disabling Read-only attributes for all directories on a hard drive?

[yawnmoth]

I have a hard drive with multiple directories in the root directory
and every one of these directories and the files contained therein are
Read-only. I would like to make them writable all at once but am not
sure how to do so. I can do it one directory at a time from the root
directory and can do all the subdirectories of that directory by
checking the appropriate checkbox, but near as I can tell, there is no
way to do all the subdirectories within the root directory? Unless
I'm mistaken?

 

[Gordon]

I have a hard drive with multiple directories in the root directory
and every one of these directories and the files contained therein are
Read-only. I would like to make them writable all at once but am not
sure how to do so. I can do it one directory at a time from the root
directory and can do all the subdirectories of that directory by
checking the appropriate checkbox, but near as I can tell, there is no
way to do all the subdirectories within the root directory? Unless
I'm mistaken?

You are. Mistaken that is. Actually not - you have a misconception. The
"Read-Only" attribute for a folder does not affect the CONTENTS of the
folder. You can still read and write files and folders within that folder,
as long as you have the permissions to do so.