Cannot give myself access to hard drive

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Level 4

1,224 points

Cannot give myself access to hard drive

I bought a new iMac and merged my old Macbook Pro info over from a Time Machine backup. Everything went well for moving the apps, favorites, and settings over but it did not move my folders over. I moved them to my desktop today and when I tried to drop them into the internal hard drive it won't allow me to do it. When I pull up the get info window on the HD my name isn't there so I click the plus button and when I try to add my name it tells me I don't have the permissions to add me even though I am in users as an admin. I ran disk first aid and even did it from safe mode. Any idea how to fix the issue?

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Mar 10, 2022 2:45 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

HWTech

Level 9

62,330 points

Mar 11, 2022 5:44 AM in response to Quack

You cannot write to the root of the drive anymore as it is now a read-only system volume. Unfortunately the permissions shown in the Finder do not reveal the whole truth.

About the read-only system volume in macOS Catalina - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Quack Author

Level 4

1,224 points

Mar 11, 2022 6:33 AM in response to HWTech

Ok, that explains why I was not able to move my folders over like on my old 2011 MBP. I was able to find where the new "data" volume is and move my folders and info over but I was not able to get that volume moved to the desktop or create an alias. With this read only system would it just be easier to keep a folder on my desktop and dumping them in there? I guess I have a lot to learn about the new OS since my old 17" MBP was a dinosaur and I was stuck in the ancient and long forgotten OS. Thanks for the enlightenment!

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Answer 3

HWTech

Level 9

62,330 points

Mar 11, 2022 9:56 AM in response to Quack

You can store items anywhere within your home user folder. If you have iCloud enabled and configured with "Desktop" and "Documents", then anything in those folders will be synced and stored in the cloud as well. I don't use iCloud so I cannot provide any more specifics that the little bit I've learned reading the posts on these forums. You can even create a folder on the root of your home user folder alongside the main "Desktop", "Documents", folders and others.

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Cannot give myself access to hard drive

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