Padlocked folder and invisible music on external drive

R

RobLines

Registered
Hi there.

History: My previous mac was backed up to a LaCie external drive. The mac died a horrible death (don't ask) and I now have a G5 running 10.3.6.

Attaching the drive to the new mac is fine, and it shows up on the desktop. However, navigating to /users/rob shows:
- the /users/rob folder is empty
- the folder has a small padlock symbol on it.

I'm guessing that I'm not being allowed to see the contents (which includes all my iTunes music) because the drive thinks I'm not the same user as was set up on the old mac. The lock checkbox near the top of the Info window is checked, but greyed out.

I've tried changing permissions etc, but no joy. I am now *desperate*!

Hope you can help.

Rob
 
Verify & backup your backup (It's not a back-up any more!)

Could be due to a different UserName (or UserID number if the name's the same) associated with your new account - this sort of thing has happened to me. The best way is to reslove this sort of permissions issue is via the terminal as the Finder has always been very slow and inconsisent in this regard.

Before you mess with permissions and the Terminal though - the easiest way around may be to just Get Info (Apple+I) on the external drive's icon and set Ignore permissions on this drive. Bit of luck you'll be ready to rock.

If you still want to change the ownership stuff (in Terminal) try
> sudo chown -R yourusername
(where yourusername is your Short Username as defined in Ayatem Prefs/Accounts) add a space and then drag your old home folder icon to the Terminal Window (for Terminal to fill in the correct path for you). When you then hit enter you'll be prompted for you password. Then withinin seconds the process should be finished.

HTH,

Gabs
 
Hi - thank you for your suggestion, but when I tried it I got:

Operation not permitted

It's wierd - Apple-info tells me that I am the owner, and that i can read and write (and I've got "ignore permissions" set n the drive). But there is still this padlock graphic on the folder that appears empty.

(And as a background thought, is there any way of seeing the files that are there, so that I can be confident I'm not on a wild goose chase?)

best
r
 
I don't know how to unlock (or lock) a folder in OS X. Perhaps an obscure Developer Tool, or an arcane bit of OS 9...

As for finding out how much is actually stored in the folder try Disk Usage command in Terminal. To get a reading in KB (remove the 's' to get the individual sizes flying by [hopefully] as well as the sum)
>sudo du -ks
(add a space then drag the backup Home folder in question to the Terminal window)

or to get a recursive file listing
>sudo ls -alR
(again add a space then drag the backup Home folder in question to the Terminal window)

I really hope you weren't struck by the FireWire bug in the 10.3.6 update. I read it could cause data loss - and has only just been fixed in the 10.3.7 update.

Gabs
 
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