Denied access to backed up folders/files on external hard drives

[KMG]

Hi,

I am am using Time Machine to backup my iMac and MacBook to external hard drives (Western Digital, Sandisk and Lacie).

Recently, I have been facing a problem: When I connect the external hard drive to the iMac it's not possible to open folders and files from the MacBook Air, and vice versa. Folders are marked with a stop sign. If I click on a file, a pop up tells me that I don't have permisson to see the file's content. I am able to open certain Word documents that aren't archived in folder, but all of these documents are protected from editing when I open the file. With other words: Backed up files from MacBook Air can only be accessed if I connect the external hard drive to the same MacBook, and the same goes for my iMac.

This issue occurs with all of my three hard drives. However, I have no difficulties with accessing backed up files from 2021 and earlier. I don't know why. The Macs, the external hard drives and the back up method (Time Machine) are alle the same as before.

As an attempt to solve the problem, I have formatted two of the hard drives and changed the permission settings to all folders by using Finder. Now my user (administrator), staff and everyone have permission to "Read & Write". Unfortunately, this hasn't helped.

I also wish to use a backup to reinstall the content on my iMac onto a newly purchased iMac, but I assume that the lack of access to folders and files will interfere with the reinstalment.

I would be immensely grateful if anyone can give some advice on how to access/transfer backed up folders, documents, photos, music etc. between different Macs.



Kind regards from a frustrated and unqualified Mac user from Norway

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

Time Machine does have security built-in that may be causing this issue, since it "knows" which Mac the backup is from, and you can use the same TM disk with multiple Macs. Changing permissions on a Time Machine drive isn't recommended, and doesn't always work due to the way TM works. You can use Time Machine to restore a backup to a new Mac using the Migration Assistant. It can be very difficult to restore files manually.

If you want to have easier access, you could use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to clone the Mac, which is in essence an exact copy of the full drive. Or, manually drag and drop the files/folders you want to an external drive and then use that to migrate them.

C