How do I unlock an external hard drive?

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I use an iMac with OS 10.5.8. I have an external hard drive that I use regularly (a G-Technology drive w/Firewire connection). Daily I save and delete files to and from this drive. Suddenly the drive is locked and I can't save new files to it or create new folders. When I view the Get Info for the drive, all of the permissions and the padlock are dimmed out and can't be changed. I've also tried the Terminal command "sudo chflags -R nouchg" as recommended on some other forums I'd checked. It did not unlock anything. I've restarted the computer to see if a fresh start of the Finder would help. Nope. Until earlier today, I was able to access and change this drive. Now I can only open files off the drive, but I cannot save anything new to the drive. I get an "access denied" error. I have virus protection and have scanned the computer and found no viruses. Otherwise the computer runs fine and the drive boots fine and lets me open files perfectly. I just can't resave the files if I change them. It's quite odd because I've done nothing crazy since earlier today when the drive was fine. Please help!
 
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I use an iMac with OS 10.5.8. I have an external hard drive that I use regularly (a G-Technology drive w/Firewire connection). Daily I save and delete files to and from this drive. Suddenly the drive is locked and I can't save new files to it or create new folders. When I view the Get Info for the drive, all of the permissions and the padlock are dimmed out and can't be changed. I've also tried the Terminal command "sudo chflags -R nouchg" as recommended on some other forums I'd checked. It did not unlock anything. I've restarted the computer to see if a fresh start of the Finder would help. Nope. Until earlier today, I was able to access and change this drive. Now I can only open files off the drive, but I cannot save anything new to the drive. I get an "access denied" error. I have virus protection and have scanned the computer and found no viruses. Otherwise the computer runs fine and the drive boots fine and lets me open files perfectly. I just can't resave the files if I change them. It's quite odd because I've done nothing crazy since earlier today when the drive was fine. Please help!
 

chscag

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The terminal command you issued should have unlocked it if the drive is operating normally. Can you copy the data off that drive and on to another?

Also as a test, turn off or uninstall your AV software and try to access the drive. You didn't mention which AV software you're using but these three AV packages are known to cause problems: Norton, Kaspersky, and Avast.
 

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