Dec 22, 2017 I have purchased multiple Seagate External HDD and they come pre-loaded with this software called 'Seagate Dashboard Installer'. In fact there are 2 versions, one is.exe (for Windows) and the other is.dmg (for Mac). The HDD are formatted to Windows NT Filesystem and after running this software I am able to transfer files of any size to my HDD. This Seagate backup software is compatible with Windows and Mac. To use it, you need to connect your Seagate Backup Plus to your computer, and find this program on the disk. Then, click the file (.exe for PC,.dmg for Mac) to install Seagate Dashboard.
Summary: Two methods to change Seagate external hard drives from read-only back to read-write, so that you can edit, delete, and rename files on this Seagate external hard drive. Also, if a Seagate external hard drive is read-only or files are locked on Mac due to NTFS format, you can use iBoysoft NTFS for Mac to mount it in read-write mode on Mac.
When you plug a Seagate external hard drive into your Mac, one of the worst things would be that you find your Seagate hard drive is read-only. Your photos, videos, and other files could be locked. Or your Seagate external drive could be write-protected. Are you facing such disk problem right now? Well, you are not the only one.
'I'm having a problem using my Seagate external hard drive. I only have permission to read files on my external hard drive, but I am not allowed to write or edit files on the drive when using Mac OS. Why this happened and how to fix Seagate external hard drive read-only on Mac?'
As you can see, even though Seagate is one of the most popular brands of storage devices all over the world, you could have trouble backing up or copying files to Seagate external hard drives, such as Seagate Backup Plus Protable drives. And the read-only issue, for example, Seagate external hard drives become read-only after macOS Mojave update, is one of the most common disk problems.
In this article, we introduced three possible reasons for disk being read-only on Mac, and you can find solutions to change the external drives from read-only accordingly.
Why a Seagate external hard drive is read-only on Mac?
You may be wondering why my Seagate external hard drive is read-only. In fact, read-only Seagate external hard drive results from various reasons. Generally, there are three possible reasons:
In the following part, we'll go into details about how to fix the Seagate external hard drive read-onli issue in different situations.
Case 1: The Seagate external hard drive is NTFS formatted
Most of the time, a Seagate external hard drive being read-only on Mac is because the file system of this disk is the Windows NT file system (NTFS). That's because macOS disabled the NTFS write support by default. If you connect an NTFS formatted external hard drive to your Mac, you will find that files on this disk will be locked or show as read-only. You can only read this NTFS formatted Seagate external hard drive on Mac.
How to check if your Seagate hard drive is NTFS formatted on Mac?
Solution: Use NTFS for Mac to write to Seagate external hard drives on Mac
In this situation, many people may think about converting NTFS to APFS or formatting it to make the NTFS drive compatible with macOS. However, the truth is that you can fix the Seagate external hard drive read-only issue without formatting, i.e. you don't have to lose your files on this drive.
Alternatively, you can download NTFS for Mac software to enable NTFS drive write support on Mac with no fuss. There are a great number of NTFS for Mac in the market, and iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is used here as an example.
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac: NTFS for Mac driver and more
iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is a handy disk management tool, which can help you mount NTFS formatted external hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, etc. on Mac with write support. This NTFS drive mounter is also compatible with macOS 10.15 (Catalina), macOS 10.14 (Mojave), macOS 10.13 (High Sierra), macOS 10.12 (Sierra) and Mac OS X 10.11 (El Capitan), 10.10 (Yosemite), 10.9 (Mavericks), 10.8 (Mountain Lion).
How to use iBoysoft NTFS for Mac to write to NTFS Seagate external hard drive on Mac?
Step 1: Download and install iBoysoft NTFS for Mac on your computer.
Step 2: Launch this NTFS driver for Mac and connect Seagate external hard drive to Mac.
Step 3: Write to Seagate external hard drive after the drive is mounted successfully.
Aside from being an NTFS for Mac driver, iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is also a wonderful tool to manage files on NTFS external drives. It lets users open, monut, repair, and erase NTFS drives on Mac natively and seamlessly.
Case 2: You don't have permissions to access the Seagate external hard drive
If your Seagate hard drive denies your access or restricts you to read-only activities, there is likely an ownership conflict. Being a multiuser operating system, macOS sets up access permissions for all files and folders on the system, including external drives.
Solution: Change permissions on Seagate external hard drive
To fix the read-only Seagate external hard drive issue, you need to regain full access. You can ignore the ownership or change the sharing and permissions of this disk in the Finder by following the below steps.
Step 1: Select Seagate external hard drive on your desktop or in the Finder sidebar, and then press Command + I to get information of the drive.
Step 2: Scroll to the bottom of this list and click on the triangle that is at the left side of the Sharing & Permissions tab.
Step 3: Click on the lock icon at the right bottom and type in the password to unlock this tab.
Step 4: Check the box to Ignore ownership on this volume, or you can toggle it off and then on if it's already enabled.
Step 5: Click on the gear button and choose Apply to enclosed items… to save your changes.
Then you can go to check if your Seagate external hard drive is read-only still. If not, you will be able to write to this disk.
Case 3: The Seagate external hard drive has some disk errors
If your Seagate external hard drive becomes read-only not for the reasons above, you may need to have a check if there is any inner disk error. Some formatting errors will make an external hard drive read-only on Mac. If this is the cause, usually you will see a warning in Disk Utility that states it is only being mounted in read-only mode.
Solution 1: Fix read-only Seagate external hard drive in Disk Utility
Fortunately, there is a built-in tool called First Aid that can check and repair some minor disk errors. When your Seagate external hard drive becomes read-only due to logical disk problems, you can use First Aid to repair it then.
Here is the guidance to fix read-only Seagate external hard drive with Disk Utility:
Solution 2: Reformat Seagate external hard drive
However, if Disk Utility fails to fix read-only Seagate external hard drive, the last thing you can try to remove write protection from Seagate external hard drives would be reformatting. Reformatting will assign a new file system to this disk, consequently, the Seagate external hard drive issue could be fixed.
But before you go ahead to erase this disk, you should know that reformatting will wipe the files on this hard drive. Thus, you are advised to check if you have a copy of data back in the first place , or you can recover data from this external hard drive with iBoysoft Mac data recovery to avoid data loss.
If you're sure that you have data backup in hand, you can proceed to reformat this read-only external hard drive with the following tutorial.
A final note
Besides Seagate external hard drives, Toshiba, WD, Samsung, or other brands' external hard drives will come across the read-only problem. It is common to see people complaining WD My Passport external hard drives suddenly became read-only on Mac. You can also use these solutions to fix this problem. But if you are unable to fix it with the solutions suggested above, you can only send it to local disk repair store for help, but that will cost a lot usually.
Summary: Here is how to fix Seagate Backup Plus drive not recognized/detected/showing up on Mac computewer and how to recover data from unrecognizable Seagate Backup Plus drive with iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.
By Katrina | Posted to Mac Data Recovery, updated on March 15th, 2019 |
I use a Seagate 2TB Backup Plus Portable HD as my Time Machine backups drive and it had been working fine. Since I upgrade to Yosemite (may be coincidental?) the HD is no longer recognized by my MacBook Pro. I can see the light on HD so I am sure it is getting power. I searched for all day but no Seagate firmware update available (attempt to update shows it to be current) and no other help available from Seagate 'support.' Can anybody help me cuz I'm really in need of the files on this drive.
- Post from Apple Communities
Seagate Backup Plus drive is a popular external hard drive that has many cool features. However, there are times when you plug in Seagate Backup Plus drive but it isn't showing up on your Mac computer or you can't access data on it at all. Actually, it's a common issue that people discussed in Apple Community – the Seagate Backup Plus drive is not recognized or detected, and sometimes the external hard drive even greyed out in Disk Utility. The reason for this could be various and this page will illustrate the possible causes behind this problem briefly along with the solutions.
The causes for Seagate Backup Plus Portable drive not detected issue could be:
• A recent macOS update • Faulty connection such as wobbly USB port and broken cable • File system corruption in this Seagate Backup Plus drive • Virus infection • External drive hardware errors • Other unknown reasons
Then how can you fix the problem that Seagate Backup Plus Drive is recognized/detected/showing up on Mac?
Seagate Freeagent Drive Software DownloadFirst of all: Have some basic checks
Once your Seagate Backup Plus drive is not recognized on your Mac computer, you can try some routine checks first.
1. Re-plug the Seagate Backup Plus drive and check if it is connected properly.
2. Try a different USB port or cable to see whether the USB port or cable is bad.
3. Connect Seagate Backup Plus drive to another Mac or PC and see if it is compatible with.
All checks seem to be OK? Qbittorrent mac unidentified developer. Then you can fix this issue with the following solutions one by one.
Show Seagate Backup Plus drive in Finder or on desktop
For many Mac users, when they say Seagate Backup Plus drive is not showing up, they mean their drives can't show up in Finder or on the desktop. In this case, you can try to show your external drives through resetting Finder Preferences.
Step 1: Go to Finder >Preferences > Sidebar.
Step 2: Tick 'External disks' in Sidebar tab to show external hard drives in Finder.
Step 3: Shift to the General tab.
Step 4: Check 'External disks' under 'Show these items on the desktop' and you’re your connected Seagate Backup Plus drive will appear on the desktop.
Check whether Seagate Backup Plus drive can be found in Disk Utility
After setting 'External disk' to show up in the Finder or on desktop, your Seagate Backup Plus drive is still not showing up on Mac? you maybe need to check whether the Seagate Backup Plus drive can be found in Disk Utility because it really means a lot.
Scenario 1. Seagate Backup Plus drive shows up in Disk Utility
If Seagate Backup Plus drive is listed in Disk Utility, then you can have a relief because it means your drive has no serious hardware problem. And you can follow the below solutions to fix the unrecognizable Seagate Backup Plus drive.
a. Mount Seagate Backup Plus drive
Sometimes, external hard drives cannot be automatically mounted on Mac. But you still have a way to mount Seagate Backup Plus drive manually in Disk Utility:
Step 1: Open Disk Utility.
Step 2: Right click the Seagate Backup Plus drive from the left sidebar and then click the Mount button.
b. Repair Seagate Backup Plus drive via First Aid
If the above method doesn't work, it might refer to some file system errors on the Seagate Backup Plus drive. https://colorsclever.weebly.com/blog/vm-player-for-mac. We should check and verify Seagate Backup Plus drive by First Aid.
Step 1: Launch Disk Utility.
Step 2: Choose the grayed-out Seagate Backup Plus drive.
Step 3: Select First Aid in the top center and click Run.
c. Reformat Seagate Backup Plus drive
If First Aid fails to correct errors on Seagate Backup Plus drive, the last choice is to reformat Seagate Backup Plus drive. But reformatting will erase all data stored on Seagate Backup Plus drive. If data stored on the external hard drive are for you and you don't have any backup, you'd better recover data from the unrecognizable Seagate Backup Plus drive at first with Mac data recovery software, like iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.
Step 1: Recover data from Seagate Backup Plus drive
iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery is afree Mac data recovery software that can recover deleted files from emptied Mac trash, recover data from formatted, inaccessible, corrupted, unmountable, unreadable drive, etc. in macOS 10.15/10.14 Mojave/10.13 High Sierra/10.12 Sierra and Mac OS X 10.11/10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.
Tutorial to recover data from Seagate Backup Plus drive drive with iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery
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1. Download and install iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery on Mac.
Seagate Dashboard Software For Mac
2. Launch iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery.
3. Select the drive you want to recover data from and click 'Next' button to scan for all lost data.
4. Preview the searching results, choose files you need, and click 'Recover' to get them back.
Step 2: Reformat Seagate Backup Plus drive
1. Launch Disk Utility.
2. Select the Seagate Backup Plus drive on the left part of the window.
3. Click the Erase on the top of the Disk Utility window.
4. Complete the related information (name, format, scheme), then click Erase.
Seagate Driver Download Windows 7Scenario 2: Seagate Backup Plus drive can't show up in Disk Utility
If Seagate Backup Plus drive can't show up in Disk Utility, unfortunately, your Seagate Backup Plus drive may have some physical problems.
Seagate Expansion Software For Mac
a. Try iBoysoft Data Recovery
Free Software For Mac Downloads
In some situations, Disk Utility fails to recognize Seagate Backup Plus drive, but it can be recognized by some data recovery software.
Seagate Software For Mac And Pc
b. Send it to a local technician for help
If unfortunately, iBoysoft Mac Data Recovery cannot detect your Seagate Backup Plus drive either, in this case, you'd better send the drive to a local data recovery service and see if they could help.
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