OS 10.12.6
I have my son' thumb drive which is read only and I cannot delete anything.
I tried dragging to the trash and also D/U. In D/U, the window shows Name: Untitled,
Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled) & Scheme: GUID Partion Map

I image there must be a way of deleting it. Anyone please?

jaybass

Are you trying to reformat (erase) the thumb drive or do you want to delete specific items? I'm not sure from your post.

If the former, select the drive in the DU window and use DU's Erase tab.

If the latter, do a Get Info on the drive and, in Sharing & Permissions, see if you can change everything to Read & Write.

Using the erase option in DU I cannot delete anything on the drive. Nor can I change it to read & write.

Thanks Jon

jaybass

Does DU pop up any sort of dialog box, or is it just that everything you'd like to do is grayed out?

Some thumb drives have read-only hardware switches. They are usually tiny and hard to spot unless one knows to look for them.

The symptoms you describe are consistent with a hardware write-lock.

That's a new one; thanks for posting it.

Just to clarify, the lock is a physical switch, NOT software.

Artie,

Here is what appears.

Screen Shot 2020-07-11 at 9.03.20 AM

jaybass

/Users/admin/Desktop/Screen Shot 2020-07-11 at 9.03.20 AM.png

jaybass

How do I put a screen shot in this post?

jaybass

I can't seem to C&P the screen shot the the DU shows but in the first post I tell you
exactly what appears

jaybass

First post the screenshot on a third party image posting site such as imgur.com or postimage.org. Then put a link to that image in you post on FineTunedMac.

To post a screenshot or other type of image...

1. Go to https://imgur.com/upload.
2. Either drag your image into the window or browse for it.
3. Click on "Copy" in the next window to copy your image's URL to your clipboard.
4. Create a link using FTM's "Create a link..." tags...2nd icon from the left.

Thanks Joe,

https://i.postimg.cc/tJBrhkJL/Screen-Shot-2020-07-11-at-9-03-20-AM.png

jaybass

What does clicking on "Show Details" tell you?

I ran first aid to see if it made a difference...it didn't

https://i.postimg.cc/SK03DZQ9/Screen-Shot-2020-07-11-at-11-32-08-AM.png

jaybass

I'd still like to see what "Show Details" from your "Erase" pane shows.

Under any circumstances, though, I note that your latest screenshot says that your disk is "NO WRITE."

And it also mentions FAT, which is a Windows thing, but I don't know if that's significant.

The "Show details" you want to see is not from the erase pane, it is from the first aid pane which you can read in my previous post.

jaybass

Your first screenshot is of an "Erase" pane, and it's got a "Show Details" radio button. What does clicking on it tell you?

Anyhow, your thumb drive is "NO WRITE" for some reason. Have you looked for a physical switch on it as David suggested?

https://i.postimg.cc/cJhM9J57/Screen-Shot-2020-07-11-at-9-03-20-AM.png

The top window is after running first aid and the bottom one is after running erase.

Clicking the erase button failed, thats why I posted the problem.

jaybass

The image you just posted has got a "Show Details" disclosure arrow that you can click on. I don't think you've shown us those details yet, and they may disclose new, useful info.

Your thumb drive is NO WRITE for some reason, and if it hasn't got a switch as per David, I'm at a loss.

I don't think it's apparently being formatted FAT makes a difference.

Erasing "NEW 1" and creating "Untitled" After clicking show details, the following 3 items appear:
Unmounting disk

Couldn't open device

Operation failed

Postimage wouldn't let me post any more images.

jaybass

OK, that relates back to whatever is making your drive NO WRITE.

Have you looked for a switch? (If you post an identifying pic of your drive I may be able to find the switch for you if there is one.)

(Try Imgur next time you need to post multiple images; I've never run into a limit with them.)

There is no switch on that thumb drive. It's a 64Gb ONN drive...one I've never seen before. After all this back & forth, I'm still looking for answers.

Thanks Artie

jaybass

Assuming you have read access to the drive...

1. Select it in finder
2. Press ⌘I (Command+I)
3. At the bottom of the Info window look at Sharing & Permissions (scroll down to the bottom of that image)
4. If that indicates you have "Read Only" permission,
   1. Click on the padlock at the bottom right corner of the Get Info window
   2. Enter the password for your administrative account
   3. Change your privilege to Read & Write
5. If there is a mechanical or software lock on the drive, there will be a notation, I believe under "more Info" the drive is "Locked"
6. If your son uses Windows, there are software locks that can be applied to a thumb drive. For a while at least, these locks were a standard and automatically included in many thumb drive brands. All required Windows computers to unlock. 😠

NOTE I just read some reviews of ONN brand thumb drives and they were not just bad they were terrible. Many reports of failures and even reports of "Disk Write Protected". Does that look familiar?

Joe, I did what you said but there is no padlock in the corner. I also checked out a Kingston & Lexar drive and there wasn't a padlock there either. If there is supposed to be one, can this be rectified? I sent my Son a copy of you response and I assume he will toss it. BTW he has 21" 2020 iMac.

Thank you.

jaybass

That sounds like all your options are grayed out and you've got no way to unlock them on three different drives?

Yes there should be a padlock at the extreme lower right corner of the Get Info window. It should be present in every Get Info window whether it is a file, folder, or drive.

I already answered the first part of this question but I got to wondering why you would not have the padlock. The only answers I can come up with are...

1. You are not logged on to an administrative account. To check this, go to System Preferences > Users & Groups and in the sidebar of that window the Current user should be your account name and that it should say "admin". If it doesn't you need to login to an account with admin privileges.
2. Your system and/or User privileges have become corrupted. Several years ago this was a common occurrence but it has been a long time since I have seen or heard of its happening. Disk Utility used to have a permission repair tool but that has been removed. This OSXDaily article talks about El Capitan, but it should still work in Catalina.
3. For some reason the system thinks all your drives belong to another user and you do not have access to change their permission settings. This too can be "fixed" but it requires logging on as a ROOT user and doing a lot of work from the command line. That is very, risky even for experienced Unix admins, so I don't want to go there unless it proves necessary.

Others may come up with possibilities I have overlooked and hopefully will chime in with their ideas.

Joe, I checked system prefs>User & groups and 'admin' is there

I then had permissions verified & repaired using terminal...I got the info from the internet.

The 3rd option I have no idea what that's all about.

How would I know if repairing permissions has made a difference?

jaybass

One thought in passing....perhaps I missed it in reviewing the earlier posts in this thread - is there a chance that this thumb drive came formatted NTFS?

If so, that might explain everything.....

I think the image in post #55177 suggests that the drive referenced in jaybass's original post is formatted FAT, but two other (unquantified) drives show the same "no padlock" anomaly.

When I ran first aid in DU, in show details, "phase 1 preparing FAT" and finally that the operation was successful.

jaybass

Perhaps MacOS 10.12.6 might be a factor?

Different DU than we see on 10.15.5 (or even 10.16 Beta....) and I personally don't recall whether there is a padlock in the lower RH corner of the Get Info window under 10.12.6 (Sierra) or not.

Altogether, I have tried 6 thumb drives (Kingston & Lexar) none which show a padlock. I tried 4 files from my docs and each one show a padlock. I have just put a thumb drive in my docs and and in 'get info' there is a padlock. Does that tell you anything?

jaybass

All the discussion about missing padlocks has distracted from the real question, namely, does the fact that you haven't got a padlock to unlock prevent you from clicking on a specific "Name" in the Get Info pane and changing that user's "Privilege," which is the original intent of this exercise?

I. e., is the pane grayed out?

The 'real' question was & still is, can we find a way to delete the files on my son's thumb drive. Since no-one knows how this can be done, I suggest we stop flogging a dead horse.

Thank you artie.

jaybass

Way back in post #55186, joemike suggested that you may be able to delete the files on that drive by changing its permissions...
So far, your only response to that spot-on suggestion has been that you don't see a padlock.

A mystery, true, but until you address the drive's current permissions and whether you're able to change them without regard for the missing padlock the horse is still alive and, if not necessarily well, at least breathing.

The mystery of the missing padlock has totally diverted this discussion from the possibility that your problem may have an easy solution that's already been posted!

More: And on the other hand, I just found this in a post from 2014: "OS X does not allow the usual file & directory permission on MS-DOS (FAT) disks, so you can't try to make it read/write."

At the bottom of the Info window look at Sharing & Permissions (scroll down to the bottom of that image)
If that indicates you have "Read Only" permission,
Click on the padlock at the bottom right corner of the Get Info window
Enter the password for your administrative account
Change your privilege to Read & Write.

Regarding the above instructions which cannot be followed because there is no padlock, you suggest that there might be an easy solution "that's already been posted' If you can point out that posting, I will certainly take another look.

This thumb drive contains a few videos which my son can play on his computer.
If he wishes to keep any of them, he can copy them to his desktop using iSkysoft.

We know the drive itself is toast so should we pursue the problem any further?
Thank you for your interest Artie.

jaybass

You just reposted the "easy" solution, i.e. "Change your privilege to Read & Write."

Depending upon what you're seeing on your screen, which none of us can do any more than guess at, the fact that you don't see a padlock does NOT necessarily mean that you can't change your privilege.

If, for instance, you're seeing the equivalent of this, you need to click on the "Sharing & Permissions" disclosure arrow to (possibly) reveal the padlock, et.al.

If, on the other hand, you're seeing the equivalent of this, but without the padlock, you may still be able to click on the privilege attached to your name and change it.

"No padlock" is simply insufficient information under the circumstances. (At the least, a screenshot would have been appropriate.)

And speaking of insufficient information, your telling us that your Kingston and Lexar drives don't show padlocks would be much more meaningful if you also told us whether they're formatted HFS+ or something else.

I don't know that we've established that the drive is toast, but pursuing the matter or not is your choice.