reparing permissions??

[Chris Tompkins]

I don’t think Disk Utilities will allow repair permission on anything but your mac internal hd

[Jeff Carpenter]

I don’t think Disk Utilities will allow repair permission on anything but your mac internal hd
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Essentially right, but it’s not the fact that it’s internal that matters. It’s whatever drive you’re running OS X off of that you can repair. It’s actually an OS issue, not a hard drive issue.

[Paul Nevison]

ok cool thanks guys – disk utility gives my raid as a hard drive option to repair – though it doesnt have OSX installed on it at all.

G5 DP 2.0
2.0G RAM
OS 10.3.8
QT 6.5.2
FCP HD 4.5
CineWave 4.7
Cinewave RT Pro
Pro Digital Plus & Pro Analogue BOB

[Mutant0]

The simple answer:
On your project and video drives, I recommend “getting info” on the selected drive (Command + I) and under “Ownership & Permissions” you check “Ignore ownership on this volume”. Security is probably not an issue in this case.

Semi-Detailed Answer:
Permissions can be set on anything in OS X. The big difference is that on the “boot volume” that contains the OS you are running, there are files that control the settings of installed applications and system files. The confusion about Disk Utility is that it only fixes permissions on the boot volume… but it doesn’t really “fix” permissions for files it doesn’t know anything about. Installed applications and system files store a special file that Disk Utility consults when doing a repair. It is just limited because it protects people from having to use the terminal to make the same commands. Not to get too geeky, but there is a default “permissions mask” setting for each user. This is why, sometimes if you log in as a different person, you’ll try to move a file or delete a file that you just made under another account and the OS won’t let you. I used TinkerTool on my machine after it seemed to make too many “locked files” to set new files I made to be read or write by everyone. Anyway, you probably don’t need this much detail.

On early versions of OS X, I had to fix a lot of permissions and ownership issues by the terminal. There are free utilities on version tracker that can make it easier for non-commandline people. You’ll want to search under “permission utilities”.