External hard drive help!!!

I've recently got a new PC and all of my itunes music is stored on and external hard drive (as it was when using itunes on my last PC).
I've now copied all these files from my hard drive into my itunes library on my pc (with the file locations still being on my hard drive which is where I want them), but now I can't seem to access or change any of the file information. I can play all of the songs but it won't let me amend anything in the 'Get Info' tab of the song information.
Can anyone help?

Are you using Vista? It is fussy about permissions. Check that your account has full control of you music folder.
Vista file folder permissions help
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/2464a180-e5dc-45d1-a2b8-3c8a 2b571e9d1033.mspx
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/25/how-to-take-ownership-and-grant-permiss ions-in-windows-vista/

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External Hard drive help: use with mac and pc? how to backup everything etc

Hello! I need some help regarding a new external hard drive I got from OWC. It is a 500 gb firewire 400 + usb 2.0 7200 rpm hard drive. I am running it from firewire. The software suggests the first thing you do is make a clone of your macbooks internal hard drive, that way if it fails later you can use the external to back everything up. If I do this ...
1. do I have to make the drive "Bootable" ? I have software called Data Backup 3 by Pro soft I think. It came with my external.
2. Can I still back up other stuff like my audio recordings and record onto that drive to a seperate folder?
3. If I make a bootable copy will it try and boot from the drive everytime I turn it on or something?
My other question is... how can I use this drive with a pc? I have a pc as well and I heard that the only way it will work is to format it in ms-dos mode (fat32?)
If I write it to fat32 will it slow down my drive or make it worse? I heard that you should format external drives specifically for mac if you have a mac; so it will only work with macs...
(sorry this is going on and on; it's like a chain reaction of questions)
so If its formatted to mac drive format then can I do this with my current situation:
1. I have wireless internet, the router is on a pc downstairs
2. Can I send files over a network somehow from the pc to my mac
3. then store it on my external?
If so can someone point me in that direction with a link?
Thank you for reading, sorry for making this so long.

1. No, you don't have to make a bootable clone.
2. If you use the drive for a bootable backup, then you cannot use the drive for other types of storage unless you partition the drive and make more than one volume.
3. No, it will not try to boot the computer. You must designate the startup volume using Startup Disk preferences.
If you wish to use the drive on both a Mac and a PC, then either you make two partitions - one for Mac and the other for the PC or you must format the entire drive using FAT32 so the drive can be used for read//write by both operating systems. If you do this then you cannot use the drive for a bootable backup nor can you use it with Time Machine.
FAT32 is slower for read/write on the Mac than using Mac formatting.
Optimally, I would suggest you partition the drive into two volumes. One volume formatted for the Mac and the other formatted FAT32.
You can send files from a PC to a Mac and vice-versa using File Sharing. Select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "file sharing" or "sharing" to find help articles. Also see,
Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Setting up a Mac computer to share files with Windows users
Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Setting up a Windows computer to share files with Mac users
Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Sharing with Windows computers

Mac OSX is telling me to reformat my external hard drive - HELP!

I have Fantom Drives external hard drive which I use to backup my Mac (via Time Machine) as well as for general storage. Recently, when I turned on my external hard drive I was given the following message:
"The disk "Time Machine Backups" was not repairable by this computer. It is being made available to you with limited functionality. You must back up your data and reformat the disk as soon as possible."
Basically, I can use anything on the external hard drive as well as copy files FROM the drive, but I cannot add anything new to it. I went to Disk Utility to try and repair the disk, but the button is not available so I clicked Verify Disk. The results in red were the following:
"Incorrect number of thread records
Invalid sibling link
Volume Check failed
Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed"
I wondered if erasing the external hard drive would possibly fix the situation. Is it even worth it to try? I was able to copy the most important files to my iPod, but I don't have nearly enough room to copy everything I need (otherwise I would just do it).
My other option is to by a new hard drive and move everything over, but I am hoping I don't have to do that.
Does anyone have any other ideas?

if the drive can not be repaired you should try reformatting.
you can try the following link first that sometimes helps with invalid sibling link errors
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20070204093925888
also, try unmounting (not ejecting) the drive and see if you can use "repair disk" then.
Message was edited by: V.K.

ITunes can't find music on external hard drive Help!

We moved my friend's iTunes music to an external hard drive. Everything was working fine until this week. Somehow the location of the music got changed back to her C drive. I redid the location but now every song has the exclamation mark. I would trash the music folder on the external drive and have her import the songs again from her DVD back ups but she has over 4,000 songs. Any other way to do this? I'm a Mac person so please explain the PC steps clearly. She is running Windows Vista.
Thanks for any help you can offer.

Somehow the location of the music got changed back to her C drive.
Because iTunes was started with the external drive not plugged in or not online and ready.
I redid the location but now every song has the exclamation mark
Select all the songs in iTunes, right click - Get info.

Desperate need of External Hard drive help.

Bottom line, I need one that will work. I have been through a mess of external HD problems & I have looked at hundreds of drives on many sites & I just don't know which one I can trust. I have tried a few already, but they just didn't like working on a Mac (even though they are Mac recommended). If anyone can offer any kind of help, it would be greatly, greatly, greatly appreciated. Of course, we won't know how appreciative I am until it arrives & it actually works.
Here is what I am looking for. About 120GB capacity. Nothing over $110, but I am a little flexible. It will just be sitting on my desk, so it doesn't need to be ultra portable. I do not want to buy a regular hard drive & stick it in a case, it's what I have now & it has caused me so many problems. I have FireWave surround sound, so it would be nice if it was firewire (plugs into the back of the FireWave, which is tucked away, while the drive sits on the desk). Would prefer it not to be bus-powered, less cables coming out of my laptop, the better.
I have been through a lot with these products & it just seems like there isn't a great external hard drive that was meant for the MacBook Pro. Please, help me if you can. I need one very soon, the external I have now (the one in a case) is all screwed up & I can only access files when doing a data recovery, but I need another external to transfer the files onto, (I have very little space left on my internal). Thank you very much.

If your looking for something that looks great, works great, and is highly recommended, then I would suggest you look at a drive by G-Technologies. I have been using their drives for years and I have yet to have any issues at all. They do use a variety of drives in the cases, but their boards are what are great. They always receive at least 4 mice, if not 5 from MacWorld as well.
You might be a little hard pressed to get a drive right in your price range, but a smaller drive, such as the one your looking for, are a little harder to find unless they are 2.5" drives. Everything these days is getting bigger.
http://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-DRIVE.cfm
Oh, I should also note that their drives come with a 2 year warranty as well.

Movie files to External Hard Drive - HELP

While I still have roughly 35 GB left on my hard drive, I do plan to purchase an external hard drive to additional space. With that said, my lack of knowledge around the inner workings of iMovie and the physical movie data make me pause in terms of moving items over to the external hard drive. I don't want to (a) lose anything or (b) cause issues with any of my existing projects and associated web gallery postings.
Any suggestions on how and what to transition onto an external hard drive? In terms of my historic use, I typically load movie clips from my Sony HD camera, which in turn places these files into the event library. I have then taken snippets and placed them into various projects. I primarily use these projects to share via web gallery, with little creation of any other movie-type files.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Any similar advice for photos (which I typically edit in iPhoto) would be appreciated as well.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Basically, just make sure the external drive is formatted as a Mac OS Extended drive and make sure you perform all transfers to the external drive from within iMovie '08. (I.e., doing so externally can orphan resource pointers active in projects currently being edited.) Current Events on your internal drive can be dropped to the external drive once it is visible within iMovie '08 and the application will handle the creation any needed folders, transfer the data files, as well as, update the the resource pointers for any projects in the process of being edited.
Any similar advice for photos (which I typically edit in iPhoto) would be appreciated as well.
See iPhoto Help ("Moving your iPhoto Library folder to a new location") for specific instructions and warnings.

Mac external hard drive help

Hey.........
I'm looking to purchase a 250 or more external hard drive for my mac. I really dont have too much money to spend on it. I've browsed http://eshop.macsales.com/... I found the following three can anyone recommend one more than the other?
OWC Mercury Elite Pro FireWire+USB 2.0/1.1 Oxford911+ Enclosure Kit - supports drives to 750GB!
OWC Neptune 3.5" Oxford 911+ FireWire 400 (1394A) Enclosure Kit
SIIG FireWire 800 2.5" HDD Kit - FireWire 800 hard drive enclosure for 2.5" IDE hard disk drives
Please help..I'm going to be editing videos using Final Cut Pro and I will be saving my videos on the hard drive I purchase.....Thank You

Edit to a dedicated internal SATA drive, not to a FW drive.
David, He can't use a dedicated internal SATA on a MBP, try as he might there just isn't room in that notebook for another drive.
OP, try the mecury elite or even better, an external eSata solution, that will free up your FW bus for your camera.
K

Transferring iTunes Library to an external hard drive - help needed

I recently moved my iTunes library (aka all of my 32 GB of music) onto an external hard drive so as to save space on my laptop, but I messed up somehow and now I can't add songs to my iPhone. The chain of events went something like this:
1. I copied my iTunes library onto my external hard drive.
2. I changed my iTunes library location (in the itunes settings) to it's new spot on the external.
3. I deleted the songs off my laptop.
This worked fine at first, but then I think I opened iTunes with my external NOT connected and I got a blank library. I plugged in my external but my itunes was still blank. Then I decided I'll just add everything back to my itunes library. I did that, but I lost all my playlists and whatnot, but I didn't really care - all my music was there.
Now I just tried to add new music to my iPhone and it won't let me. When I try to turn manual music management it gives me an error saying "this iPhone is synced with another itunes library".
Is there some way I can retrieve my original itunes library from before I did all this stuff? Help much appreciated.

Quick answer if you use iTunes' default preferences settings: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Open iTunes and immediately hold down the option (alt) key (shift on Windows) so you get a prompt to choose a library, then select the copied iTunes folder.
If this is to a new computer and you put the copied iTunes folder in the default location of Macintosh HD > Users > *User Name* > Music then you don't even need to start with the option key held down, iTunes will automatically look for it there. (Make sure there isn't anything already in the iTunes folder there that you want to keep since you will be replacing it with the one you are moving.)

[external hard drive] Help!! made a stupid mistake...

hi. just today, I tried to back up my computer to a external hard drive but I forgot to unclick the erase everything button. so when I saw the "erasing window" popping up, I immediately stopped it, but now the drive the computer says that it cannot be read.
I tried "repair disk" in disk utility but it says *the underlying task reported failure on exit.*
right now I don't know if it has already erased everything because I could not access it. Are my files still there?
is there still hope? please help! thanks!
Message was edited by: Andrew Zo

A partially erased drive is basically useless. You need to reformat the drive and then it should work just fine. However, your files cannot be recovered in the process. To recover your files if indeed they are recoverable will require using data recovery software such as File Salvage or Data Rescue.

External Hard Drive Help (Western Digital vs. My Mac)

Im not quite sure where to post this information so i chose here. Im sorry if its the wrong place.
Anyway, I have a first generation Mac Book Pro, and as you may know it has a tendency to have to go to the shop often to get the logic board and fans fixed. Because of this i don't want to risk loosing my important data so i purchased a western digital 320 gb external hard drive.
The problem is, when i went to use DiskUtility, it started copying but then said such a device didn't exist and that there was an error. I am still unfamilar with Disk Utility, so could anyone help me by giving me directon on how to not only back up my hard drive but also how to place extra files from my computer on there. thanks!
Cheers!

OK… firstly try the USB port on the other side and see if it makes any difference. Otherwise, do you have any better luck using the drive when it's connected through an AC powered USB hub.
To check if your MBP is seeing your drive at all it should appear in the USB section in the System Profiler utility.

Restoring using an external hard drive help

Ok so.. ive recnelty received my mac back from apple, after javing the hd replaced. To prevent the loss of all of my stuff i bought an external hd and used this as my time machine backup, so now its all on my external hard drive. The problem ive got is that ive got no idea how to restore my mac using the extermal hard drive so its like it was before it was sent off. ive been told one option is to launch my mac in recovery mode and choose to restore using. my external hard drive there. however i cant access recovery mode because i have a wireless keyboard, and the only wired keyboard i have is a windows one. also, to make matters worse, i cant use any discs because my optical drive is broken, so until i receive my extermal one, discs are also out. of the option.
any other ways to do it?
thanks!

RomeoVersace wrote:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4889?viewlocale=en_US
Try this, your going to be using a program called Migration Assistant to restore data from a different computer's Time Machine. Your computer is a different computer now because of the new Hard Drive, so instead of entirely recovering the Operating System, this will save time and data by allowing you to choose individually what you want to restore and what you don't want to.
Do not use Migration Assistant, instead you will use Setup Assistant (which starts automatically when you first start your Mac) if you already started you Mac and added a user then you will have to use MA, but you will need to remove a user afterwards.

New ipod touch gen. 4 .. need to transfer itune library to new computer using external hard drive. help

New ipod gen.4... itunes on old computer with windows xp... comp. wont recognize ipod touch... when plugged into usb port... put music on external hard drive ..... now must transfer to laptop...with windows vista home premium... help

Type "move itunes library" into the Google search bar.
Type "ipod touch not recognized by itunes" into the search bar at the top of this page by "Support"

Can't copy files to an external hard-drive - help??

Hi all,
My problem originally stems from the never-ending issue of using external hard-drives with a Mac (this is a huge downside to owning a Mac by the way, so if TPTB are reading this they need to fix it!). My Toshiba hard-drive was being used as my Time Machine, until a few months ago when it stopped being recognised by my Mac. Because it doesn't show up in Finder or Disc Utility when I plug it in (even though the lights are on and I can hear the power running in it), I haven't been able to re-format it to make it useable again (assuming that would work). So I basically have a £80+ tea cup holder.....
Because of this, I decided this week to use my WD hard-drive to manually back up some files on my computer, since Time Machine hasn't been able to run since March. However, when I copy the files I want to move over, "Paste" is not showing up as an option on my WD drive (it's greyed out). I can't drag and drop the files as I get the circle with a line through it when I try, and I don't want to anyway as I don't want the files removed from my computer.
Can someone advise me on what to do? The WD drive is showing up, and it has space to accept these files, so if I can get the paste option to work we'd be ready to rock and roll! One of the folders I want to copy is my Music folder, and given it's size I know this will take hours to do, but it should be showing the paste option, shouldn't it? I'm running a Macbook Pro that's less than a year old, and all the software bits are up to date.
(Of course, if Apple would fix the stupid hard-drive issue then I wouldn't be having any of the problems..... GRRRRRR!)
Thanks in advance,
Millie

Click on it, choose Get Info from the File menu, and check the format.
If it's formatted as NTFS, reformat it as MS-DOS, exFAT, or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as desired, or install software such as Paragon NTFS on the computer.
If it's formatted as FAT32 or exFAT, use the Disk Utility's Repair Disk command on it; this may also happen for a flash drive which is about to fail.
If it's formatted as Mac OS Extended, click Authenticate and provide your administrator password, or change the permissions on that specific folder in its Get Info window.
(109318)

Trouble with external hard drive. help.

I was formatting my hard drive to allow larger GB files with a lot of trouble so I got my other hard drive which I have previously formatted to find the program that worked. It was formatted with NTFS so I downloaded NTFS 3G and restarted my computer (iMac intel) after trying to format my portable hard drive to ntfs the software didnt work so I uninstalled it. Now my external hard drive will not read on my iMac but it will on my TV and Windows computer. When I installed the software a little error message popped up but i made no changes to the external hard drive and now it wont read on my mac.
The hard drive is a Western Digital My Book 1TB

Did you read this section of the ntfs 3g website? I don't use the program but it may have left pieces of itself on your mac causing your current problems.
You can type the following in a terminal window to see what "non-apple" drivers are still loaded on your system.
kextstat | grep -v com.apple
Post the results if you need to
2.2 Uninstalling Tuxera NTFS for Mac
Tuxera NTFS for Mac can be easily uninstalled using the Uninstall Tuxera NTFS... button in the Tuxera NTFS preference pane, which will be available in System Preferencesonce you have installed the package. See section 4 for a description of the other features in the preference pane.
If this should fail for some reason, an uninstall script exists at the following location:
/System/Library/Filesystems/fusefs_txantfs.fs/Support/uninstall-package.sh

[HELP] Format My External Hard Drive [HELP]

Hi !
I have a External Hard Drive. I formated it on my PC.And I can only read it on my MAC,can't write.
So I want to format it on my MAC.
Can U tell me HOW ?
and How can I after format it, then use it on both of PC and MAC.(Read&Write).
Thanks !

choose "Disk Utility" , and then.................... ?
Select the drive in the list to the left, click on the Erase tab, pick a format, and click the Erase button. You should use MS-DOS if you need to access the drive on a PC and Mac OS Extended with or without journaling otherwise. Turning on journaling can increase the chance of recovering data lost from the drive in the future. Journaling can be turned on and off without erasing the disk again.
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External hard drive help!!!

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