External Hard drive formats

Hi All,
I'd like to know what hard drive format is compatible for reading and writing files for both my MacBook Pro, Mac OS X 10.6 and a PC?
Thanks

I'd format the drive on a PC as NTFS and use Paragon's NTFS for Mac to read and write files to the drive. It's only $20 and it works well. You could always format as exFAT as well - that's free.
Clinton

Similar Messages

With Time Machine I have an external hard drive formatted with Mac

With Time Machine I have an external hard drive formatted with Mac. The record contained files windows. How to recover?
Serious mistake: to connect a Mac to an external drive with data (important!) Windows, the warning appears: "You want to use the disk for Time Machine?" Wrong button, so in 2-3 seconds, the disk is formatted. Now Mac "sees" the disc but empty, Windows does not see it under "My Computer" but in "Disk Management" is reported as "hard core", "healthy", "GPT protective partition" Is there a way to retrieve the files? Sorry for my English Thanks

I'm having a difficult time following, I understand English isn't your native language. You may have good luck with Google Translate.
Also please read Pondini's Time Machine FAQs & Time Machine Troubleshooting.

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

How can I transfer files off an external hard drive formatted for windows?

I just bought my first mac (yay!) and am trying to transfer my files off of my old pc. The problem is that I stored all my personal files on an external hard drive, which is of course formatted for windows. My mac will open it, but it is "read only." I tried plugging it back into my pc and using the Migration Assistant to transfer my files over, but it was not detected (rest of the pc was).
However, the second time I tried plugging it in to my pc, it told me it would need to be formatted first. Obviously my mac has changed something on it, and now all my personal files are on a hard drive that is unusable by either my old pc or my new mac!
Any suggestions would be appreciated! Heads up though, I am not especially computer literate, and my pc needs to stay intact as the husband needs it and some of the programs on it for school. Also, I have a second external hard drive that is brand new with nothing on it, if that will come in handy.
Thanks!

Format the extra HDD to EXFAT as previously indicated. There are two ways that can use to transferr the data.
1. Connect both drives to the PC and the copy the files to the newly formatted (EXFAT) drive from the HDD with the data . Then connect the EXFAT drive to the MBP and transfer the data to same.
2. Connect both drives to the MBP and open DISK UTILITY>RESTORE. Drag the drive with the data on it to the 'Source' field. Drag the EXFAT drive to the 'Destination' field. Click on the 'Restore' butt is on. After the transfer has been completed, close DISK UTILITY and place the data on the MBP where you want it.
Ciao.

I have a an external hard drive formatted for Windows, and I want to move those files to a new hard drive formatted for both Windows and OS. Is this possible?

I just purchased a MB Air 13", as well as a Seagate Slim Backup Plus. I have an older external hard drive that I was using with a Dell laptop. I would like to get the files off of the older external hard drive, and onto the new Seagate drive. Is this possible? I'd also like to be able to add files going forward to the Seagate from either a PC or a Mac and be able to view/use them on the MB Air 13".
Thanks in advance.

You will have to format the Seagate external HDD to a format common to both Mac and PC such as ExFAT. That should allow you to transfer files from the old HDD and still allow you to use with your MBA.
Ciao.

External hard drive format error!

Hey guys, running Mac OS 10.5.8. Just purchased a 2TB Hitachi XL2000 external hard drive. I want to use this External HD on both my Mac and PC, and need to format it to HFS+ (for music software reasons) and use it on my PC via MacDrive. I Followed the instructions given when i first plugged in the drive on how to format it to HFS+
So I went to disk utility, on the left selected "1.8 TB HitachiHDS722020ALA330", there's an indented selection right below that, which is the volume i think.... but I selected what I wrote above which I believe is what you're supposed to do. Under the erase tab, I selected Mac OS Extended (Journaled) from the "Volume Format" options. I named the drive and then I hit erase. It begins "partitioning" and afterabout 3-4 seconds it stops and says
Disk Erase Failed
Disk Erase failed with the error:
File system formatter failed.
After that the Hard Drive no longer shows up in Finder under Devices.When I shut down and re-connected it I keep getting an error alert popup that says:
Disk Insertion
The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer
"Initialize..." "Ignore" "Eject"
The drive still shows up under disk utility, but when I try to format it again I get the same error.

Try this:
Drive Preparation
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. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition 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 Options 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.

Best external hard drive format for use with mac and windows?

This is more of an apple operating system combined with windows operating system question, but being that my OS will upgrade an fluctuate there is not option to choose in the operating system section.
Anyways to the question(s)
This whole prbolem came about when my computer started having issues, I want to back it up and whether I can continue to use my laptop or not I will still be owning an apple in the future. I went to buy a hard for back up and got told that it is not as easy as one would think to transfer files from mac OS to windows OS and vice versa. I have a mac, my boyfriend has a windows computer; we share files. Mostly I just copy his files, but once in a while I give him files too. I have read up and talked to people and only found one solution so far to format the external drive to fat 32 or exfat. I think only mac has the exfat option, but works well between both OSs, correct me if I am wrong.
What is the difference between fat 32 and exfat?
A user posted some good info about formatting. More specifically .Drives, partitions, formatting w/Mac's + PC's
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3044
If I do not want to use fat32 or exfat is there a format type that works great for mac saving that I can still at least save files to that were originally on a windows computer? Such as I copy his files from his external drive to my computer and then save them to my external drive.
Is there a better format for file sharing between mac and windows that does not set a 4GB limit?
And a silly question, Can you dual format a hard drive?
Note: This format is for an external hard drive.

I still do not know which format would be the best. That is so that I can use it easily between mac OSX and windows. Is FAT32 the only true option? How limited is it? I heard it is limited to 4GB file size for windows and 32 GB for Mac. Are there other sources I have not found with more concrete information on the limitations of this format?
I really do still need this information and I need to back up my drive before I can take the computer in for service.

External hard drive formatting

I have a WD external hard drive that I've been using with my PC. I've just purchased a macbook.
I have 2 questions:
1) do I need to reformat? I can actually open all the files from the hard drive. The hard drive is operating on a FAT32 system. I do not wish to use the external hard drive as a backup system. I want to keep all my files always on the hard drive and not on the laptop.
2)If I need to reformat, how do I do it? The apple sales clerk made it sound like it was very easy, but I can't find anywhere to do it. I've opened the disk utility, which offers me the options of verifying the disk, but not reformatting it.

1. No need to format, that format will work on your pc and your Mac.
2. Back in Disk Utility, click on the drive in the left panel and there are tabs at the top part of the window the first being First Aid (where you saw Verify Disk). You can go to the tab labeled Erase to format and Partition to partition and name.
Hope this helps -GDF

Time Machine- External Hard Drive Format

Hey, so today i got my first external hard drive. So to make sure it worked i plugged into my mac, and time machine popped up saying if i wanted to back up my machine onto it. I thought alright sounds good, and did a back up and made the External HD the time machine disk.
But then i plugged this HD into a windows machine, and it doesn't even acknowledge its there. So i looked at the format and realize its Mac OS Extended.
So how do i change it so that both Mac and windows recognize it, and so I can use Time Machine to back up onto it?
Thanks for the help

So how do i change it so that both Mac and windows recognize it, and so I can use Time Machine to back up onto it?
You need to partition the drive into Mac OS Extended and FAT32 or NTFS partitions, or install a tool such as MacDrive or HFSExplorer into Windows. Time Machine will only back up to a Mac OS Extended disk.
(45751)

Reading MP3 music files from an external hard drive formatted for PC

I have 60 Gigabytes of MP3 files (my whole CD collection, mostly saved in high quality format) on a 120 GB external hard drive that was attached to my IBM Thinkpad. They are arranged in folders and subfolders, e.g. folder "Great pianists of the XXth Century" subfolder "Sviatoslav Richter" subfolder "Sviatoslav Richter CD1" files "(01) Bach English Suites 1", "(02) Bach English Suites 2".
1) My Mac (OS X.4 - Tiger - or is that X.3?) recognizes the drive as a drive (its icon appears on the desktop), but not its contents. I was told by somebody that I'd need a differently formatted PC Hard Drive for the Mac to recognize the content, and then by somebody else that the titles would all then be truncated to 8 characters. Is there a way around this? Preferably I'd like to be able to read a HD that is formatted for PCs in the way that is now standard, directly from my Mac.
2) Is there a way for iTunes - or some other music programme for the Mac - to play the MP3s as they are currently arranged, without having to reorder or rename them, or copying my whole CD collection onto a HD from scratch? (Getting 60 Gigs of MP3s from CDs is a task I'm not keen to repeat). If necessary, I could find a way to copy the current folders and files onto an external HD formatted for the Mac, but then that would hopefully be it.
At present I'm having to use the Thinkpad with Windows Media Player to play back all this music over my Hi-Fi, but would like to free up the Thinkpad for other uses by my family, and would like to run all my music from the Mac I use for everything else.

Thanks, Jason & Mike. This is how I resolved the problem. Turned out the disk with the data was in NTFS format. Neither my eMac nor my wife's Carbon iMac (prehistoric, in other words) was able to read it, on repeated attempts. In process I discovered (to my surprise) that the external hard drive attached to my eMac (a 320 Gig My Book) was formatted in FAT 32 format, and that the PC laptop (Thinkpad) read from it, and wrote to it, without any problem. (Is FAT 32 less than optimal for use with a pre-Intel Mac?). So I just copied the needed files from the NTFS disk to the FAT 32 disk, via the Thinkpad. When I reconnected the FAT 32 drive to the eMac, it turned out that it was easy [with some fiddling] to put the titles of the new music into the iTunes Library, without having to copy the music itself into iTunes. Making playlists does still seem to have to go manually. Sometimes the "New Playlist from Selection" option automatically gives a name (the original name) to the album from which the music came, sometimes it doesn't. Rationale not clear to me. Other problem: often the sequence is jumbled (this is after I added the whole collection of folders containing music to my iTunes Library in one fell swoop). Usually it was possible to correct this by copying track names for albums one album at a time from the external HD (in Columns view, selecting all the tracks in each folder simultaneously) directly into the playlist; the playlist name then always had to be copied or typed in separately. I don't know if I'm missing an easier route. Also, I see that I have version 4.7.1 of iTunes - I'll download a newer version! Don't know whether newer version will affect what I want to do in a positive sense.

External hard drive format that can be usable for both MBP and TVs?

I recently bought a new MBP and found out I can not copy and paste files to my external hard drive as it appears to be 'Read- Only' because of the format. I then changed the hard drive's format to FAT32, which I was able to write files on it from MBP. However, my TV won't read the hard drive anymore which I really need it to because the whole purpose of the hard drive is for me to download movies from the laptop and watch it on the TV through the external hard drive. I've always done it with my PC tons of times but just really new with the MAC OS systems.
Is there any other format I could try that work for both or any other ways?
I'm using the SeaGate Goflex desk adapter USB 1.5TB and LG TV (not too sure what model).

Check the TV's documentation. If you find that it requires NTFS, install software such as Paragon NTFS on the Mac.
(119325)

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

External hard drive formatted for a PC

In order to format my external hard drive to my imac, do I need to first copy all the files to the imac, and erase and reformat the hard drive. I just wanna make sure I'm doing this correctly, it scares me anytime I erase a hard drive. This is 4 years of wedding photo's that I can not afford to loose, but currently I can't put any further information on the hard drive, only remove it. Thank you in advance for any of your help.
Mark

NTFS can be read by Mac OS X if you install Macfuse or NTFS-Mac. Such hard drives though should not be used for booting, or backing up applications, or any non-platform agnostic files. You are limited to platform agnostic files as well with FAT32 too. MacDrive lets you format your hard drive for Macs while still use them on PCs.
Message was edited by: a brody

External hard drive format for use in both OS9 and OSX

I have never use OS9. A friend of mine wants to transfer their files from an OS9 computer to an OSX computer. Is there a hard drive format that can be used on both OS9 and OSX. It would be great to be able to transfer the files over on my Firewire hard drive.
Many thanks,
Beaglebrain.

Beaglebrain,
Should have added that you should check the size of your HD. OS9 won't recognise anything beyond about 190GB.
Michael

How to recover windows data on an external hard drive formatted in time capsule

Hi there,
In desperate of some help.
I took a windows external hard which had data on it from a windows pc.
Plugged it into my Mac pro 13 and opened Time Machine. Time Machine then mentioned something along the lines of "erase - partion - cannot backup unless erase". It was not in that context but those words and phrases were mentioned. So without thinking i clicked erase.
What happened next was a newly formatted external hard for time machine back up appeared. It actually changed names from "untitled" to "Time Machine Back ups"
Apparently what i now need to do is:
Step 1) Format hard drive back to NTFS
Step 2) Recover the data that was on the hard drive.
What i tried to do is i downloaded software called StellarPhoenixMacDataRecovery and did an advance scan which took about 5 hours. The only info it recovered was what seemed to be system files from the new format. Approx 20mb in size. The data i lost was approx 100gb in size.
Please tell me there is a way to achieve step one and two without having a PHD in computer science and programming or parting ways with my hard earned cash?
Much appreciated

Hi Loner,
Thanks for the reply.
I have located the program and will give it a try.
Cheers.

External Hard drive formats

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