Lately, I've been noticing that Mac has been causing external hard drives such as the WD hard drives , including the BIAB 2020 audiophile version to become corrupted, unable to be repaired, and read only. I have never had this issue in the past and I am really scared as to why this is happening. I have a mid 2014 MacBook Pro running high Sierra. Any Mac experts know any reason as to why this is happening? I want to get all my external hard drives working again.

Here is what my Mac says when I try to open BIAB through my hard drive Unable to create file "/Volumes/Band-in-a-Box Audiophile/Applications/Band-in-a-Box/Data/stylz_kategoriesERRORS.txt".

Press OK to ignore and risk data corruption.
Press Abort to kill the program.

Hi,

Normally we would see this problem on a machine running Catalina, so for the benefit of others who find this post I will mention the solution:

Apple menu - System Preferences - Security and Privacy - Privacy tab. On the left, select 'Files and folders'.
Look for 'Band-in-a-Box' in the list of apps and make sure 'Removable Volumes' is checked.

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Since you have High Sierra, I don't think that will apply. If you select the Band-in-a-Box folder on the USB drive and go to File - Get Info, what does it say in the Permissions section?

It could be that your drive has spontaneously re-enabled permissions or ownership. Try this:

Right click (or Ctrl-click or two-finger click) the hard drive and select Get Info. At the bottom of the Info window will be Sharing & Permissions - in there, click on the yellow Lock icon, enter your password (or an administrator username and password), and make sure "Ignore Ownership On This Volume" is checked.

If you don't see your username in the section just above that, you may need to add yourself in with the + button, then make sure you have Read & Write privileges.

Not nearly enough info for anyone to do anything but make blind guesses.

Stop calling them hards. Use HDD for Hard Disk Drive or SSD for Solid State Drive so that everyone is speaking the same language.

List your MacOS and version, whether your MBP has an HDD, SSD or Fusion and the size. Does your MBP have a Retina screen or no — yes, it makes a difference.

How are you hooking up your BIAB drive and what version of BIAB do you have?

Are you using and disk utilities? If so, stop — they don't do any good but it's helpful to know.

I am an experienced Mac tech.

I’m not not home now but here is the info I known right now:
1.I am using OSX high Sierra
2. My MacBook Pro uses flash storage and has 1TB of memory. No idea what that means but it’s what Apple’s website shows as the specs for a mid 2014 MacBook Pro

3. My Mac does have a retina screen

4. My 2020 Band in a Box external drive is usually hooked into a four usb hub
5. I’ve really only use disk utilities to reconfigure a flash drive to work on my MacBook Pro to use for DJing. I have tried using disk utilities as I read online to try that as an option. I’ve never went through with it.

Here is what is important to know. A few months ago, my MacBook Pro was overdue for a battery replacement otherwise the computer might have exploded. When I took it to get the battery replaced, the had to reinstall the operating system which forced them to wipe everything off the Mac and store it on an external drive. That drive worked for a while until one day, I got a notice on my Mac that the drive could not be repaired which caused my drive to become read only. No files are able to be deleted or stored in it at all as of now. My BIAB drive was working fine the entire time unlit the day I posted this issue on the form. Both of those drives do not show up on my Mac as being connected sometimes when I connect them into the hub and the don’t show the drive icon when I open the finder app. However, I have a different WD drive that works perfectly reading, writing and storing files. Anyways, that’s all I know. I’ll give you more info when I am back home.

Is your USB hub powered? In other words, does it have it's own power supply that you plug in? If not, it could be that the drive isn't getting sufficient power. Check if the drives in question work when you plug them directly into your Mac.

What Andrew says about connecting your drives directly to the Mac instead of the dock. Unplug and reconnect your dock.



Explain further.

Try the following:

Shut down. Hold the Command r keys down while booting. You should be in the Repair Partition on booting. Go to Install Mac OS. It should offer to download and reinstall High Sierra.This will not affect your data.

If you cannot enter the Repair Partition, let us know.