Formatted External drive for Mac OS extended

Hi,
I actually change from windows to Mac (no comparison...!!) but trying to transfer my photos (Pictures in finder) to an external hard disk i can`t drag and drop and i do not know why....i read in one forume that i have to formatted the external drive for Mac OS extended. First question: how could i do that? if my hard disk was originally formatted for windows, do i lose the info when i formatted?
Thanks!!

You will lose the files on the HD when you reformat it.  So copy what you want off the drive to a folder on your Mac temporarily. 
select the HD on the Desktop and launch Disk Utility.
select the HD in the left hand page of DU.
click on the Partiton button
select 1 Partition
select OS X Extended (journaled) in the drop down Format menu.
click on the Apply button
drag the folder of files onto the EHD to copy back and then delete from your Mac's drive after verifying that they all copied back successfully.
OT

Similar Messages

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  • Unable to format external drive as Mac OS Extended

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  • How to format external drive for mac AND pc use

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  • Format external drive for Mac and PC?

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  • How to format external drive to MAC OS Extended w/ MBR scheme?

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    Message was edited by: Gio_vanni

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  • Is it safe to format ANY external drive to Mac OS Extended?

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  • Moving iPhoto to external drive; have formatted external disk to Mac OS Extended (Journaled), moved the iPhoto library to external drive; when trying to change the library, the iPhoto file on new external is greyed out   can't be selected.What went wrong?

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  • I had formatted external HDD as Mac OS Extended(journaled) earlier, but now i want to format the same as ExFAT so that i can copy files between PC and MAC. But it is giving 'Can't unmount' error while i try to run Erase

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  • How to format an external drive for mac AND pc use

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  • External drive for Mac & WIndows?

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  • How to format FAT drive as MAC OS EXTENDED?

    Hello,
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    I've discovered one subtlety with Disk Utility that wasn't at all apparent until I smashed into it headlong. I have a number of machines that have been running Tiger Server since the day it came out, incrementally updating from 10.4 to 10.4.11 as each release came out- so I have a number of 10.4 install disks to support them. I have also been painstakingly backing them up weekly via SuperDooper to emergency firewire backup drives, so that when disasters would occur I could theoretically simply reboot from the external drive and keep going.
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  • Reformatting external drive to Mac OS Extended but maintaining RAID setup

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    Message was edited by: skalicki`

    So just one more question because I'm pretty new to this whole RAID thing:
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    Hi,
    I just purchased a 500mb My Book Pro external drive for use with my imac duo which runs Windows XP via bootcamp. This computer is shared by three family with very different skills and needs. My dilemma. I want to format the drive so that the imac can be backed up easily three users. It is formated Fat32 and is supplied with Restrospect Express 7.5 backup software. It would be nice to backup the modestly used windows sector, but that's a secondary consideration. My problem is that one user has a lot of larger than 4 gb video files which are too large the Fat 32 format. My notion is to segment the backup drive so that I leave 300 mb in fat 32 to facilitate backup with supplied software, and segment a second 200 gb drive using mac os extended so that the user can manually move her video files for storage/backup on the backup drive. Is there a simpler solution? For example, if I formatted the entire 500gb as mac os extended, could I still run the retrospect backup software? If not, is there a reasonably priced alternative software? And finally, with either Fat32 or Mac OS extended, can I move files from the Windows platform? Would I be better off just biting the bullet and telling my daughter to make her own arrangements to compress and backup her video files or get her own hard drive, thus leaving the backup drive to the simple factory supplied software solution?
    G-4 and iMac core duo   Mac OS X (10.4.9)   use emacs and imacs at work location

    Hi,
    I just purchased a 500mb My Book Pro external drive
    for use with my imac duo which runs Windows XP via
    bootcamp. This computer is shared by three family
    with very different skills and needs. My dilemma. I
    want to format the drive so that the imac can be
    backed up easily three users. It is formated Fat32
    and is supplied with Restrospect Express 7.5 backup
    software. It would be nice to backup the modestly
    used windows sector, but that's a secondary
    consideration. My problem is that one user has a lot
    of larger than 4 gb video files which are too large
    the Fat 32 format. My notion is to segment the backup
    drive so that I leave 300 mb in fat 32 to facilitate
    backup with supplied software, and segment a second
    200 gb drive using mac os extended so that the user
    can manually move her video files for storage/backup
    on the backup drive. Is there a simpler solution? For
    example, if I formatted the entire 500gb as mac os
    extended, could I still run the retrospect backup
    software? If not, is there a reasonably priced
    alternative software? And finally, with either Fat32
    or Mac OS extended, can I move files from the Windows
    platform? Would I be better off just biting the
    bullet and telling my daughter to make her own
    arrangements to compress and backup her video files
    or get her own hard drive, thus leaving the backup
    drive to the simple factory supplied software
    solution?
    G-4 and iMac
    core duo   Mac OS X (10.4.9)   use emacs
    and imacs at work location
    Hello,
    You're indeed in a pickle. If you use Bootcamp and want the HD accessible via the Mac and WinXP, then you don't want to format it as Mac HFS because WInXP wouldn't be able to access it. If you go FAT32 then both WInXP and Mac OS can access it, but you face the dilemma of the 4GB threshold.
    If you format as NTFS, then you eliminate the 4GB threshold but then Mac OS cannot access it.
    I have a similar dilemma, which is why i use Parallels more than Bootcamp. I have 2 external FW HD's (160GB/250GB), both formatted to Mac HFS. The 160GB i have partitioned as 50GB and 100GB. I have a bootable backup of Mac OS residing on the 100GB partition (yay to SuperDuper!) and some other stuff on the remaining 50GB. The 250GB is exclusive for movies (cough..cough..bittorrent) and for streaming via Orb 2.0 to my Treo. I have WinXP running in Parallels, and Vista Ultimate via Bootcamp. In Parallels, i can access my external HD's via Parallel's Shared Folders but in Vista (Bootcamp) since the HD's are in a non-Windows recognised formatting, they're not accessible (which is a bummer, as i'm loving Win media center).
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    iMac 17" 2GHZ C2Duo 2GB RAM 160GB HD   Mac OS X (10.4.9)  

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