Help! My External Hard Drive Can't Be Read on Mac

macos tips
1

I’ve been using a 1TB WD external hard drive to transfer movie files between two MacBook Pros.

Suddenly, I can no longer write files to the drive on one of the MacBooks, receiving an error message that the drive “cannot be modified” when I try. However, the same drive works fine on the other MacBook, and I can write to it there using Paragon NTFS for Mac.

I also have Paragon NTFS installed on the problematic MacBook and was able to write to the drive previously. Western Digital support explained that the grey drive icon with a clock on my MacBook is due to Time Machine, even though Time Machine is currently turned off. On the other MacBook, the drive icon appears orange.

Recently, I upgraded my internal hard drive to a 500GB WD drive, though I’m not sure if that’s relevant. Any suggestions or insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

2

You can try these fixes:

  1. Reinstall Paragon NTFS for Mac or try another NTFS driver for Mac.
  2. Check disk permissions.
  3. Try Mac Safe Mode.
  4. Backup and reformat the drive.
3

Read this post: Can’t Save/Write to External Hard Drive on Mac/MacBook
After checking the file system in Disk Utility, if the file system is NTFS, you’d better use some professional NTFS drivers for Mac, like iBoysoft NTFS for Mac. You can read and write the NTFS-formatted drive seamlessly on Mac.