Buying an external hard drive that works on both!

I am looking to buy and external hard drive that can be accessed by my pc and mac book pro. Using mac drive or the like is not an option. This is because I am looking to go over to a mac full time. At we have a windows network. The techies won't install mac drive, so I need one that works on both.
Do they exist?
I had bought a fujitsu. Formatted it on the macbook and doesn't work on the school network. Is there anything I can do with that so it can be accessed by both?

I use Mac OS X (10.6) as my primary OS with Windows 7 under Boot Camp for games. Pretty much any USB drive will do, I have WD Elements 500GB 3.5in one partitioned approximately 300/200 between HFS (the partition scheme for Mac OS) and NTFS. This allows me to do my Time Machine backups and still have a usable amount of extra storage for windows. Under Snow Leopard I can read both partitions from windows, no problem, but beware, in my experience, Mac OS won't see the windows partition on the external drive if you're using one of the partitions for Time Machine.
Hope this helps,
lambda.

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I have a Seagate Slim Portable 500 GB USB 3.0 external hard drive that worked great with my Macbook Pro 13" Retina but gets ejected and won't show files on any iMac.

I have a Seagate Slim Portable 500 GB USB 3.0 external hard drive that worked great with my Macbook Pro 13" Retina but gets ejected and won't show files on any iMac. My Macbook Pro and the two different iMacs I tried it on were all using Mountain Lion, so the only difference was the iMac versus Macbook Pro.

I just tried this, no luck...
I connected a different USB cable, still the same problem. Tried both cables with the problematic hard drive on two different computers, still the same problem.
At this point I assume I'll probably need professional help in saving the files, thanks for the assistance.

Does anyone have a USB powered external hard drive that works?

I bought a really slick USB powered hard drive to take with me when I travel. The whole reason for purchase is to have it power off the laptop. It works on all the Windows machines, but my Mac doesn't even know the drive exists unless I first plug it into a powered USB hub. If I plug it directly into the USB port on the laptop, nada-zip-zilch.
This doesn't fit the plan I had.
Any help? Anyone need a slick little hard drive? 8-)
Kittie

Hi Kitty, I have a lacie porsche designed drive that works with out a hub, but it needs to use two usb ports to mount on the mac. not ideal but portable enough for me

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

Does the time capsule work as an external hard drive that you can access from multiple lapttops

I have a mac desktop, a macbook and a pc laptop. I also purchased the time capsule. Will that functional as an external hard drive that I can use to save a share documents between. Trying to figure out the best way to work on documents between devices. new to max and trying to make the full switch but still working with toshiba laptop for a while too.
Any help is appreciated.

Hello jhettenhausen,
Yes, it can function as an external drive for all the devices. As for Windows, you just need to make sure that
it is Windows Professional or XP, as they support mapped network drives. Windows 7 Home Premium doesn't is not capable of mapping network drives. At home, I have a ubuntu laptop, Windows 7 Profesional laptop, and Macbook Pro and they all backup to the Time Capsule 1 TB. Hope this helps!!
Best Regards,
freesparks

I have 2 MacBooks at home that back-up to a Time Capsule. I'd like to buy an external Thunderbolt drive at work to have as an additional back-up. Will Time-Machine support autobackups to 2 different devices?

I have 2 MacBooks (1 Air and 1 Pro) at home that back-up to a Time Capsule. I'd like to buy an external Thunderbolt drive at work to have as an additional back-up (so that were there to be a fire/water damage/etc) I would not lose both the computer and the backup.
Will Time-Machine support autobackups to 2 different devices?
I'd like for it to be able to backup to an external Thunderbolt drive attached to my thunderbolt display when I dock the MacBook Air to it.
Does anyone know if this will occur automatically, or if I will have to manually select backup disk?
thanks

Yes, with Mountain Lion you can do this, but I will leave the explanation to Apple Support Communities contributor Pondini:
34. "Rotating" Time Machine backup disks

Is there an application where I can back up all my info that I have on my computer so I don't have to buy a external hard drive?

Is there an application where I can back up all my info that I have on my computer so I don't have to buy a external hard drive?

Yes, but off-site storage (i.e. Mozy) is more expensive in the long-run than an external drive, however, off-site storage is safer (not sure if I trust the security though), and even with a fast connection, the inital backup can take days

How do I figure out if I have usb 3.0? I am trying to buy compatible external hard drive (western digital my passport for mac) and I can not figure out if it will work with my mac book.

how do I figure out if I have usb 3.0? I am trying to buy compatible external hard drive (western digital my passport for mac) and I can not figure out if it will work with my mac book.

Dont buy a Western Digital, get a Hitachi or Seagate (Toshiba is made by Hitachi). These are the most reliable, and the HD used inside Macs.
ALL HD can be made compatible with your MAC (including a WD if you already bought same), ......they just need to be formatted for the Mac platform, format them in Disk Utility as Mac OSX extended journaled.

I just had to reformat the external hard drive that houses my iPhoto library, then restore it from a backup. Now Time Machine is telling me my backup hard drive suddenly does not have the space to complete a backup. I also noticed when I go in to Time Mac

I just had to reformat the external hard drive that houses my iPhoto library, then restore it from a backup. Now Time Machine is telling me my backup hard drive suddenly does not have the space to complete a backup. I also noticed when I go in to Time Machine, there are only about 5 backups recorded on the ext. hard drive. There were many more before. Any idea what happened and if I have to buy a new back up hard drive?

Hallo Kieth ,
I am not quite ready to restore the full iphoto library , as I have days of work re - imputting titles,descriptions and enhancement . I hope that your suggestion works , as I use my Macbook basically to work with digital photography. Through time , I will need to delete my library to recover more disc space and I would hate to have to spend more time re - imputting titles and descriptions all over again .
Thanks for your interest and advice.
regards - Alan

Buying an external hard drive

I just learned that memory and hard disk capacity are not the same thing. Anyway, since I've just increased my memory from 2 to 4 GB, while since my computer is now telling me that my "Starter Drive?" is full, I've decided to buy an external hard drive for my MacBook. However, since I don't know anything about them, I'd like to read a good article or two on selecting one before making my purchase, so I came here to see if anyone has any ideas on the subject. Can anyone make any suggestions?
I don't want to spend more than $150, preferably much less. Also, I want one that is EASY and SIMPLE to use. There will probably be other considerations, but not until I get some basic information on types, features, usages, etc.

lenn5 wrote:
There's only a couple things I think about when purchasing an external drive.
1. How much space do I need.
The minimum right now seems to be around 320GB for most people. That's what I have and it's fine more my needs. I don't edit video so I don't need a huge drive.
2. What type of connection: Firewire, USB2, eSATA or a combination of them.
Mine has Firewire800/USB2. It comes with a FW 400 adapter so it works with my iMacCore Duo. I wouldn't get an external without Firewire. USB2 only is too slow.
3. Brand.
That's up to the buyer. I chose Western Digital Studio drive. I'm mostly happy with it. Nice enclosure but is alittle noisy in a quiet room.
Most of the top drives are good. OWC, WD, G-Tech, LaCie ect.
Just do a search using the brand and review. There are alot of reviews on the net.
4.Price
Individual preference.
I've probably missed something but these are what's important to me.
lenn
Thanks. I have decided to buy one, but I just have to do more thinking about what to buy. At first, being a beginner, I was just thinking in terms of capacity (bigger must be better), but now that even Terrabytes can be obtained at reasonable prices, I question that. I haven't yet read anything that completely answered the question for me, but I will be reading more comparisons and buying guides in the near future. One thing I'm still thinking about is how to use it. Will it be better to use it for storage, or do I want it to be an active part of my computer. I might add that the main reason I want to get one is to improve the speed and efficiency of my computer. I've seen many, many articles that warned of the catastrophe of crashing discs, but that doesn't worry me. The first time that happened, I felt like I had lost a child, but the second, third, and fourth times it happened it didn't bother me so much. No, I'm really most interested in doing what I can to get my computer to run as fast and with as few complications as possible. You did remind me of one thing I hadn't thought of recently: noise. That's important. In fact, that's why I bought a Mac. After doing quite a bit of research, I had decided on buying the PC that was always wining popularity contests. I was just about to buy it, and even took a PC course at my college to get ready for it, when I realized that the Mac was meant for me because of its quiet operation (the PCs at school were just too noisy for me) and and its compactness. Of course, when I bought my printer, the compactness issue went out the window. Even so, I still think I made the right decision. I only regret replacing my desktop model with a laptop.

I have been storing my Aperture and IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive that recently died. Fortunately I've been using Time Machine to back up to a 2nd external drive. How do I restore my libraries to a new external hard drive?

I have been storing my Aperture and IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive that recently died. Fortunately I've been using Time Machine to back up to a 2nd external drive. How do I restore my libraries to a new external hard drive?

This is a tricky one.
Open up Time Machine and go back to a date using the timeline on the right side of the window when you know the drive was working and was backing up as part of Time Machine backups.
Click on the name of your Mac under the Devices heading on the left side of the window in Time Machine, and if things are working correctly you will see Macintosh HD (or whatever you have named it) and the name of the external hard drive that was backing up in the past.
Right-Click on the name of the external hard drive and then click on "Restore (name of drive) to....." You may be asked for your adminstrator password at this point.
It might be easier to restore the drive contents to your desktop if you have room on your Mac, and then copy things over to the new external drive where you want to store the Aperture and iMovie Libraries.
Once the libraries have been moved over the new external hard drive, you will likely need to "point" Aperture and iMovie to the location of the libraries on the new external hard drive.

How do i repair or recover data from a corrupt USB external hard drive that does not show up on my Mac desktop or disk utility

How do i repair or recover data from a corrupt USB external hard drive that does not show up on my Mac desktop or disk utility?
Last night i was using my external hard drive, for some reason the folder just closed and i couldn't find it on my desktop.
After googling solutions, i found it in the disk utilities, i clicked on the 'repair' button many times, but it said the 'error...' message.
So i ejected it to try again, now when i connect the USB external hard drive it doesn't show up on my desktop or disk utilities.
I really just want to either repair or recover the data on it because it literally has everything (documents, work files, photos etc) on it,
I downloaded an application to recover my files but it needs the USB to at least show up.recognise it which mine doesn't.
I know i should've backed it up on another USB, this definitely teaches me for next time to back up all my files.
Are the files lost forever or can i recover them by going to a shop or using a software?

Thank you for responding.
This might sound stupid since i'm not really knowledgeable with Macs,
but since all my files were moved from my mac computer to the external hard drive,
is it possible to recover those files through my Mac - like recovering deleted files?

How do I back up my entire iphoto library to an external hard drive that I have dedicated for photos only? Can I simply drag the iphoto library onto my seagate (hard drive) icon?

How do I back up my entire iphoto library on to an external hard drive that will be my second back up plan. I already have one back up that is also synched with time machine. But now I want to back up my iphoto library to a new hard drive to have a second copy. Can I simply drag the whole library onto the icon on my desk top? THX

WHile you can do it that way, the next time you back up you'll end up copying the entire library again, and,as you'l see, once a library gets bigger that can take a considerable amount of time.
Try using an app that will do incremental back ups. This is a very good way to work. The first time you run the back up the app will make a complete copy of the Library. Thereafter it will update the back up with the changes you have made. That makes subsequent back ups much faster. Many of these apps also have scheduling capabilities: So set it up and it will do the back up automatically.
Example of such apps: Chronosync - but there are many others. Search on MacUpdate or the App Store

On imac 10.6.8 using current version of Aperture. How can I access the Aperture Library on my external hard drive that I use with time machine for backup? I can only access the application but not the library..

On imac 10.6.8 using current version of Aperture. How can I access the Aperture Library on my external hard drive that I use with time machine for backup? I can only access the application but not the library..

Go into Time Machine (the program not the bundle on the extrnal disk) and using Time Machine's browser go to the Folder where the library lives. You could look in the library bundle in Time Machine but that won't really tell you much,
If you want to make sure it truely has backed up your library you will need to restore it and open the restored library with Aperture.
If all this still has you confused you need to read up on Time Machine in order to get a feel for how it works, for what it is doing and for how to restore files from it.

Problems getting an external hard drive to work on the new Airport Extreme

I have spent hours trying to get my 320GB external hard drive to work with the new airport extreme 802.11N. I have spent hours pouring over all of the posts here discussing possible solutions, all of which have not worked. This morning, however, I gave it another try and FINALLY, I have it working. I tried something simple. Here it is:
Using the Apple Disk Utility Program, I formated my drive using the MS-DOS mode, called my Hard drive "ItunesHD". It took about 20 minutes to complete (i'm assuming because of the size of the drive). I then unplugged the router and hard drive, turned on the hard drive, then the router. After my macbook pro reconnected, I clicked on the iDisk utility icon in my menu bar, provided my password and FINALLY saw the network drive icon on my desktop!!! It seems that formatting my drive using MS-DOS compatibility mode finally worked for me. I'm not saying this will work for anyone else who is having this problem, but you can at least try it. I tried all of the MAC formatting options and have had no luck.
What I would like to know now is (..if anyone has these answers, please let me know):
1. What is the maximum SINGLE drive capacity that this router will understand...500GB, 1TB, 2TB? I would like to get the biggest bang for my buck.
2. Keeping #1 one in mind, I purchased an Apple TV (still waiting on it to arrive) and I would like to know if it will read multiple hard drives connected to the Airport Extreme router (...say (2) 500GB hard drives). I know you can have multiple libraries in iTunes (which to me is a cheesy solutions, there should be an option in the preferences that would allow you to save your music in one place and your movies in another). Anybody have any idea on this one?
I basically want to rip all of my dvd movies on a big hard drive connected to my airport extreme to use with my AppleTV , so I just need to find out about the maximum size and hooking up more than one hard drive and getting the AppleTV to recognize them all.
thnks
MacBook Pro Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Sorry you had so much trouble hooking up a hard drive to the base station. I've done some experimenting with the feature and this is what I've found out.
You can use either the native Mac format, Mac OS Extended, or the Microsoft format known as FAT. Apple calls FAT, MS-DOS File System in Disk Utility.
If you use Mac OS Extended, the Macs on the network will be able to connect to the drive using the native AFP (Apple File Protocol) or the Microsoft native SMB (Server Message Block) protocol. PCs will only use the SMB protocol of course.
If you use MS-DOS File System both the Macs and the PCs will only use SMB to connect to the drive over the network.
Basically I've found everything works as expected with regard to volumes connected to a network.
One thing I don't have installed is the iDisk Utility. I'm wondering if it may be the cause of the problems you were having. But reading through your post it may also be the difference between expected behaviour and the proper procedure for discovering and mounting network volumes. Let me explain.
You only mention having trouble getting the drive to show up on your Desktop, you didn't describe how you went about discovering the network drive. It isn't just suppose to show up on your desktop when you plug it in to the Extreme base station. It doesn't work like the iDisk or disks connected directly to your computer using USB/Firewire.
Normally with network drives you're suppose to either browse for them using the Network icon in the Finder or using the Connect to Server command in the Finder's Go menu, you would type the address in directly for the network volume you want to mount. Try it and see what happens.
Now to answer your other questions.
I don't have a volume large enough to hit any limits the base station may have but I did read a post about someone who said they had a 1.5 TB volume connected and could only see 1 TB of it. They were forced to partition the drive to see all available space and of course the volumes showed up as two separate drives. One thing wasn't made clear though. They didn't say what volume format they were using to format the drive, Mac OS Extended or MS-DOS.
Everything having to do with the AppleTV is just speculation at this point since no one has one yet but from what has been demonstrated so far, AppleTV relies on iTunes. In other words, it won't pull data from network volumes on its own, a computer running iTunes needs to feed it.

Buying an external hard drive that works on both!

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