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

Similar Messages

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, 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).

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.

Hi.have a g5 mac,dual core 2.3 unit.i bought it with no hard drive.have got hard drive,formatted for mac.i am trying to load osx.i get a grey screen with a small box in the centre with 2 character faces,and then grey apple with loading icon spinning.help?

hi.have a g5 mac,dual core 2.3 unit.i bought it with no hard drive.have got hard drive,formatted for mac.i am trying to load osx.i get a grey screen with a small box in the centre with 2 character faces,and then grey apple with loading icon spinning.nothing is loading tho.

I see 10.6.3 in your profile---is tthat what you are trying to load? If so, it won't work. No PowerPC Mac like your G5 can run a Mac OS version higher than 10.5.8

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.

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.

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.

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 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

Which hard drive format for Mac/PC compatibility ?

Hi,
My external hard drive isn't working on my PC, in which format do I have to format the drive in order to use it on my Mac and PC ? And how do I do it ?
Sincerely

Hi,
have a look ahere for explanation of exFAT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT
It's a proprietary file system introduced by Microsoft and intended to be used with flash drives.
Mac OS X can simply not handle it.
My proposal would be to connect the harddisk to your PC and reformat it.
Make sure to use MBR (Master Boot Record) as partition table and FAT32 as file system.
Since Windows only formats drives/partitions smaller than 32GB with FA32, you might have to use a third-party app like this one http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm
*Be aware that reformating the external harddisk will delete everything that is on it right now !*
Regards
Stefan

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 Formatting For Cross Platform File Sharing

I have been doing some research on formatting options that can read/write both OSX and Win7. Someone recommended that I use UDF. I'm curious hearing from the apple community whether there are any downsides to choosing this formatting method. Are there any other better ones to use? Thanks

Best I can tell, UDF is for DVDs and CDs, not HDDs.
If you want a compatible format for Mac and Windows on a HDD, FAT 32 or ExFAT will fit the bill. Fat32 does have a 4 GB file size limitation. It is best to format these on a PC.
You can use NTFS, but then you need third party software such as Paragon or Tuxere in order to write to the HDD.
Ciao.

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

Swappable external hard drive format pc/mac for atv2

i would like to point itunes on a mac and pc to a single swappable external hd for use with atv2. the storage will be mainly used for atv2 encoded sd home video, stored sd movies, and music. all individual files will be less than 2gb.
connection will be esata.
anyone have a drive like this? what would be best format? fat32? how is the performance?
thinking 500gb to 750gb should be sufficient. also would a 7200rpm be a benefit over 5400rpm?

magnumip wrote:
Alley_Cat wrote:
I wouldn't get hung up on eSATA, unless you want it for any particular reason, USB 2.0 will more than suffice for ATV2 streaming and may well be cheaper.
Good to know, I didn't know this. So a 5400rpm hdd would not make any performance difference either?
Should be fine - I've streamed from USB 2 and FW drives directly connected, even some small portable USB drives powered by the bus which probably have 4200 rpm drives.
iTunes store content, even HD, will not exceed 5Mbps on average because this was the max spec for AppleTV1 h264 - while AppleTV 2 is more powerful and may well support 20-30 Mbps if things were encoded as such you're still looking at only a couple of MB/sec of data transfer
Coming to think of it, a portable USB 2 drive might even be worth considering if you want to quickly swap with minimum fuss, and they come up to 1TB in size these days.
Organise your material in a hierarchical folder arrangement and alter iTunes Preferences not to copy added content to the library - keep the library on the Mac/PC then import from the external drive which will add references to the external library and not copy the files.
What is the easiest way to import batch movies.
Not sure what you mean - do you mean how to import multiple files - I generally drag and drop into iTunes - I know it works with mac, don't see why it wouldn't on PC.
Also I would like to transfer a music library on os hdd and consolidate all on external hd. Any easy ways to accomplish this or a good tutorial available.
Probably simplest just to manually copy the files from the iTunes media folders, but you should be able to do so by changing the iTunes Pref for the media folder and then choosing the Consolidate option which will move the files over. Personally I tend to manually do these things, but I would advise you to make a backup just in case, whatever you do.
AC
Thanks in advance AC

External Hard Drive Formatted For Mac

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for