Can I backup to an external hard drive that has been formatted with windows?

Hi, I am fairly new to mac. I was wondering if I can backup my mac book pro using time machine to an external hard drive that has been formatted with windows. Time machine is saying it must erase to the hard drive in order to do a backup? Please help.

No it has to be formatted for OS X. Mac Extended (Journaled).

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Initiating external usb hard drive that has been formatted for Windows

I have a 400GB USB external hard drive and it was working fine until I tried to erase it in disk utility and it wouldn't work and kept causing disk utility to freeze up and it was very difficult to force quit even.
I took it to a PC shop and they reformatted it for windows and it worked on their windows so I thought I would try and reformat it again in disk utility to run on mac but it just did the same things and froze again.
If anyone can understand what I am babbling about could you please give me some advice before I give up
Thanks
Kevin

No it has to be formatted for OS X. Mac Extended (Journaled).

I would like to know if you have to back up a macbook hard drive, can I use a external hard drive that has been previously used to back up several pc 's, or is it best to have a separate external drive for the Mac?

I would like to know if you have to back up a macbook hard drive, can I use a external hard drive that has been previously used to back up several pc 's, or is it best to have a separate external drive for the Mac?

In the Mac side of things, backups usually come in two flavors: clones or incrementals.
A bootable clone is a bit-for-bit copy of all essential files in the startup volume. If using the Lions, clones can be made using CarbonCopyCloner or just plain old Disk Utility. These backups represent the safest protection of your info, but take the longest to do. Recovery is an inverse process: you copy the clone back into the internal drive.
Incremental backups start with a complete backup of the startup volume and only copy whatever changed from the previous run. OS X includes the fully integrated Time Machine backup utility to do this. It is extremely easy to do and takes the least amount of time. Recovery is another matter altogether since you have to start with a freshly installed instance of the OS and have to apply all intervening backups to bring the result to the latest saved version.
As for where the backup takes place, the recommended media is an external dedicated drive or drives connected via the fastest interface available on your Mac: Thunderbolt, USB3, Firewire, or USB2. Network-based backups, wired or wireless, are attractive but may not offer the same performance and hence take longer. Also important to note that the entire drive need not be completely dedicated to a single backup. The Mac's EFI firmware infrastructure allows for an unlimited number of partitions on a hard drive and each can be used for either type of backups.
Holler if you need specifics on how to do each. This was just an executive summary.

How do I use an external hard drive that has been used on a windows machine on my mac....

I have recently just bought a new mac and want to edit files that are currently saved on my external hard drive that I used on my windows machine.
Is there any way to be able to do this or will I have to transfer all files across to my mac and then re-format the external?
Thanks in advance.

Either copy files over, reformat drive from NTFS to a Mac format and copy files back, or tell your Mac how to write to NTFS drives with a third-party product. Tuxera NTFS has high ratings: http://www.tuxera.com/products/tuxera-ntfs-for-mac/

Files on my hard drive are not showing up. Sometimes they flash for a second before disappearing again. Mine is a WD elements 1TB hard drive that has been formatted to ExFAT for mac. No problems prior to this.

So the files on my hard drive just disappeared, the space is still occupied, but they are not listed. The disk cannot be unmounted for some reason. And I did not hide any files.

Reinstall the WD HDD in a non WD enclosure. Any difference?
Also look at these links:
http://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/31/western-digital-warns-external-hard-drive-cu stomers-over-mavericks-data-loss/
http://www.macrumors.com/2013/11/26/western-digital-releases-new-hard-drive-soft ware-after-mavericks-data-loss/
Ciao.

How can I sync my iPad to hard drive that has been replaced. It was on the hard drive that crashed

I had to replace my hard drive and having trouble syncing iTunes without losing content.

Reset the iPad by holding down on the sleep and home buttons at the same time for about 10-15 seconds until the Apple Logo appears - ignore the red slider if it appears on the screen - let go of the buttons. Let the iPad start up.

ITunes cannot locate purchased music. It was stored on an external hard drive that has crashed. How can I recover the songs?

iTunes cannot locate purchased music. It was stored on an external hard drive that has crashed. How can I recover the songs?

Hello, nwestpha.
Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities.
You may find this article helpful in locating your missing media.
iTunes: Finding lost media and downloads
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1408
Cheers,
Jason H.

While starting my iMac after new hard drive installed, I created a admin user, I then pulled over a backup from an external hard drive that brought over the previous admin user settings. Need to merge to old user with the new user

I had to replace the hard drive in my iMac. Upon initial start up, I created a admin user name and password. Then I connected a WD external hard drive that had a back up of my orginal HD. Upon running Migration Assistant and pulling over the back up I found it pulled over the ORIGINAL user & security information from the original hard drive. In order to see iPhoto or iTunes libraies I must sign on to the "Old" user.
I want to Merge old and new users into only 1 user or delete the original user however need to have the iPhoto/iTunes libraies accessable by the "New" user.

Your best bet is to start over, by restoring your entire system to the exact condition it was in. Otherwise, the transferred user account probably won't have permission to its backups. See the pink box in Problems after using Migration Assistant for an explanation.
See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #14 for details on how to do the restore.

Suddenly can't write to an external hard drive that I have been using consistently

I have been using a WD 1 terabyte external hard drive to transfer movie files between 2 MBP's and suddenly I cannot write any files to the HD. The error message is that the external hard "cannot be modified" if I try to add any files. I have tried the same hard drive on another MBP and it works fine and I can write to the hard drive (with the aid of Paragon NTFS for Mac OS). I have Paragon NTFS on my computer as well and have been able to write to the hard drive previously. I spoke to Western Digital phone support and told them the problem and noted that the icon for the hard drive is grey with a clock on my computer and is orange on the other MBP. They explained that the icon change was due to Time Machine on my computer. I currently have Time Machine turned off.
Of note, I recently upgraded my internal hard drive on my computer to a WD 500 GB internal drive. Not sure if this will make a difference. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks,

Found the issue. When I changed the internal hard drive, most softward transferred over, but not all. I had to reinstall the Paragon NTFS and I was then able to write to the external hard drive. That seemed to solve the problem.

How to recover data from an external hard drive that has lost half of the data I was storing in it

I am using a Lacie external hard drive to store my photos on. Every once in awhile it disappears from my screen. I have been able to bring it back by unplugging and re-plugging from the computer. Then I had to turn it off and on again. Finally, it lost about half the stored photos, and I couldn't recover them. Does anybody have any suggestions as to what I might do to fix this problem?
I'm using an iMac with iOS 10.6.8
The hard drive has 1 TB capacity

You can try these.
Data Recovery Programs
Data Recovery – Best
Data Recovery – Disk Drill
Data Recovery – Data Rescue
Data Recovery – File Salvage
Data Recovery – Stellar Phoenix
Data Recovery - uFlysoft

How do I retrieve my iphoto library from the Time Machine back-up drive, when the original iphoto library was on a separate external hard drive that has crashed?

I recently backed up my iMAC and Simpletech external hard-drive to a 1 TB WD Passport external hard drive, using Time Machine's back-up utility. Today, I tried to access my iphoto library from the back-up drive, but received a message saying "the iPhoto library is a Time Machine back up, and so cannot be used as the main library. Relaunch iPHoto with options key held down to choose another library." Since my Simpletech died on me, what other iPhoto library is it expecting me to access? I know approximately 169 GB were backed up, and my iPhoto library is roughly 54 GB.
Angie in Charlotte

Thanks. I will try going through TM. Since my Simpletech is on the way out, I'll be plugging in a new external hard drive (other than the back-up drive) and trying to restore the library to the new drive. Any advice or warning if this is NOT the right thing to do?
Meanwhile, that is a great tip to do an alternate back-up using a different means. It's been tough to figure out how to "preserve access" to digital images and files for posterity, knowing the hardware will always fail/obsolesce sooner or later, and that "clouds" are only as good as their consistent and reliable accessibility. Upping the odds with redundancy will help dull the edge of my "access anxiety", though logically, it can never relieve it. Will look into
Carbon Copy Cloner.

Do I need to have an external hard drive that has a certain spindle speed, like 7200?

In the past, when I did audio or video editing, the specs on the software required a certain rotational speed if I were using an external hard drive. Most of the time it was 7200. Do I need to use a specific spindle rotational speed for Final Cut Pro, or will drive 5400 or above do fine?

That still applies today as well. Helps to also use faster connection ports like Firewire 400 or 800, USB 3.0, or Thunderbolt rather than USB 2.0.

Can I recover data from a hard drive that has crashed?

My computer had frozen up so I had to restart it by holding down the power button. After I had done this, I kept getting a recurring kernel panic error. I had taken my MacBook the Apple Store and the tech who looked at it said that my hard drive was no longer good and that I would either have to replace it or purchase a new laptop. Regardless of whether I replace my hard drive or just purchase a new laptop, would there be any way to get my data that I lost off my old hard drive. I have some stuff backed up, but not recent data.
I appreciate any advice. Thanks

You could try putting the old hard drive into an external hard drive case since it sounds like the drive isn't completely dead.
Here's a cheap SATA external hard drive case on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/SATA-Hard-Drive-Case-Enclosure/dp/B001AAVA08/ref=pd_cp_e_0

Time machine can't mount disk ,hard drive,after its been formatted for windows

i want to use time machine but it can't mount disk as it has been used with windows

You will need to repartition and reformat the drive for use with OS X:
Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

Have trouble using external hard drive that has my iTunes playlist from old mac... want to use external with new macbook pro..

How can I use my external harddrive that has my itunes playlist to my new macbook pro?

I will request that your query be relocated to the iPhoto forum where knowledgeable iPhoto users will be able to assist you.
Ciao.

Can I backup to an external hard drive that has been formatted with windows?

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