Feed
 

Deleting a password

Avatar Drew McFarlane
I have a 1 TB Western Digital hard drive partitioned into 4 x 250 GB’s.

For some reason or another I have to access one of the partitions by using a password.

I know the password but I wish to delete having to use it, is this possible and if so how do I do it please.

Needless to say I have tried everything and cannot find a way of doing this.

Re: Deleting a password

Avatar Mick Burrell
The only way I know to require a password for an external drive is to have set the format to Mac OS Extended Journaled Encrypted. When you do this is asks you to set up a password so this must have happened - unless there's another way of password protecting it I'm not aware of.

The only way I know to take the password off is to reformat the partition to Mac OS Extended Journaled (i.e. without the encryption) - the norm for Mac discs but of course this would destroy the data. Can you copy everything to another drive or partition to enable you to do this?

Re: Deleting a password

Avatar Drew McFarlane
Thank you Mick, I am a little wary that I may upset the cart if I try anything that I may regret afterwards. I'll leave the partition with its password.

Re: Deleting a password

Avatar Mick Burrell
If you do have somewhere you can copy the data, copy it over and use that instead. When you're sure it's working OK, you can decide whether to reformat and hence free up the protected partition.

Re: Deleting a password

Avatar Drew McFarlane
Once again thank you Mick.

As I am in Dorchester this morning I will invest in another WD hard drive and have ago.

Re: Deleting a password

Avatar Douglas Cheney
There is an article at this web address about decrying hard drives http://osxdaily.com/2016/10/25/decrypt-external-drive-mac/

Re: Deleting a password

Avatar Drew McFarlane
Thank you Douglas, it worked.

Re: Deleting a password

Avatar Euan Williams
Hi Andrew. I'm not sure if this simpler "Permissions" method would not have served your purpose just as well, assuming that your partition was not actually encrypted (which does sound unlikely):
1. Select the drive, or partition.
2. On the top menu bar select "Get Info".
3. Move down the resulting window right to the bottom.
4. If necessary, click the reveal triangle for "Sharing and Permissions".
5. Click on, and unlock, the padlock with your Mac's Admin password.
6. Now click on the + icon.
7. In the Dialogue that appears at the top, select either "Administrators", or your User name (or both).
8. Now go back down to the Sharing and Permissions section and make sure you select "Read and Write" for your new permissions.
9. Close the Get Info window and you should now be able to avoid those pesky sign-ins.

Hope this helps someone else.

Re: Deleting a password

Avatar Eric Jervis
Hi Euan, it has helped me, at least in part, with my external El Capitan partition. I've given myself a slap on the wrist for not following your instructions precisely though. At step 7 I selected both. After step 8 I did a step 8a, which was to close the lock, and then did step 9. Restarted on the main drive, then re-restarted on the external and it seemed not to have worked. However, after nipping out to put the kettle on and finding the monitor asleep on my return, I touched the spacebar and it sprang to life, without asking me for a password; excellent.
On repeating the exercise, at step 7 the dialogue now shows Administrators and Eric Jervis but will not allow me to select them, but offers me the choice of selecting New Person, which I'm afraid to do.

Re: Deleting a password

Avatar Euan Williams
Hi Eric,
As you know, there is a difference between asserting ownership of your drive at start-up when you can set it to open without any password dialogue, or with "name and password".

Similarly you can set the Mac to demand a password some time after it has gone into Sleep mode, or not.

The suggested way for Andrew to access drive and partitions avoiding having to enter an Admin. password relates to those occasions when copying "To" or "From" a drive requires an Admin. password because your right to access that drive / partition has to be established.

I'm not clear what you were doing at the “repeating the exercise” stage. If this relates to the drive / partition which you have already had success with, then the further changes you 'wanted' to make would be unnecessary. Did this repeat relate to another drive / partition?

Generally there should be no need to call a “New Person” in aid if you had already set up Administrators (Admin) and / or Eric Jervis as read and write.

Starting up with an external drive can take much longer than internally due to data having to flow down the USB-2, Firewire 400/800, USB-3 pipes — while USB-3 is faster, only full-blown Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt is going to be at all quick, so making a cuppa would be about the right time span for an external start.

Did you unlock the padlock (again) before trying to select Admin and Eric in the “Active” permissions? Once correctly set up there, they would both be greyed out as choices in the upper box — because they would both already be in use.

Can you clarify?

Re: Deleting a password

Avatar Eric Jervis
Gulp. I repeated the exercise because the result wasn't exactly what I expected, which was that it wouldn't demand a password when I restarted onto that drive.
It doesn't actually take very long to restart onto a different drive, but I would like to know how to set it up to do this.
By the way, does that book Affinity Designer are currently offering seem good value to you?

Re: Deleting a password

Avatar Mick Burrell
Eric, I'm not quite sure that I've grasped what is you're trying to achieve but it sounds as if you want your Mac to always start from an external drive. Is that correct? Further, you want it to start without asking you for a password - is that correct?

To achieve the above, go to system preferences and select the start-up disc from all those shown. You may be asked for your administrator password. When you restart your machine it will now start from the disk you selected which I assume is your external drive. Now go to system preferences again and select users and groups, and then select yourself as the user (possibly the only one) and set automatic login. When you restart it will no longer ask you for a password.

Re: Deleting a password

Avatar Eric Jervis
Yippee! Thanks Mick; I don't want it to always start from an external though, I just want it to obey me without trying to control me, after all, I'm not Hillary Clinton!

Re: Deleting a password

Avatar Mick Burrell
If you have automatic login set for each drive you won't be asked for a password whichever one you start from. Mind you, infrequent use of your admin password can lead to it being forgotten - not good ;-)

I assume you know that you can set the drive you use most to be the startup drive and then if you wish to start from another instead you hold down the alt key and start the Mac. This will show you all attached (and internal) drives that can be used to start. Choosing an external will not change the drive set as the startup drive for when you don't hold any key.

Re: Deleting a password

Avatar Eric Jervis
I sort of knew it Mick, but I've written it down now!
Thank you.
 
Feed