the results of this Terminal command:
ls -alO /Volumes
(you should copy and paste it into Terminal to get it right)

Using the Terminal has very little to do with programming. It is about Unix. You can use tutorials about Unix to get acquainted.

PS - Dysfunction may have a point, too! Highlight the drive in Finder and do File > Get Info (or command i), to see the format info.