Unlocking a folder and changing harddrive formats

So I just got my Mac Pro yesterday and I love it but I need a little help. All 3 of my harddrives (1 internal, 2 external) that I used on my old windows computer are read only and in windows NT format. How do I change these so that I can save stuff on these harddrives without losing what I have on them already. Also some folders containing music and pictures have a Lock on them and I can't click the check mark to make them unlock. I would appreciate any help I can get on this!!! Thanks

You can can move, shrink, and expand partitions without losing information; however, by definition you cannot "reformat" them without losing data. What exactly do you mean by reformat? Do you want to change the format from NTFS to HFS+ so that your Mac can access the disks? If so, you're going to lose data. If you only want to remove the read-only attribute to give them write permissions, you can do that from within Windows.

Can I transfer all of the info off of the disks, format it, and then put the stuff back on it?

Yash said:

Can I transfer all of the info off of the disks, format it, and then put the stuff back on it?

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Sure you can. I'm still not quite sure what you are ultimately trying to do, however. Do you want to change the format of the disks from NTFS to a different format like HFS+ and then copy your data back on?

Yes thats what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to change my harddrive format to no longer be associated with windows. I want to use them for my mac pro and I want to keep all the files on them and allow the files on them to be edited not just read only.

Okay, I think I understand. First, moving data from your external disks to your Mac should be fairly easy through a USB or firewire connection.

Moving the data from the internal disk to your PC will be a little trickier. Setting up a shared network between the Mac and the PC is probably the best way. Installing an internal NTFS formatted disk as read-only in a Mac is possible, but could cause problems. Give this a read first: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75320.

Now, to format the old disks to HFS+, I'd recommend using a bootable disk called Parted Magic. You can boot it on your PC and reformat and partition your disks with it.

oh no, you have misunderstood I already put the drive into my new mac pro. All drives that I want are connected to the Mac pro. All I want to do, is unlock them, and allow myself to save stuff to them. Basically i just want to use them normally instead of having all the restrictions that are on them right now.

Then it's so easy. A Mac will be able to read that NTFS drive and so you can navigate and copy those files onto the Mac. Then you can erase the drive with Mac's Disk Utility program and format it for HFS+ Mac Extended.

I'll give it a shot, hopefully I won't delete all my stuff.

Don't worry, you'll be fine. Just make sure you copy everything over first. Verify that your data is all copied, then erase the PC disks and format to HFS+ and you'll be able to write to your disks.