Does all external hard drives work for mac?

I am buying a imac i want to know weather all external hard drives work for mac?

Not with equal reliability. Avoid Western Digital.
Most reliable are these:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
Search their site for various alternatives.

Similar Messages

  • Do all external hard drives work with my macbook pro?

    I just bought an HP Simplesave external hard drive. On the rear of the package, I noticed its compatible with XP, Vista, and 7, but nothing about Mac. I don't want to open it, but I was under the assumption that all external hard drives work on all systems. I didn't think they were operating system specific.
    Anyone know about this specific hard drive, and about hard drives in general if my assumption is correct?

    The drive should work fine once you've reformatted it for the Mac, but whatever small portion of the purchase price went to cover the included software will be wasted, because HP will only have included Windoze software with it. And in the unlikely event that you ever need to call HP tech support, they'll be clueless about anything involving a Mac. These are the two reason why DP suggests avoiding drives whose makers don't mention anything about use with Macs.

  • Using IMOVIE '08 to import from DV camera to 'BUSLINK' external hard drive( formatted for MAC ) but no success and kept getting this message: The import was canceled. You may not have permission to write to /Volumes/BUSLINK/iMovie Events.localized. Thanx

    Using IMOVIE '08 to import from DV camera to 'BUSLINK' external hard drive( formatted for MAC ) but no success and kept getting this message: The import was canceled. You may not have permission to write to /Volumes/BUSLINK/iMovie Events.localized. Thanx in advance!

    I finally got a representative that was able to help me, she had me go to Get Info, by right clicking iMovie from the finder, and I had to click on Sharing & Permissions>Everyone>Read & Write

  • External Hard Drive Formatted For Mac

    Hello,
    Can some one please point to a link to an external hard drive that comes formatted for Mac out of the box? My 90 year old mother-in-law needs a time machine backup and would freak out if I tried to guide her through Disk Utility to reformat the external drive she just bought from Radio Shack. So an out-of-the-box plug-n-play drive would work best for her.
    Does anyone know of any? I know LaCie is/was Mac focused, but I need to have a drive that is ABSOLUTELY Mac plug-n-play when it gets delivered to her house.
    Thanks!

    Do you Skype with her? Seems like you could just do a Skype call and share her screen so you can literally tell her to click this, click that. I've done exactly this with my mother across the Atlantic to solve a different problem. If she's capable of plugging the new drive into the Mac (which it sounds like you intend her to do anyway), I'd have to believe she'll be able to follow your instructions if you can tell her which options to click. Formatting a drive is relatively few clicks. And, I think this wouldn't be any harder than figuring out how to setup Time Machine...
    https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA10022/how-do-i-share-my-screen-in-skype-for-m ac-os-x

  • My MacBook Air is running out of storage. Will an external hard drive work for me?

    Good afternoon, Apple support forums! I recently made a BootCamp partition, and now my MacBook Air is running out of storage (about 13 GB left), and I realize that I cannot expand the storage on my Macbook Air without some DIY technical work. I looked into alternatives and came onto external hard drives (I'm looking at the LaCie Porsche Design P'9223 USB 3.0 Mobile Hard Drive - 2 TB, but this question is for external hard drives in general). I was wondering, just in case, if I could use it not for backup (as I already have an Apple AirPort Time Capsule) but as added on storage for my Mac. Also, would I have to keep the external hard drive plugged into my Mac 24/7 to have access to the files stored on it? Thanks in advance for any help!!

    1. Yes, you can.
    2. You only need to have it plugged in when you're accessing data on it.
    (119316)

  • Does eNAU108 liteon external hard drive work with mac?

    https://www.jbhifionline.com.au/computers-laptops/computer-accessories/liteon-ex ternal-slim-usb-dvd-rom-srp-44-factory-scoop/467764

    It should do, most external USB drives do. You could always return the item if it doesn't work.

  • External hard drive formatted for Mac, but must access files from PC ASAP!

    Hi,
    I have a 20G Firefly Smartdisk that is formatted to work with my MacBook (in OSX). The drive contains the only copy of a final paper I have due in just a couple days, and unfortunately, it got left behind at a friend's house 9 hours away. My friend has a PC (running on Windows Vista) and when he plugs the drive into his computer, the computer recognizes the disk but is unable to access any of the files on it. It pops up with a marker detecting it as unreadable and asks if he wants to reformat (which he can't do because I need the files that are currently on the disk.) He says the file type is listed as RAW and it says used space - 0G free space - 0G. Does anyone know of a way to fix this and allow him to access the files? (I'm a recent convert to Mac, and I know when I plugged the disk into my Macbook when it was still formatted for Windows, I was at least able to see the files in read only format, but that does not appear to work in reverse!) Could he possibly have corrupted the disk by trying to access it from his computer?
    Please let me know - thanks so much!!

    Macdrive (per Templeton's post) should work. All I have to add is that the free/eval version has a 5 days timeout, so he should be able to use it to get your file -- I was experimenting with it just today for a GUID/GPT formatted USB disk. (OT, but related: XP+sp2 was able to recognize, read/write the FAT32 formatted partition on a GPT disk - preMacdrive - which came as a bit of a surprise).

  • Is there an external hard drive available for Lion?

    Is there an external hard drive available for Mac  OS X v10.7?

    How big of a drive do you want? Western Digital USB MyPassport drives work great and are inexpensive. You can buy them Mac formatted or just buy one that isn't and use Disk Utilities to format it for a Mac. As far as I know any of the external drives will work with OS X Lion.
    I use a 500GB MyPassport. My MacBook Pro mid-2010 has a 320GB drive and i'm using less than 60GB so the 500GB external is plenty for my back up needs. I use it with Time Machine and SuperDuper! (for bootable images) in Lion.

  • My external hard drive works on PC but won't even show up on my mac?

    My external hard drive works on pc but won't even show up on my mac? What can I do?

    If it is in the wrong format it must probably still show up though, if your mac does detect it, go to disk utilities> choose the device from the left hand side > go to the "erase" tab and change format to "Mac OS extended (Journaled) then hit "erase".
    IMPRTANT! : this will erase ALL of the files on your external hard drive
    If this dosent work, make sure your external hard drive's USB port is compatibe with both USB 2.0 and 3.0 and also make sure your mac USB socket isnt damaged either.
    Hope this helped

  • Does an external hard drive ALWAYS need to be connected to my mbp with retina display for Time Machine?

    Does an external hard drive ALWAYS need to be connected to my mbp (OS 10.10.1) with retina display for Time Machine? Or can it be connected once a week or whenever I want? I used to have an external drive always connected to my previous mbp, but it made moving my mbp around a bit of a hassle with it connected...

    When the backup drive is not connected, some of the free space on the internal drive will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of recently deleted files. Local snapshots will protect you from unintended file deletions, but not from a drive failure. You should only go as long between backups as you're willing to lose data. If losing a week's worth of work is acceptable to you, then that backup frequency is OK. Otherwise, it isn't.

  • Does anyone use a LaCie external hard drive with their Mac using imovie '09?  I have some questions.

    Does anyone use a LaCie external hard drive with their Mac using imovie '09?  I have some questions.

    Are you actually having a problem with the new Lacie drive, or are you just asking is the Lacie drive somehow different from your old G-Drive?
    From a connection standpoint, most Lacie desktop drives have both USB and FireWire connections, just like the G-Drives do.  You would connect and use it the same as a G-Drive.
    Regarding capturing to the external HD, if you are using a camcorder that has FireWire (iLink) connection, it is not advisable to have an external FireWire HD connected to your Mac at the same time as your camcorder; there are often communication conflicts between the camcorder and the hard drive if they are connected at the same time.  The conflicts usually appear as either dropped frames or a complete freeze.   This is more common with Canon miniDV camcorders but I have also seen this behavior with Sony miniDV camcorders.  (The problem is the camcorder's FW implementation, not the hard drive.)  The workaround is to capture to your Mac's internal HD and later copy the captured video to your external HD.

  • Help! When i connect my "iomega" External hard drive to my mac it does not show in devices or on the desktop, how can i access my hard drive?

    Help! When i connect my "iomega" External hard drive to my mac it does not show in devices or on the desktop, how can i access my hard drive?

    what format your iomega HD is it NTFS , if NTFS try download   http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/ntfs3g.html

  • HT1452 I have a Toshiba Canvio 1TB external hard drive on my Mac. I've used it for 4-5 months with no problems, but now cannot add to it (I use it mostly for photo storage) to it. I can still access information previously added. Ideas?

    I have a Toshiba Canvio 1TB external hard drive on my Mac. I've used it for 4-5 months with no problems, but now cannot add to it (I use it mostly for photo storage) to it. I can still access information previously added. Ideas?

    I cannot find this 300GB "Backup" in the Finder, only in the Storage info when I check "About This Mac".
    You are probably using Time Machine to backup your MacBook Pro, right? Then the additional 300 GB could be local Time Machine snapshots.  Time Machine will write the hourly backups to the free space on your hard disk, if the backup drive is temporarily not connected. You do not see these local backups in the Finder, and MacOS will delete them, when you make a regular backup to Time Machine, or when you need the space for other data.
    See Pondini's page for more explanation:   What are Local Snapshots?   http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
    I have restarted my computer, but the information remains the same. How do I reclaim the use of the 300GB? Why is it showing up as "Backups" when it used to indicate "Photos"? Are my photos safe on the external drive?
    You have tested the library on the external drive, and so your photos are save there.  
    The local TimeMachine snapshot probably now contains a backup of the moved library.  Try, if connecting your Time Machine drive will reduce the size of your local Time Machine snapshots.

  • HT2518 i would like to copy files from an external hard drive to my Mac. I intend to do this several times. Does Mac identify this files which have already be copied over or does it re- copy them every time?

    i would like to copy files from an external hard drive to my Mac. I intend to do this several times. Will Mac copy the same files every time or can it segregate and only copy new files from the external hard drive?

    Only copies the file or files you select. The selection will remain unless you change it in case you wish to repeat the same copy to another location. Multiple and different copy operations can be run simultaneously.

  • Can Time Machine back on one external hard drive (work files) to another external hard drive (back up)?

    Can Time Machine on a Mac Book Pro 10.5.8 back up an external hard drive (working files) to another external hard drive (WD dual backup)?

    I have Mountain Lion here ready to upgrade, but I'm scared of what will happen - there's always something when you upgrade, but I guess that's for a different post!
    Yes, it's a different post, but let's make a comment any way.
    Your power pc apps will not work when you upgrade to Mountain Lion. You will have to replace all the apps you use.

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