This article discusses what to do if an external drive reports "Write Protected" when trying to save files onto it or delete files from it.
A drive can sometimes report "Write Protected" when trying to save files onto it or delete files from it.
This typically means that you have connected an external drive that is formatted with an NTFS partition to a Mac computer. MacOS cannot write to NTFS partitions and so will often indicate the drive is write-protected.
Some models of Seagate external drives include an NTFS driver that can make the drives compatible between Mac and Windows, so that may be a helpful solution. See the download section of your drive to determine if a driver is available for your model. See a list of Seagate products here.
For all other drives, please see Document ID: 207851 for instructions on reformatting the drive in MacOS.
Warning: Reformatting the drive will ERASE ALL DATA on the drive. Please note that Windows partitions (i.e., NTFS partitions) and MacOS partitions are not easily compatible at this time without special software, so using an external drive to transfer data between a Windows computer and a MacOS computer can be difficult and sometimes dangerous to your data.
Drives featuring Seagate Secure can be locked and unlocked to protect files stored on the drive, see the Toolkit user manual for supported drives. While locked all visible files on the drive will report as write protected and cannot be deleted. Check if the drive has a file named “Unlock Drive for Windows” or “Unlock Drive for Mac” if so then the drive is locked and will need to be unlocked by running the appropriate file for your operating system or using the Toolkit software along with the password you provided when locking the drive. A locked drive cannot be formatted, if you have forgotten your password, then see question - Can I format a locked drive? in this article Seagate Secure FAQ.
