I dont' have permission to view my WD passport for Mac contents...

[themightypaintr]

So, I have a WD external hard drive called My Passport for Mac. I've had it for about a year and a half now and yesterday for no reason at all, it suddenly says that I don't have permission to see the contents. Can anyone help? Also, there is an annoying icon representing the hd that won't dissapear from the screen no matter what I do and the eyesore stays at the front of every window that I open. So I can't get rid of it. In addition to this, the little circle-like timer is spinning constantly and not stopping thus I can't restart my computer. Any ideas? anyone???

 

[uhmorphous]

I don't know whether you're using the external for Time Machine backups, drag-and-drop, or cloning, but my understanding of My Passport is that the built-in software is not in any way helpful, and can't be extricated from the drive. I don't know if there's anything you can do in this situation, and not knowing what you've tried specifically, it's hard to say what's going on.

If you're using it as a Time Machine backup, I'd recommend getting another type of drive, one that can be formatted and doesn't have its own software embedded, then doing a fresh backup and using that drive from here on in.

If you're using it for something else, more information would help.

 

[harryb2448]

With it connected, go into File > Get Info and see what is shown at the bottom, Read only or Read & Write.

 

[bobtomay]

click the little circle like timer - Time Machine preferences - turn it off.

Shut down the computer
disconnect the drive
restart the computer
reconnect the drive
open Disk Utility and highlight the passport on the left
try a verify/repair of the dive

what does that report?

(and there is no problem getting rid of the WD software from those drives with a simple format of the drive - not even sure if those come with the typical WD software - that no one should be using btw)