My Book Essentials file control for deleting files lost

Ok, Hope someone here can help me since I am guessing the drive is too old for WD for have any help. I have a 2TB version of the My Book Essentials that I have used for years to store movies on my network and have had no issues till recently. Note: I did not install any of the “WD software” that came with the drive. I put it on the back of my network router as a network shared drive. Recently I upgraded the two main computers on my network and now, I cant delete any movies or videos from the drive. It keeps telling me that I don’t have permission for deleting files. I can add, move them (I gathered some I wanted to delete into a junk folder) without issue but cant get it to let me delete the file from the drive. it’s really getting full and i don’t want to just reformat it as there is some items I do not want to lose and don’t have the 2nd drive with room to move them while the drive is re-formatted. So, anyone with some help, Linux knowledge (guessing the drive uses Linux for the OS). It works fine, plays things fine but if I put something on it, say a file I want to transfer to one of my other networked computers it wont let me delete after it’s copied over. Additional note, I added a 120Gb SSD drive to the 2nd USB port on the same router and now have about 85GB of my music copied over and plays on any system in the house without issue> i can add, delete and even import more new music as I get it without issue so I’m thinking it is the permissions on the My Book and the change of the two main computers caused me to lose the “permission” rights needed to access the delete ability from the drive but I don’t know how to take it back or move it to the newer computers so I can again delete. I’ve searched and read about 45 posts here about the My Book Essentials and this delete issue and cant find any answers to this issue. anyone have some help out there? Short of buying a 2nd newer one and moving things to it that I want to keep I’m needing to fix this permission issue. All systems in the house are Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate and only the two were used to add the files in the past. Thanks for reading and any help you can offer.

The drive doesn’t have an OS. It’s dependent on your router’s OS and configuration.

Forgot to add the response when I try to delete it says I don’t have permission and

“…require permission from Unix User\root to make changes to this file”.

This is how I know that there is some OS within the drive since there was not any other on my network. (I did upgrade my router to dual band A/C but the delete issue was before that so that wasn’t the cause).

Also, if I remove the drive itself from the casing and the little “system board” inside and plug it into a Windows 7 system the drive has a "unreadable system’ on it. That means there is something between the Windows PC and the actual hard drive. I’m guessing it’s Linux or Unix based due to the message.

Tony, sorry but that is not correct on this. I know there is something there as I have tried a few things and it says the same message. Further, the drive was not connected to the router when it was setup, formatted or most of the files put on it so your theory fails on that. Also, as I just posted when trying to delete the files I get the Unix User error regardless if the drive is connected to the network or directly to the PC. For the Router to be the issue it would have had to take over the drive and likely reformat it from the Windows 7 to the unix/linux and I would have lost all the files on the drive.

No, there is not an operating system on the drive that would do this.

The My Book Essentials does hardware encryption on the drive, which is why you couldn’t read it on your PC without its case and controller board. It’s not theory – it’s fact.

With the drive plugged into your computer, try to do a delete and post a screenshot of the entire pop-up message you’re receiving.

Then do the same thing when it’s plugged into the router.

The error message MUST be different because Windows treats NTFS file system errors differently than NAS-based file systems (which is what your router is emulating.)

Tony, let me clarify, I did not mean that the hard drive itself has an OS on it, BUT, The drive does have a controlled on the internal board that has a chip that uses a Unix/Linux OS. This is always been in the messages regardless of the system it is connected to.

Further, I don’t see how there is encryption running on the drive as I can remove the drive from the case and see the files in any PC running Linux instead of Windows. l can also read the drive in a PC that has software that allows me to see Linux drives with programs like Linux reader and I can put it back into the case and connect it to any system and it takes it a second to see what’s on the drive with a occasionally reported “format not readable” error. So, maybe its because the drive is very old it was built with a interface chip that uses Unix/Linux for handling the drive? I could see the drive and the files fine. I’ve tried this to see if I could delete stuff then and also had a “permission” to access the root of the drive issue.

Yes, the failure was the same if I tried to delete with it on the router across the network or connected directly to a PC running windows.

Also, Thanks to other user I got some stuff needed to change permissions on the root and now have been able to delete a over 122 GB of the files. I now have issue fixed and can close this. Thanks for your response.

Sorry, I don’t know how to help you further. What you’re describing is not possible.

Not sure why, I said it was a root permission error and was given the info to change permissions and I did it and now have cleaned up the drive when before it would not let me delete. Clearly being able to delete over 120gb shows that it is now working after weeks of not letting me. So, it’s fixed and life goes on. No one is perfect, maybe your just not right on your assumptions. Thanks for effort and have a great new year.