Format external hard drive for use with macbook pro

I have an old external drive that has been used with a pc.
Now I have formatted the disc on the pc, but seemingly, I need to format it for the MacBook Pro, as well.
How to?
Rgds Jan

Go to disk utility
Format it in Mac OSX extended journaled
Warning-- doing so will erase all data on the drive

Similar Messages

  • Should I get a 2.0 or 3.0 USB external hard drive for my 2011 Macbook Pro? I need it to be compatible with the USB ports of both a PC and a Mac.

    Should I get a 2.0 or 3.0 USB external hard drive for my 2011 Macbook Pro? I need it to be compatible with the USB ports of both a PC and a Mac. I was thinking of getting a Seagate becuase apparently it is compatible with both systems, but I want to know which would be a better investment.

    Using USB 3 devices on Mac computers FAQ

  • What is a good external hard drive for use with a macbook air?

    I am looking at purchasing a macbook air 13". What is a good external hard drive to use with it? Should I look for an external hard drive with its own a/c power or is the usb 3.0 capable of powering the external drive.

    Have a look here for the sizes and prices.
    It is however, much better to get a USB external drive that comes with it's own power adapter to avoid issues when or if your USB port can't supply enough power to your external drive.
    That issue however does happen rarely but it does happen.  Especially when connecting other devices to your other USB port while your external hard drive is connected to your other usb port.

  • Reformating external hard drive for use with new MacBook Pro

    I'm trying to figure out how to use an existing external hard drive (formatted for a Powermac G4) with my new MacBook Pro. I understand that the file formats are different and that I need to erase the hard drive and reformat it with a GUID partition, but how does one do that?
    I've already erased the drive with disk utility (using the old Powermac) and connected it to my MacBook with the hope that it would be recognized. No dice, alas. It doesn't mount at all.
    Any suggestions on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

    My external harddrives all work just fine with the MacBook Pro. You shouldn't have to reformat anything. I think if you did then it would not be backwards compatable with the older systems. Stick it back in your old computer and try to mount it again, repair permissions shutdown your macbook pro and connect the external drive then reboot

  • Quiet external hard drive for use with Time Machine?

    Few questions related to Time Machine:
    1- what external hard drive that would be good to use with Time Machine, that also runs relatively quietly? Since TM runs 24/7, am looking for one that is quieter than my current G-tech.
    2- Please confirm what size is optimal relative to the size of the internal hard drive.
    3- I currently use a separate external hard drive as my bootable disc.  Is it possible/preferable to have these be on one and the same drive?
    Thank you.

    1. I like these (have three of them) - literally whisper quiet:
    http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
    2. You should allow 2 - 3 times your internal drive's size for TM.
    3. No, it'd be best to be on another drive - you can create separate partitions, but if/when the drive fails, both of your backups would be gone. So, keep your clone on a separate disk. In fact, it's good to have two different backups.

  • Thunderbolt 2 external hard drive not working with Macbook Pro (early 2011)

    Hi,
    I'm new to this forum and I hope you guys can help me with this:
    I've recently bought an external hard drive that works on Thunderbolt 2 (LaCie d2 3TB). When I connect the new drive to my Macbook Pro through the thunderbolt port, the drive isn't recognized. However, the drive works fine through a USB connection.
    I thought that Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2 are compatible, however this doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe it's because the OS X / driver / firmware version that I'm working on that is not updated? I work on an early 2011 Macbook Pro: OS X Version 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard).
    Thank you very much for your help!
    Daniel

    Hi danielsh6,
    I recently bought the new Lacie Thunderbolt 2 D2 3TB and I had the same problem as you, i have a macbook pro early 2011, those support thunderbolt but many times there is a bug that doesn't let you connect any thunderbolt drives to your computer. The solution I found was installing this update:
    Thunderbolt Firmware Update v1.0
    Before doing this I would recommend you updating to mountain lion (not yosemite yet as there is still some glitches and more on preview's macbook pro's).
    Hope this helped!
    Forest

  • Can someone suggest an affordable external hard drive for use with FCPX and video editing on my Macbook Pro Retina

    I have a Macbook Pro Retina from 2012 and I only got the 250GB hard drive.  I'm getting ready to purchase a Panosonic HC-X920 to use with Final Cut Pro X already installed on my laptop.  Since I know the file sizes are going to be so big, can anyone suggest an affordable external drive fast enough to keep up with editing the video?  I'm not a pro and use it for family and personal projects. 
    I prefer some thunderbolt options since I haven't had a chance to use the inputs since I got my macbook pro. I just don't know what is necessarily too little or too big and too cheap and too expensive for my needs.  Thank you.  

    OWC is a Mac specialist and a very trustworthy vendor.  I have dealt with them and their technical stall on many occasions.  Hence you may look at what they offer and be assured that they will stand behind what they sell:
    http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/
    I suspect that for your needs, a 1 TB drive is going to be the minimum.
    Ciao.

  • How do you format an NTSF external hard drive for use with Mountain Lion

    I'm switching over to Mac from PC, and have an external NTSF formated hard drive I regularly use. I understand from the forum the initial file transfer should be no issue, but for ongoing use of the HD, does it need to be formated to something other than NTSF... and if so, to what and how.

    Do this when you're ready:
    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.

  • How do i move photos to external hard drive for use with iphoto 11

    My hard drive is full.  I have a Lacie 3 TB external formatted for Mac Journaled.  I want to keep my photos and other iPhoto 11 media on the external.  Should I just move the iPhoto library to the external or some other way?  For iTunes, I moved the iTune media folder location and copied my existing iTunes media folder over and deleted the old after telling iTune to go to the external drive folder.
    I don't want to point iPhoto to the new location every time I open it.  Any better way or just move the iPhoto library?

    Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)
    And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
    And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive
    LN

  • If I buy an external hard drive for my new MacBook Pro with the retina display, can I play The Sims 3 on it?

    Hi!
    I recently bought the new MacBook Pro with the new retina display, but since it does not have a dvd/cd drive, I was going to buy an external one. I think I will be able to use it to watch dvds, but can I also play the computergame The Sims 3 on it? If not is there anything else I can do?
    Thank you!

    Welcome to Apple Support Communities
    You can try formatting the external drive on your eMac using Disk Utility and choosing a well-known format > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html. It's quite possible that your new iMac would be able to read it, but first, tell us which formats Disk Utility lists.
    If you have those songs in iTunes, simply go to Music folder and copy the iTunes folder to the external drive. Then, connect it to the iMac and copy the iTunes folder to Music folder.
    If they are not in iTunes, copy your songs to the external drive. Then, connect it to your new iMac, open iTunes and drag the songs into it

  • 2TB Time Capsule or External Hard Drive for use with Mac MINI and AppleTV

    Hi,
    My current setup is I have a 1TB Hard Drive linked to my intel Mac Mini via FireWire 400, the Mini shares my music and films through iTunes so that my AppleTV can pick them up.
    All devices are connected to an AEBS 802.11n (early model) via Cat6 Gigabit cables.
    As I have run out of space and am looking for a bigger drive, I wanted to know if I would be able to use the 2TB Time Capsule to hold my films and be able to stream them to the Mac Mini so that it may stream them through iTunes to the AppleTV.
    The theory of if should work, as the devices are all Gigabit capable and connected by high quality Cat6 leads their shouldn't be network bandwith issues, I am just unsure of how quickly the TimeCapsule can read stored data from a hard drive and transmit, some of my films are HD and run 4GB plus.
    The obvious answers is just to buy a bigger hard drive with FW400, however I would like to reduce the number of boxes I have under the TV, I plan to upgrade my AEBS to the latest one anyway so just thought it made sense to explore this option.
    looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

    Hello,
    It should work in theory, but the disk access time of the TC is much slower. I was setup like you are with an external drive connected to a Mini via FW and I had true Gigabit transfer between computers.
    When my hard drive failed I sold my Linksys gigabit router and bought a TC to reduce the number of boxes, but I soon learned that the read/write speed on a TC is a little bit faster than on a thumb drive! Not that great. All my machines are also connected with Cat6.
    It's still OK to watch a movie though, but transferring 10+ Gb is a pain.

  • Hitachi X500 external hard drive not working with MacBook Pro

    I purchased a new Hitachi X500 500GB external USB hard drive today and when I plug it into my MacBook Pro the drive makes a clicking noise and never mounts. When I try it on my wives MacBook it boots up fine. I bought one early in the day and the same thing happened, so I returned it and got a new one and the same thing happens. Any thoughts?
    Looks like it's formatted with Fat32 when I look at it on the MacBook.
    Thanks

    Welcome to Apple Discussions!
    Does the external drive have it's own power brick? If not, it's bus-powered and may not be getting enough juice to run.
    Also try all the USB ports on your MBP. Although they are "supposed" to be producing the same amount of power, posts around here suggest that's not always the case.
    If the drive does not have a power brick, you can get an inexpensive powered USB hub (it has a power brick) like this one:
    http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Belkin/F5U403P/
    Adding a powered hub fixes problems with bus-powered USb external drives about 95% of the time.

  • Which format for external hard drive to use with time machine backup and connect to windows laptop?

    Hi!  I have an external hard drive on which I have transferred my iTunes library (just mine - not others).  I have also a folder containing just films (some but not all of which are in iTunes too)  Everything has been working just fine until yesterday I noticed that Time Machine was not including the external hard drive in back up as it wasn't formatted.  So I have moved everything back to the Mac hard drive and and ready to format the external hard drive - but understand that if I do the contents cannot be opened from a windows laptop ...  is that right?  Is there are format I could choose that would allow Time Machine to back up and allow Windows to open as well (the idea being that I take the external hard drive with me on holidays etc!!)  Many thanks for any advice. 

    ok - I understand.  I have managed so far to format the drive (on windows) to exFAT file system - which apparently works with both Windows and Mac - but you're  correct - it will not be included in time machine backup as I have checked the back up files and Samsung is not showing.  Reckon I'm onto having to buy yet another portable hard drive just for windows - or of course buy myself a new mac book!!  Can I ask you please - does the drive have to be clear of everything before I change the format - or can I change it with the files still in there?  Also, got any quick ways duplicating the files onto another External Hard drive (for use on the windows laptop)  At the moment the files are taking 2/3 hours + to copy over!  Thank you! 

  • How do i format an external hard drive for use on both windows and mac book air?

    how do i format an external hard drive for use on both windows pc and mac book air?

    Use exFAT on the PC.
    (71374)

  • I just bought a MBA and I need to move my photos and itunes to an external hard drive (from my old MacBook Pro) because they won't fit on the Air.  I got the photos moved fine and I followed an online tutorial to move the necessary files for itunes, but i

    I just bought a MBA and I need to move my photos and itunes to an external hard drive (from my old MacBook Pro) because they won't fit on the Air.  I got the photos moved fine and I followed an online tutorial to move the necessary files for itunes, but it didn't work.  The files copied fine, but when I tell iTunes on the Air to look at the external drive for the library, it doesn't find anything.  What I copied was the entire iTunes Media folder.  So, how do I move the necessary iTunes files from my old Pro to a external drive so I can access them from my new Air?  Whew!

    iTunes- How to move the library to an EHD
    After you move the library you need to open iTunes by first depressing the OPTION key then launching iTunes. You will be given a choice of which library to use. This can then be made a permanent change, if you wish, in the Advanced section of iTunes preferences.

Maybe you are looking for