How to make hfs+ external drive read-write (journaling already disabled, still not working)

Question

I have a hfsplus external harddrive, which I have to write to. Problem is, that it is read-only. A few days ago, I disabled journaling on a OSX-System and then I could write on it. Now a coworker used it, and I cannot write anymore. I checked the journaling and it is still disabled.

This is how the mounted harddrive is shown with the mount command:

/dev/sdc1 on /media/myusername/nameofharddrive type hfsplus (ro,relatime,umask=22,uid=0,gid=0,nls=utf8)

I tried out several things I found on here, but nothing worked. For example the tips given here: https://superuser.com/questions/84446/how-to-mount-a-hfs-partition-in-ubuntu-as-read-write

I really don't know what to try anymore, so any idea is welcome.

Answer 1

I had a similar problem than you. I have formatted the external driver on a Mac OS in HFS+, then I disabled the journaling feature in disk utility on macOS. Then, I plugged it into my ubuntu PC, I added the mount point in /etc/fstab using

/dev/sda1 /home/jojo/mine defaults 0 0

the first time when I ran cat /proc/mounts, I saw rw for the external HFS+ drive Then, for some reasons after I started it again, it loses its rw and it became a readonly (ro) mode. I didn't unplugged it while it was used. Then, I formatted the drive using gparted on Ubuntu. However, when I plugged the drive into my macos and checked it with disk utility, it said there were an issue with the partition map.

I concluded it is more reliable to format a HDD in ext4 and create a shared network drive using netatalk. Then, it will be possible to read and write from a macOS to the external HDD. If it is required to read the external drive on a mac, it is always possible to buy an ext4 for MacOS software. I used the Paragon one and I had no problem. Another option would be to buy a WD my cloud NAS because it accepts APFS and HFS+ journaled.

For time machine, I have a router (netgear R6250) that accepts journaled HFS+ external drive plugged to it. I told myself that it is ok to play on a linux but let's stop dabbling into something when it is about our important files and our backups.