Cant Delete certain folders from my ex-hdd

carbonkid

Only recently moved to mac os and there seems to be an issue with mac's deleting some folders or files from external hdds.

I have tried both, get info and its not locked as well as holding the alt/option key while emptying trash bin. Neither work.

It comes up - "The operation cannot be completed because you do not have sufficient privileges for some of the items."

Id like to avoid going near the terminal but all help appreciated.

Teh Russ

Right-click on the folder in question in the Finder, and select "Get Info". At the bottom of the info box, there's a section called "Sharing & Permissions" - click the padlock icon in the bottom right, enter your password, then click the "+" icon and add yourself as a user with read and write permissions. Once you've done that, click the little cog icon at the bottom, and select "Apply changes to enclosed items".

That should do it.

carbonkid

At the bottom of the get info box it says i have read and write permissions...there's no padlock icon.

Flashraziel

I've had this problem before with folders created on a windows machine. I couldn't delete them on the mac.

Only solution I found was to hook the external up to a PC and delete it.

carbonkid

Stupid windows...coolies ill just bring it into college to delete then.

Edit/: in the end just reformatted the hdd to OSX.

RichyX

carbonkid wrote: »

Stupid windows...coolies ill just bring it into college to delete then.

Edit/: in the end just reformatted the hdd to OSX.

The best thing to do is format the HDD as fat 32, that way both Mac and PC can read and write to it.
The only real problem is that with fat 32 there is a file size limit of around 4GB per file. This shouldn't be a problem unless you work with uncompressed video or something pretty hardcore.