External HD refuses to let me format it

I have a Free Agent Pro that I was using on my Vista PC, formatted in NTFS.
I removed all the files from it, and plugged it into my Imac to format it.
Apparently I don't have PERMISSION to do that. Disk Utility won't let me, it grays out the buttons for permission under 'first aid'.
Is there some force command in Mac (newbie here) to force a disk to get formatted?

I figured it out... thanks for looking.

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I upgraded MacbookPro 2009 from 10.6.8 to Yosemite. Beforehand I made a backup copy of my Iphoto library onto an external hard drive. Lets call it BU. I also deleted half of my photos from the default library on my laptop, lets call it DE. I then in

I upgraded MacbookPro 2009 from 10.6.8 to Yosemite 2 weeks ago. My iphoto is now a nightmare. i went to our local apple retailer but they could not help either. Perhaps someone can help. Beforehand the OS upgrade I made a backup copy of my Iphoto library onto an external hard drive. Lets call it BU with 50GB. I also deleted half of my photos from the default library on my laptop, lets call it DE, now with about 20GB, to gain space. I then upgraded to Yosemite.
I have also installed since a long time Iphoto Library Manager 3.8.6. (this may be the cause of the problem as it was not upgraded and perhaps thus not compatible with iphoto 9.6 which I have now after the upgrade to Yosemite) It all worked fine before the upgrade, switching in iphoto between the two libraries DE and BU.
It also worked fine after the upgrade for a few days. At one stage Iphoto asked me to upgrade the iphoto version as it otherwise could not read the photos when I tried to load the BU library into iphoto. I did click yes to upgrade iphoto. As a result I became a brand new but totally empty library, no photos.
BU was still on the external disc, however the "Master" file was empty. We fortunately discovered all photos were in another file called Old Master, also under BU. We made another copy of the Old Master file onto the external disc. Lucky we did, because shortly afterwards we could not open anymore the BU file thus had no access to anything in there. Now I have 17000 photos in a file called Old Master on my external disc and another smaller library DE on my laptop. When I tried to import the photos from Old Master into a new iphoto library it was very messy. All events dates were mixed up, many photos were imported twice. I have no idea whether all my 17000 photos have been imported.
Can anyone suggest what is the most time efficient way? How do I best import my 17000 into a new library ensuring I don't loose any in the process. I do not wish sorting through 17000 photos for a week or so. Shall i also get a new iphoto library version now? Thank you for anything that may work.

Yes, the Old Master file has a folder for each year where I find all photos from that specific year. I am attaching a screen shot of the file.
In the meantime i have managed to download all photos (it did not download any video files though in mpg, avi, 3gp, m4v,mp4 and mov format) to a new iphoto library. Unfortunately the photos are quite mixed and often doubled up. I ma considering to purchase iphoto library which checks all duplicates in iphoto. this will save me a lot of time. What do you think?

My external HD refuses to be erased !!!

My Lacie external hd refuses to be erased.
I have tried ALL of the options in Disk utility - also partitioning,
but all i get is " Unknown error: -20 "
Erasing with the " 8Way random write format" seems to work; but it will LITERALLY take almost a whole week!
Really needs help with this one !
(see also my topic "ERASING REGRET" in this discussion)
Torgeir

I'm relieved to see I'm not the only person having trouble with Lacie's drive. I just bought one, and it is very temperamental. At first, I could not get it recognized at all, so I followed a suggestion on LaCie's website, and disconnected everything, power and all, for 15 minutes. I then partitioned the drive under Tiger. It appears to get temperamental if any other device is connected to Firewire. It would not allow me to write to it or eject it if my iSight were connected, and when I tried daisy chaining my OWC hard drive, it allowed me to copy 3GB of material and then stopped. It now gives an error message saying the file names are too long. When I try to eject it, it says it's in use. The only solution seems to be to turn everything off and restart with only the LaCie drive connected.

HT4589 How can I get my Mac laptop FCPX Events Library to see my external drives? Yes it is formatted Mac-OS-Extended (Journaled)

How can I get my Mac laptop FCPX Events Library to see my external drives? Yes it is formatted Mac-OS-Extended (Journaled).

I do not seem to have that as an option. Attached is a screen shot with the gear popup open. I simply copied the event and projct folders from my desktop so I could contiue working while on a trip with my laptop.

If I donwload e-books from various e-book retailers and want to back them up on an external hard drive without losing the format, do I need a special hard drive?

If I download e-books from various e-book retailers and want to back them up on an external hard drive without losing the format, do I need to know anything special?

I just looked into this as I was moving my iPad to a new computer for synching. With no thanks to Kobo for any really useful information on their help site (this discussion was the most useful info I found), I think the following may address your issue with respect to Kobo.
1. There is not easy or official way to back up Kobo books from your iPad.
2. Kobo keep track of your personal library. Go to the Kobo website (Kobo.com) and sign in to your account. On the very top line is "My Library". That contains (or at least Kobo says it does) everything you have ever bought from Kobo. Kobo say that you may download any of this content to other devices you own at no charge.
3. I synched my iPad to the new computer. According to Apple, that will delete all my data as the apps are re-installed from the new compute. While all my apps got moved around from the order I previously had (many thanks Apple), all my books are still there together with my bookmarks etc. Looks like this did nothing to change any Kobo data.
While I do not like the idea that I cannot create a backup on my main computer, it is probably safer in the long run that there is a backup at Kobo. After all, I could lose all my equipment in a fire or something, and then personal backups would be of little use.

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).

ITunes refuses to let me drag tracks in or out of or within playlists

With no pattern, just nasty surprises, iTunes refuses to let me drag tracks in or out of or within playlists.
I have searched the Apple Support Communities and elsewhere and found no solutions which work.
It's nothing to do with Wacom - I don't have one. It's nothing to do with setting iTunes to manual sorting. It's not set to shuffle or repeat. It's just an ordinary playlist. It's not a folder nor a Smart playlist.
On one occasion I phoned Apple and a nice man told me how to display the Library (but it's now hidden again) and delete an iTunes preference file. This solved the problem for a while. But I have forgotten how to display the Library again and can't remember the name of the preference file to delete.
Anyway, the problem should have been fixed by now we are at V 10.6.3
If there is no solution then I am stuck with copy and paste - a very unsatisfactory system when I am playing a playlist live.

Found the answer myself (from a tip in another thread):
You have to reboot both your Mac and your iPhone...

[solved] systemd refuses to let go of old interface name

I'm installing a fresh system, trying to do everything the "new" way but systemd isn't making it easy for me to like it.
One thing I refuse to use is "persistent" network naming; so I created the symlink to /dev/null in /etc/udev/rules.d/80-net-name-slot.rules
That's all fine, the interface is now eth0 as it should be. I updated my netctl config to use eth0 as the interface, but systemd refuses to let go:
After issuing 'netctl start natures-adm', I get this error:
May 01 11:59:20 apoc.example.com systemd[1]: Job sys-subsystem-net-devices-enp9s0.device/start timed out.
May 01 11:59:20 apoc.example.com systemd[1]: Timed out waiting for device sys-subsystem-net-devices-enp9s0.device.
May 01 11:59:20 apoc.example.com systemd[1]: Dependency failed for A basic dhcp ethernet connection.
According to the error, systemd is being too smart for it's own good and waiting for the old enp9s0 interface, which never comes because it's now eth0 (which is ready and waiting).
[root@apoc ~]# cat /etc/netctl/natures-adm
Description='A basic dhcp ethernet connection'
Interface=eth0
Connection=ethernet
IP=dhcp
## for DHCPv6
IP6=dhcp
## for IPv6 autoconfiguration
#IP6=stateless
So how do I tell systemd to do what netctl is expecting instead of second guessing everything?
===EDIT===
It appears systemd is "holding on" due to this file: /etc/systemd/system/netctl\@natures\\x2dadm.service
Is this "normal"?
Last edited by fukawi2 (2013-05-01 04:57:38)

fukawi2 wrote:===EDIT===
It appears systemd is "holding on" due to this file: /etc/systemd/system/netctl\@natures\\x2dadm.service
Is this "normal"?
This was a service file corresponding to your old natures-adm profile mentioning enp9s0? Then either you forgot to update a service file you created, or netctl generated it (so you were not aware it was created) without cleaning it up. You should blame yourself or netctl (which is still in beta), respectively.
sullivanva linked your problem to encoded hyphens, without really explaining the connection. It seems unlikely that this really is the cause. Or a part of netctl responsible for generating service files fails to take this encoding into account, but I think netctl users are also expected to understand the correspondence between service files and profiles and be able manage them.
Last edited by Raynman (2013-05-03 18:30:47)

One of the email accounts on my iPhone refuses to let me delete any of the incoming emails anyone help?

One of the email accounts on my iPhone refuses to let me delete any incoming emails can anyone help?

Are you leaving the box unchecked to Manually manage music & videos? You don't need to to add anything to the iPhone.
Simply drag the playlist to the iPhone to manually add it.

HT203180 i converted my videos to mp4 but itunes still refuses to let it work and shows the same window shown above. I transfered all photos and music but i can not transefer my home videos. what should i do?

i converted my videos to mp4 but itunes still refuses to let it work and shows a winow that says "....... (item) an not be copied to itunes because it can not work on your ipad" although mp4 files are supposed to work on my ipad. i tranfered all music and pictures to itunes but i can't transefer my videos. What should i do?

Since I am impatient and can't wait for 90 minutes for an answer, I have decided to lose everything on my iPod and try to remember all the songs I had on them. But if anyone can help me prevent this in the future, that woud be great!

AW won't let me format in drawing mode. Why not?

So the Appleworks program on both my desktop and laptop computers is not working right suddenly. In the Draw mode it will not let me format the document. When you open up the format drop down menu and selcet document all the spaces are are blank--there are no margins, number of pages down/across, nothing. When you go to fill in one of these spaces with a number, you get a message that says "invalid number." My computer seems to be running slow. Do I have a bug?

My computer seems to be running slow. Do I have a bug?
If you're talking about AppleWorks running slow, then you have likely been hit by the Recent Items bug.
Sidekick, mentioned in Peggy's post will maintain a healthy Recent Items folder, but you can also clean it up yourself.
Go to Mac HD > username > Documents > AppleWorks User Data > Starting Points > Recent Items
Remove all or most of the items in this folder. You should notice a speed up the next time you launch AppleWorks.
The items in the Recent Items folder are aliases to every file you've Saved from AppleWorks. Removing them has no effect on the original files.
Regards,
Barry

Contribute CS3 won't let me format text

Contribute suddenly won’t let me format text (bold,
underline, etc.). Neither shortcut keys, nor buttons, nor menu
selections work. The only way I can make something bold, for
example, is to copy and paste text that is currently bolded in
another program.
Tammy Thiem

What happens when you choose file>place? Do you get a dialog box that doesn't let you choose what to place, or does nothing happen at all, or something else?

Disk Utility won't let me format external drive to FAT32

Maybe this cannot be done or the answer is simple and I am missing it. I have a 1.5tb Maxtor drive hooked up via fw800. I want to have 120gb of this as Mac OS extended journaled to back up my internal drive via Time Machine. I want the other 1.38tb to be in FAT32 so I can share files between my windows and mac machines. I keep all of my external storage except for the backup partition in FAT32. I have never had an issue until I upgrades to Leopard and now when I click on the larger partition I only have the option for the 4 mac formats-- FAT32 is not available. I can format the entire 1.5tb to FAT32 but once I try and partition it only mac formats are available. I forgot to mention I just did the upgrade to 10.5.1 and the issue is still present.
How do I format the smaller partition as mac os extended journaled and the larger as FAT32? Any help is appreciated.
Thanks so much,
Patrick
PS. I did a search but did not find anything.
Message was edited by: PatrickB

It may depend on the type of partition table scheme you are using (see bottom of page in disk utility for that says Apple Partition Map/APM, GUID Partition table/GPT or Master Boot Record/MBR partition map).
MS-Windows can read MBR scheme only (64 bit MS-Windows supports GPT, according to MS). If you have Apple Partition Map, your disk won't be usable on Windows. I suspect you have APM partition table and hence the disk utility is not giving the option for FAT32 format, since you can't use it under MS-Windows.
On the Mac side, all 3 schemes are readable (for bootability, you'll need APM on PPC Macs, GPT for Intel Macs). Time Machine doesn't need a bootable disk, but I'd suggest APM/GPT if you are using PPC/Intel macs respectively (but I'd think either will work for Time Machine, if you have a mix of Macs).
But here's the catch - Apple says Time Machine won't work with drives with MBR partition map (even though Macs are MBR-aware), so the issue for you is Time Machine's ability to use MBR drives. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306932
I suspect unless you are on an Intel Macs (OS X) and use only 64 bit MS-Windows (using GPT)/Itanium, using the same disk for TM and FAT32 sharing between Mac and Win worlds is not possible. Not the desirable answer.
If you do want to experiment, make a temporary setup and try it out on both Mac side and Windows side first (on all your machines), before making a "production" system. You can select the DISK (first line on Disk Utility for that disk, not second line) and click on Options at the left bottom (it might have to be erased first) and then select the type of partition scheme. Note formats like HFS+/FAT32 are a level lower in the hierarchy than partition map/table.
Let us know what you find out/decide?

External Hard Drive Can't Be Formatted?

Hi,
I've been up all night on my iBook G4 trying to reformat my new, 60g SimpleTech external hard drive. Here is my situation:
-The external hard drive IS Mac OSX compatible.
-Currently it's read-only so I can't actually store anything on it.
-The icon appears on my desktop, so it recognizes that it's plugged in, and Disk Utility also recognizes it, too.
-In Disk Utility, when I highlight its icon and click on the "Erase" tab to reformat it, the "Volume Format" menu is grey, it won't let me click on it, and so I can't change it to a FAT file system format.
-The external hard drive is currently a Windows NT File System.
-My permissions are on, and I verified and repaired my disk permissions, but it's still a no go.
I can't erase the drive! The external hard drive remains read-only. What the heck? Any insight? Thanks.
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.3.3)

Hi,
I just bought a 120GB SimpleTech drive yesterday and I am having the same problem:
"in Disk Utility, when I highlight its icon and click on the "Erase" tab to reformat it, the "Volume Format" menu is grey, it won't let me click on it"
Have either of you figured out how to format the drive?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks

External drive refuse to show up in network

I have just bought a Verbatim 3TB external harddrive (http://www.verbatim-europe.co.uk/en_1/product_store-n-save-superspeed-usb-3-0-de sktop-hard-drive-3tb_9566_0_35770__12692.html?con=39)
It works fine plugged directly into my retina laptop but refuse to show up when plugged into my (brand new) airport extreme. I have other externals that works perfectly with the extreme and I tried to the best of my ability to format the verbatim with the same standard (GUID and Mac OS Extended).
How can this be? Are some brands of external drives just incompatible with the airport extreme?

Thanks a lot Niel,
Diskwarrior is a program for what you need to buy a DVD. I live in Brazil I have no idea where to buy it. Or can you download it?
A

External HD refuses to let me format it

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