Using an external hard drive with Mac & PC

Hello. I am still using a 2005 PPC iMac running Tiger. My photos are stored in Aperture and Lightroom 2, however they are all stored on my computer's hard drive. I want to remove them from my computer and store them on an external hard drive instead.
My flat mate has a Windows based PC laptop and also has stuff he wants to store on an external hard drive. We were thinking about going halves and getting a Western Digital 2TB hard drive and sharing it.
I understand that the hard drives can be shared for both formats using FAT32, how would this format affect my Lightroom/Aperture Libraries? Or would it just be better to get an individual hard drive each? If so can you recommend any good ones for use with the mac that are not too costly?

Fat32 will limit File sixes to 4 GB & have some naming restrictions.
A few options...
You could format that HDD as Fat32/MS-DOS, but you'd be limited to 4 GB Filesizes.
NTFS-3G Stable Read/Write Driver...
http://www.ntfs-3g.org/
MacFUSE: Full Read-Write NTFS for Mac OS X, Among Others...
http://www.osnews.com/story/16930
MacDrive for the PCs... allows them to Read/Write HFS+...
http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/

Similar Messages

  • I am not able to use my external hard drive with my Mac.

    I am not able to use my external hard drive with my Mac. It was initially used with my Windows 7 laptop. Now when I insert my Hard drive in the Mac, it doesn't allow me to delete, format, make folders or copy new files on to my hard drive. I no longer have a Windows PC and am stuck. I tried going to Disc utilities,selected my HD, clicked on Erase and then changed the Format type to MS-DOS (FAT) but no luck .. Any other steps or advice?

    It was likely formatted in NTFS which is readable by the Mac, but not writeable.
    You should be able to reformat the disk in Disk Utility.
    After having copied all the data off of it, you can try re-partitioning it.
    Select the hard drive in the disk list in Disk Utility. Hard drives are the device itself, are left-aligned in the list, and are usually named with the manufacturer, size, and model number.
    Click on the Partition tab.
    Select 1-partition from the partition menu.
    Click the Options button and set to GUID
    Set the format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
    Give the Volume a name and click Apply.

  • Can I use an external hard drive with my ipad 2

    can I use an external hard drive with my ipad 2

    There are WiFi enabled portable hard drives available that can stream media, such as music or video, to your iPad, but no external hard drive in the sense of how you would use one with a computer.

  • Using an external hard drive with a Mac and a PC?

    I have an external hard drive that I've used with my Windows PC/ itunes / music that I've copied to the PC. Can I use the external hard drive that I use with my Windows PC on my Mac/ itunes / music I've downloaded to my Mac?

    wendybird wrote:
    I also have a lot of pictures stored on the external hard drive that I can't lose.
    (1) Any hard drive may fail at any moment. If you don't have a backup for this external hard drive, your pictures are half-gone already.
    (2) If you're trying to make this drive a repository for your music and pics, then its best to format it as FAT32. That's the file system with the widest compatibility, and you'll be able to use the drive with Mac, Win, media players, even TVs with built-in media players. For practicality, it's probably best to keep it attached to a desktop machine and share it on your home LAN for all other devices.

  • How can i use external hard drive with mac and pc!

    I've been using a Lacie external hard drive with my mac to keep the itunes library and other things since day one. Since i have a dvd with files for windows and an old pc without a dvd drive, i decided to copy and paste the content of the dvd to the external hard drive. The only problem now is that when i plug the external hard drive to pc, it won't open. I know it has to be formatted in a different way, but i need to find out the best solution!
    Any idea?

    You can format the external drive in Fat32 (which I don't recommend but is the most compatible between both platforms), or NTFS (which requires some work to get your Mac to recognize), or HFS+ (which requires special software on your PC so your PC can use it).
    If you use this drive mostly with your Mac, get MacDrive for your PC:
    http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive
    If you use this drive mostly with your PC, here's some software for you Mac. I haven't tried this myself, but the professional reviews have been good:
    http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/

  • Using an external hard drive with Airport Extreme

    I'd like to use an external hard drive to store movies and music through my Airport Extreme. The drive is connected to a powered usb hub which is connected to the Extreme. I can see the drive in Airport Utility but I can't figure out how to use it.

    Hi,
    I have just tried to set up an Airport Extreme with an external hard drive at home. I have 4 computers connected to the "network" - an iMac, a MacBookPro and 2 x windows machines. A printer is connected wirelessly to the two Macs.
    I cannot find the hard drive - I have tried the steps mentioned by Bob Timmons Mar 17 2010, but the only things I see under "Shared" in Finder are the iMac and the printer - not the Airport Extreme (seems odd??), not the windows machines, and most importantly, not the hard drive connected to the USB port on the Airport Extreme.
    I therefore expect that the iMac and printer are connected wirelessly and directly, rather than through my network (& I'm happy for the printer to be connected this way, but I do need the PCs and the hard drive all networked).
    According to my network connection, (in top bar on the screen) I am definitely connected to the network - yet nothing else shows in finder??
    I do, however, see the USB hard Drive when I go into Finder>Applications>Utilities>AirportUtility.app, under my Airport Extreme >Disks. I've also gone through all the set up procedures for "File Sharing."
    I have read other posts about formatting the hard drive ether FAT32 or NFTS - is this something I now need to do?? If so, which one should I use, and once I do it, will I then see it?
    Presumably, in order to format the Hard Drive, I will need to disconnect it from the Airport Extreme, and connect it directly to one of the Macs too?
    My apologies for so many questions, but this is all very technical stuff for the non-techie layperson.
    Many thanks for any help anyone can provide on one or more of the questions / issues.
    Martin

  • Using my external hard drive with my Mac?

    I have a Maxtor external hard drive I used with my Dell.  Can I use it with my Mac?  Any worries about simply connecting it and seeing what will happen?

    My best guess is it's formatted as NTFS, if that is the case OS X can read  NTFS files but cannot write to a NTFS formatted drive. You can fix that by downloading NTFS-3G
    OR
    you can reformat the drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) in Disk Utility. If you are sharing this drive with a PC then I'd recommend the NTFS-3G option
    if it's only to be used by the Mac then reformat it.
    You can download NTFS-3G at: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24481/ntfs-3g
    To reformat here are instructions:  http://www.ehow.com/how_2063795_format-hard-drive-mac-os.html

  • Using same external hard drive with two Macs

    I use two Lacie external hard drives and Time Machine to back-up my iMac, swapping over the drives each week to have one off-site.
    I am soon to buy a MacBook. Can I use the same external hard drives for the MacBook's Time Machine back-ups, whilst continuing to use them with the iMac, or will that cause problems?
    Thank you.

    As Kappy says, Time Machine will put both sets of backups in the same Backups.backupdb folder. That may not be a good idea for the future; your best bet may be to partition the drive.
    See #4 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

  • Using an external hard drive with my mac

    My PC crashed last night (THANK GOD NOW I CAN GET A NEW DESKTOP MAC!!!) but I need to get some pictures off of my external hard drive. Can I just plug it up with my macbook and get them off? It is compatible with MAC. It's a Lacie. Thanks for any help.
    Adrienne

    What's the format of the drive? If it's FAT32 you should have no problem. If it's NTFS you probably can read it to get data off the drive (although I can't get my iBook G4 1.42 to mount them - MacBook does read-only with NTFS). The particular model and interface type of your LaCie drive could be helpful.
    I had a LaCie d2 FireWire drive that crashed a few months after I got it. I then reformatted in FAT32 on my iBook and had ScanDisk quarantine bad sectors on a PC. It finally bit the dust and the PC would no longer mount the drive. My iBook was able to read it but took minutes to mount. I got the data to another drive and make sure to back up my important stuff to three different external drives.
    Message was edited by: ypw

  • Using an external hard drive with iTunes r

    Hi there.
    I just bought a new mac book pro and would like to link my itunes to an external hard drive that I have consolidated all my mp3's onto so that I don't use all the memory space on my computer.
    I tried holding down the alt key when starting itunes and linking it that way but it said that it didnt recognise the folder as an itunes library.
    Could anyone help me please? Many thanks.

    Hi... Thanks, your idea sounds good. I've seen the other places where you've shared this tip. I still have a couple questions to make sure I understand.
    You say: "One way (and in some the best) is to copy the whole iTunes folder in your user Music folder to the external drive.  Then the alt/option key thing will work.
    Another is to move just media to the external drive.  The external will always have to be up and fully mounted before starting iTunes."
    If I use your way and copy the whole folder I will also have to have the external always on, correct? The whole folder will be on the external, right?
    Then when I want to upload a new CD to my iTunes it will all go automatically to the new folder on my external? iTunes won't try to put anything on my laptop hard drive anymore, right?
    I'm copying my iTunes folder to my external then I will point my laptop's iTunes to the new folder. And that will be it. Right? Then I can delete my bloated iTunes folder on my laptop.
    You also say "if you use the default preferences." Actually, I'm doing this for my teenage son. I don't know what prefs he uses. Are you saying that if we've changed any defaults that this method won't work?
    Well, thanks for further explanation. I've always had difficulty with i-Products. I don't regularly use or rely on any myself, due to the synchronization issues. It seems that something like iPhoto wants to take over my photos and things start going wrong and multiplying when I use it. So I don't.

  • Using an external hard drive with iPhoto

    I stored my pictures on an external hard drive, but since they were in iPhoto format I have to import all of them to my computer just to view them.  Is there a way to fix this, or will I just have to keep the pictures as jpegs?  *I was hoping that I could use iPhoto to load and view pictures periodically while storing them on the external hard drive, rather than relying on Finder and Preview

    iPhoto isn’t a photo format. If the drive contains a volume formatted as Mac OS Extended, which can be a partition or disk image, launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and either create a library on that volume or choose one already there.
    (110321)

  • How can i use an external hard drive with my ipad

    I just got a new ipad 2 I am trying to see it is possible to connect a external hard drive to take  my picture and documents with me.

    Basically you can't, though there are a few (fairly expensive) drives coming onto the market which are said to be compatible. There is no USB port on the iPad, and the optional camera connection kit is only for the transfer of photos/videos, so wouldn't recognise other file types - if you were able to connect a drive via it then the drive would need it's own power source, the photos would have to be in a specific format, and there is still no guarantee that it would work.
    There are apps available for the iPad which can use/access cloud services such as Dropbox.

  • Can I use any external hard drive with Time Machine?

    I have a 1TB external hard drive and also a 16GB flash drive. Is it possible to use either of these with Time Machine?

    IMO Time Machine should be on its own Dedicated External Drive... one that is twice the size of the drive that it is backing up... the 16 GB Flash Drive is not appropiate for the task.
    See Here
    TM 101
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
    You may also find this Link of Interest...
    Time Machine vs. Clones and Archives

  • Using an external hard drive with an airport extreme and HP computer

    - I recently bought the airport extreme, and also bought a Seagate external hard drive for my music files.  I can see the hard drive on the airport utility but cannot access it or find where to access it.  I am using an HP computer with windows 7.
    Help please!

    The AirPort Extreme cannot share out the attached Seagate USB hard drive if it is formatted in NTFS or ExFat. Please check to see that it is formatted in either FAT32 or HFS+ (Apple format).
    If it is already formatted in either of the latter two formats, then verify that the AirPort Utility can properly identify the hard drive by using the AirPort Utility for Windows.
    Finally please checkout the following Apple Support article for details on accessing this shared drive from a Windows PC.

  • Using an external hard drive with imovie?

    Hello,
    I recently converted a lot of old tapes to a digital format and they are on an external hard drive. I have been copying them onto my internal hard drive but I am now running out of space. I looked for some help and found I can actually view events from the hard drive or so I thought. In the event library I can see my external hard drive (but none of the files) and when I select it I get the message - to view video select one or more events in the event library on the left - to add video to your library. I was hoping I could just see the files on the external hard drive. What am I missing?
    Thanks

    The external drive must be formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled). I would assume yours already is, because you see it in iMovie.
    Next, when you import from a camera, you can set the external drive as the target on the import screen.
    Also, when you use FILE/IMPORT to import a movie, you can specify the external drive.
    For Event already in iMovie, you can click VIEW/EVENTS BY DISK. You can now hold down the command key while dragging the small icon for the event to the small icon for the drive in the Event Library List.
    Finally one more option, using the Finder, you can also create a folder called iMovie Events at the top level of the external drive. You can add folders within the iMovie Events folder. The folder name will become the Event name. Drag your movies into these folders. The next time you start iMovie, it will generate thumbnails and you can see these events in iMovie.

Maybe you are looking for

  • User exit for before creating PO

    Hello Experts, I have one a requirement when the customer creating the PO, before save free charge(UMSON) filed is automatically active(check the check box) for particular vendor, I done the implicit enhancement for the Tcode ME21its working fine but

  • Network Sharing Bug? A bit too complicated to describe in Subject...

    I have a G5 and MacBook Pro connected via Gigabit Ethernet. I have AFP Filesharing active on both. First I could connect form the G5 to the MacBook and vice versa no problemo. I used the Administrator's accounts to log in, since i have the same on bo

  • Finding Dmenu's window class?

    Normally I would simply run xprop in a terminal and click on the window in question with the cross hairs. However, for the dmenu  "window" this procedure yields no result. Any idea how I could find dmenu window class so I can style and position it us

  • Multiple Line selection in ALV

    Hi All, I have an alv report. In which, i have to get the selected row index values in return. Those selected row index will be used for further processing. I do not need check box selection, as ALV provide that inbuilt facility. Please tell me the p

  • Why is the 'stills' section blank?

    when ever i go onto the stills section on my iphone it apears to be blank for what i dont know but i tried to restore the software but it still didnt work so what can i do?