SD card became read only

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My SD card became read only after upgrading to mountain lion. Usually I'm able to change the permissions settings at the bottom of the "get info" tab but this time it says "you can only read". Is there another way to change permissions settings? The SD card was formatted in FAT32 format under Lion and I've been using it to transfer music for use in my car. Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks.
 
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Are you sure the tab on the side of the SD card hasn't been moved to the read only position?
 
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Yep I have checked the lock tab, I have tried it in both position and still wont write to the SD ?
 

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How large is the file that you're trying to write to the SD? FAT-32 has a file limit of 4 GB. If that's not the problem, your SD card may have failed.

Also, check the permissions of the card: Mount it on your desktop and right click on the card. Select "get info". The permissions will be at the bottom. Basically the "system" must have read and write, all others read only.
 
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How large is the file that you're trying to write to the SD? FAT-32 has a file limit of 4 GB. If that's not the problem, your SD card may have failed.

Also, check the permissions of the card: Mount it on your desktop and right click on the card. Select "get info". The permissions will be at the bottom. Basically the "system" must have read and write, all others read only.

The SD is only 2GB. I have checked the permission which read only. I used the card on Snow Leopard to add songs for my car no issues. I upgraded ML and now it read only. I can't even format it to start over again?:Confused:
 
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I have also put another SD from a camera and that too is read only. Is this a ML issue?
 

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It has nothing to do with Mountain Lion.

Did you understand my reply to you above? If the SD card is read only, obviously you need to change its permissions in order to write to it. If you used those SD cards in your camera for example, they will become "read only".

Right click on the SD card, select "get info". At the bottom are the permissions.
Click the small lock and enter your admin password. The lock will open. Now change the permissions for the "System" to read and write. Do not change anything else.
 
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It has nothing to do with Mountain Lion.

Did you understand my reply to you above? If the SD card is read only, obviously you need to change its permissions in order to write to it. If you used those SD cards in your camera for example, they will become "read only".

Right click on the SD card, select "get info". At the bottom are the permissions.
Click the small lock and enter your admin password. The lock will open. Now change the permissions for the "System" to read and write. Do not change anything else.

Hi chscag

I did understand your reply. when I select "get info" for the SD. At the bottom in the "Sharing & Permissions" their is no small lock. It only says "You can only read" . Their is nothing else that allows me to change the permission to read and write ?
 

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That's strange. I just checked the several SD cards that I have and they do show up with the permissions tab. What kind of cards are they? Certain cards that are found in cameras are like that but usually are proprietary to the camera.

In any event, it appears if there is no way to change the permissions on the card, they have become useless to you. One thing you might try.... if you have access to a PC. Insert the card to a PC reader and use the File Explorer to see if you can change permissions.
 
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Not too sure on how to do this in file explorer but will give it a try
 

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Right click on the card and select properties. The attributes should show up where you can change them. If the attributes are grayed out, the card has likely been damaged or permanently set to read only.
 
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It's a Pro thing

After reviewing many threads on this subject, it appears that this may be a problem specific to the MacBook Pro. Currently I'm seeing this problem where my SD card shows as read/write on my MacBook Air and shows as read-only on my MacBook Pro.

This blog post summarizes the issue. It does seem that if I play with the lock slide on the card, and put it into an almost "half way" position, it reads on my MacBook Pro. If I put the lock switch all the way into the unlocked position, it becomes read-only on my Pro, but not my Air.

I was trying to use my Mac to format a 16GB SD card with the unix tool ‘dd’, but I got a ‘permission denied’ error when trying to write to it – even as root (using sudo). Examining the SD card, the write lock switch was in the correct position, but the DiskUtil tool showed that the card was read only. Weird. Some trawling the Interwebs led to the usual “plz halp me – U good” crap that is all over the forums, but also this forum discussion on the Apple Support forums.

The solution? It seems that the SD reader on the MacBook Pro is a finicky little fellow. Slide the “write lock slider” on the SD card in the middle between locked/unlocked and insert it. Then the card is in read/write mode.​

http://blog.invisible.ch/2012/09/10/stuck-with-read-only-sd-card-on-mac/
 
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SD card become read-only

I had the same issue until I cleaned the SD card slot in my macbook pro.
 
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I'm having the same issue with a MBP 15" early 2011 (MacBook8,2) running Yosemite (10.10.4). How did you clean the SC slot?
 

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The best and only recommended way to clean those slots is with a can of compressed air. You can buy those at Radio Shack or any store that sells computer or electronic accessories. Blow a couple of short blasts into the slot.
 
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Or, if you do it the easy, cheap way just put a small piece of toilet paper around a hair clip. I think it couldn't really harm your computer if you do it very softly.
 
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Interesting. I recently ran into the same issue on my mid-2009 MBP. By removing and reinserting several times I was able to finally write to the card. Really had me scratching my head over it. Supports the theory of a dirty slot.

Cliff
 

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