External hard drive - mac specific or generic?

While I was browsing external hard drives I noticed that there was one that said it was specifically for Mac - I think it was Western Digital. So I was wondering is there a reason to pay extra for a Mac specific external hard drive, or just to use a standard one?
My current WD one is OK (other than the error -36 which means I can't actually copy anything to it without a lot of mucking around) and I'm not really interested in any 'special features' that might come with them, I just use it for archiving & backup.

The upgrade to OSX 10.6.3 (available today) may fix your -36 error, sleepydwarf. It is amongst the items listed as addressed by it - see http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4014
There are two reasons why some drives tend to be classified as "Mac drives".
Firstly, for best performance on a Mac the drive should be formatted using either the GUID or Apple Partition Scheme, and the HFS (extended) file system. This lets you deal with files over 4Gb in size, provides faster and more reliable operation than FAT32 , etc etc. It also allows you to easily install OSX on the drive from your OS DVD if you wish to, so that you can boot from it.
I presume the WD drives are provided in this format. (Though you can always reformat a drive that isn't when you get it simply by using Disc Utility, of course)
Secondly, WD , for example, often install additional software on their drives for automated back up purposes etc. Generally this stuff is Windows only and can cause problems when the drive is used on a Mac. Sometimes it makes them next to useless as boot drives etc.
I suspect that WD , in this case , are reacting to the huge amount of criticism that has come their way when people try to use their external offerings on Macs (to the point where many of us strongly recommend against people purchasing them these days).
Another thing that matters when choosing a drive for Macs, though, is the interface itself. Sure, Macs can use a USB drive, but for an external drive FW400 is substantially faster, and FW800 simply blows USB away when it comes to transfer speeds. If you are shopping for a drive it is well worth the extra in most situations to get one that uses FW800.
The favourite external drives of most of the long term users here are the "OWC Mercury" range - see http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/ They are sold under other brand names in different parts of the world (In Australia they usually go by under the "Pleiades" brand name - not sure which hunk of the globe you are in) . I have five of them, and couldn't recommend them highly enough. You can either buy them with the drive installed, or add a drive of your own choosing. Quiet, cool, extremely reliable, and easy to update with a new drive when larger ones come along at lower prices (as they inevitably do).
Make sure you take a look at them if you are drive shopping. They beat the pants off the offerings from other , better known, makers.
Cheers
Rod

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IS it possible to share external hard drive Mac To Mac, over a PC network,

I would like to explain this situation in it's own post so it's clear. I am at my brother's house (PC user) and both my wife and I are Mac users who are on the network. I have an external hard drive which is plugged directly into my wife's Macbook. I am trying to access it from my Macbook pro. This is my first time sharing and this is what I have done:
I went into "sharing" on her Macbook and turned file sharing on.
I added the mounted drive as a 'shared folder' and made everyone able to read and write.
Under 'options' I checked all of the boxes, including AFT, SMB and FTP (was I suppose to do this?)
Now, when I am on my Macbook Pro I look at the network and I see the PC network server, and her Macbook there (along with another weird network folder called "Mac001ff3cdf6ff", which I'll get to in a minute)
When I click on her computer and connect, I see the folders there which I've previously been able to share.
However, there is no external drive to be seen, even though it is mounted on her desktop of her Macbook downstairs.
When I go back and connect to this strange network folder called "Mac001ff3cdf6ff", however, I see again all the folders that I see when I click on my wife's Macbook folder AND the external hard drive..which is great...BUT, why can't I see this when I click on her Macbook folder? I did notice too that the icon is a PC icon for "Mac001ff3cdf6ff" when I click on 'more info, says "PC server".
Does this mean that the only way for me to access the external hard drive is through a PC server and this is the 'long way around' to get into the external drive? And why can't I connect directly from my wife's Macbook icon in the network folder?
Help please! Thank you. I hope this is more clear.

Is there anyone out there who has had success with sharing an external hard drive over a network from Mac to Mac? I just can't figure this out! It's so weird. When I look in the network places I see the icon for my wife's computer, and the PC ones of my brother in law's drives connected to the network. And ONE of those PC icons (you know, the one with the blue screen of death on them?) is labeled with "mac934ffsg" or something similar. I've been experimenting and when I add the hard drive in "shared", or if I add another folder in 'shared' on her computer it is THIS icon in the network that is updated.
Does anybody come close to my situation? Is there anyone sharing a couple different Macs over a network set up with PC's?
This is driving me batty...

Not Recognizing External Hard Drive Mac Book Pro

Good Day!
I have a 2010 Mac Book Pro that I just downloaded the neww OS X Lion for the upgrades ext... I haven't had any other problems exept that before I downloaded the Lion my Mac would recognize my external hard drive (WD passport). And now it doesn't, I even go to the finder and it doesn't even show up under "computer" to make sure there isn't anything wrong with my external hard drive I plugged it into another mac that doesn't have Lion and it would work. Please Help because my external drive has everything 1TG of everything...
Thanks!!!

Hi,
I had already checked in Finder's Pref's for the check mark for External Disks and it is checked. That is for external disks to show up on your desk top.
So still no luck for my Mac to reconize my external hard drive with this new OS X Lion Program. Should I just take my computer into the apple store?
Thank you!!

HT201250 external hard drive Mac to Windows

I have had a mac of which I just killed the hard drive. I was backing it up with an external hard drive using I believe time machine.
I have brought a new computer which is a windows 8 operating system but I can not open the external hard drive. How do I open it, so I can then put my files onto my new computer??

Install the MacDrive trial on the PC.
(77797)

PC back up files -- External hard drive -- Mac?

I just reformatted the hard drive on my Mac Book (running Mac OS X 10.5.8), and plan to use it as my primary machine. But I've got system back-up files from an old PC on an external hard drive (was running Windows 7) that I'd like to transfer over if possible. Mostly .mp3 files and documents. The hard drive itself is compatible with both platforms.
Is this even possible?

Is this even possible?
Yes. Hook it up and copy the files over.

External hard drive & MAC!!!! HELP

I connected my external hard drive (which I have been using with my windows PC the past years) to my Macbook Pro. It showed up as a device on the MAC but wasn't showing up any of the files so i unplugged it and tried it in my PC! Now my PC won't even recognize the drive. WHY? Did I delete all the files from the drive??? HELP pls. I neeeeeeed the files that were on it.

To delete files from your external HDD, attach it to your MBP and drag the unwanted files to trash and then empty trash.
Then you select the files that you want to transfer by 'drag and drop' to the external HDD and trash the files on your MBP.
Ciao.

External hard drive mac to pc?

My computer is running slow so I purchased an external hard drive to transfer my photos to. Is it possible to open these photos on an PC?

Windows does not acknowledge that there are any other Operating Systems. So using a Mac OS Extended drive requires third-party software on the Windows machine. MacDrive comes to mind.
You can format that drive using Windows Ex-FAT, and then both Mac OS X and Windows machines can read and write it.
Windows New Technolgy File System (NTFS) can be read on a Mac, but not written without third-party software. Paragon NTFS for the Mac comes to mind.

External Hard Drive/Mac & PC

I've read some of the posts on this topic and want to be sure I'm not messing this up.
I want to buy an external hard drive, but I want to use it on both my iMac and my wife's PC. I've noticed that the instrux for the Western Digital drives talk about formatting the HD for either/or, which would seem to be problematic.
So the two questions I have are:
-Does the external drive NEED to be formatted?
-Are there any issues overall with using the hard drive this way?
Thanks,
Steve
20" iMac Intel Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Yes, the external drive needs to be formatted. However, to use the drive on both the Mac and a PC the entire drive must be formatted for the PC. PCs cannot read or write Mac disks. OS X can read and write MSDOS formatted disks (but not NTFS formatted disks which are read-only to OS X.)
Use Disk Utility to prep the external drive. Open DU and select the external drive's main entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of partitions to one (1) equal in size to the full capacity of the drive. Click on the Options button and select the Master Boot Record partition scheme from the available choices and then click on the OK button. Set the format type to MSDOS (FAT32) then click on the Partition button. Wait for the volume to mount on the Desktop.
Note that OS X and MSDOS use different filesystems. MSDOS does not handle the long file names supported by OS X. Some Mac files contain special resource forks that will be lost when files are saved to an MSDOS formatted disk. If you plan to save Mac data it's a good idea to archive the files before transferring them to an MSDOS formatted drive.
You also cannot use an MSDOS formatted drive as a boot device for OS X, so you cannot clone OS X to an external drive formatted for MSDOS.
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External Hard drives Mac OS and Windows

I have a question on external hard drives. I am looking for an external drive that will work with both my Mac and Windows xp pro. I remember that Mac used to be able to read windows format but not vise versa. I know that thumb drives switch back and forth with no problem but it seems that hard drives do not. I went to the store and was told and the boxes state that the windows drives must be reformatted to work with Mac and the WD Mac drive said that it must be reformatted to work in Windows, (as I expected). Is this something new between the OS's or something to do with the drive sizes? Any help would be appreciated as I would like to be able to move large files, usually movies, between the two formats by simply moving the external drive from one to the other.
Thank you

If you reformat that flash drive to use +Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)+, it will probably work. But then, you would not be able to use it on the Windows PC (until you reformatted it again).
then probably the best option although more expensive will be to buy an ethernet drive and connect to my router.
Or maybe you can do a direct transfer from PC to Mac or Mac to PC over wired Ethernet, and put the extra storage drive on the Mac or PC, formatted to be optimal for the respective connected OS. If your PC has gigabit Ethernet (and your router is has gigabit ports), it should be fairly fast. Make sure the cables are rated Cat-5e or better.
Wow another Power Mac 8100 user who added a G3 card to it.
Still a machine that is set up and runs fine, for using my old Mac OS 9 programs. I bought mine used after it was already a few years old, but it was used as my primary Mac longer than any other machine before or since. It stayed relevant for a long long time.

Instructions For Moving To An External Hard Drive - Mac

I have a Macbook where I use Lightroom. However, my internal drive is filling up and I would like to get instructions on how have the library reside on my new 250gb external drive. Thanks!!

In Lightroom, the catalog database is separate from the image files. To move to an external hard disk, you need to move both. The easiest way is to simply drag over the folder that the catalog file resides in (so you also copy over the previews) and also drag over the folders that contain the image files. Now delete both from the original location if you're sure everything moved over correctly and double-click on the copied-over lrcat file. If your images are in the same relative location to the catalog file as on the original harddisk, it will find the image files by itself. If they are not in the same relative location, Lightroom will make the enclosing folder name red in the Library pane. Simply right (or control on a mac with a single button mouse) on the red and show it the new folder location.
One good tip for lightroom users is to really be aware of where Lightroom imports images to in the import dialog. You'll see that even after you've moved over the images and catalog, Lightroom will want to import new files to the old location on your internal hard disk, so you need to tell it where to import. After the first time you do that it will usually remember.

Seagate External Hard Drive Mac/PC

Hello Everyone,
I have read where you are able to format a new Seagate Drive to be able to read both Mac and PC drives.
Problem for me is I already have a ton of PC data on the Seagate drive. I need to be able to use this for both Mac and a PC but I am afraid if I follow the instructions to partition I will erase all the PC data I already have.
Is there a way to format the hard drive for a Mac when I already have PC data without erasing the data? If so, please forgive my ignorance and walk me through the steps.
Much Appreciated,
New Convert
PB

1. hard drives are cheap as dirt
2. Yes, you can format on your PC a new (another) HD in EXFAT for read/ write to/ from PC and Mac.
3. Dont partition it, as said, HD are very cheap, buy another HD for $60
already have a ton of PC data on the Seagate drive........ I am afraid if I follow the instructions to partition I will erase all the PC data I already have.
No worries, leave the data where it is. Also having a single HD (with your PC) is an error with Pc or Mac. That creates a single choke point for serious data loss.
HD can and DO fail, never at any time have a single external HD backup of your priceless data, always 2 minimum,
Yet another reason to buy another HD.

External Hard Drive/Mac & PC issue

Similar questions have been asked but they don't answer my question.
I've got a 320GB external harddrive that I use on my iMac at home, and a PC at work, the hard disk has worked fine in the past however now it is only working on my work PC as well as my home PC and a laptop. When I use it on a mac it simply says that I have read only access.
HELP!!
The harddrive only has 35GB used

Ok. First off if you decide to do this, remember to make sure you have a backup of anything you have on the external because it will be erased when you partition it. It's very simple really. Just use the disk utility in mac osx 10.4.8 to do half of the drive. Make sure the drive is plugged in and ready to go (listed on your osx desktop). Load up disk utility, highlight the hard drive NOT any volumes you may have on it, but only the actual hard drive (should be at the very top of the listing). Click on partition button, and partition it for only half (or whatever you want) of the actual space on your drive .. Example:320G divided by 2 is 160G. Oh and make sure you partition it for mac os extended (journaled). After this is done, make sure you properly disconnect the hard drive from your mac. Before you take it to your pc, make sure you have the windows drivers for it because during the installation of the hard drive via your firewire port, you'll be asked for the driver disk. Since I had already deleted everything on my disk I just went to WD's website and d/l'd the driver(s) from there. Plug it in and once it is recognized and you have it set up on windows, then it should show up in my computer. Just right click on the drive and scroll down to format, it should come up with a box giving you some options. Capacity, File System ...etc...etc.. Just choose the rest of what's left on the drive, space wise, and make sure that the file system is NTFS. DO NOT USE QUICK FORMAT or COMPRESSION. Once windows is done, then you'll have two completely different partitions on your hard drive, one you can use when you're hooked up to the mac, and the other when you are hooked up to your windows system. I back up both of my systems on the same drive. Oh and DO NOT CONNECT BOTH SYSTEMS AT THE SAME TIME TO THE DRIVE.
That should be it man. I hope this helps ya out. Oh and although this was relatively easy for me I did it at my own risk. You will have to do the same. If you are not comfortable doing it, then DON'T.

External Hard Drive Mac/PC Partition

Hello,
I'm wondering if it's possible to partition my Maxtor One Touch hard drive, with a DOS partition and a OSX partition. I don't think it's possible with Disk Utility, does anybody know if there is another free application that would do this? I need to transfer files from school (Windows) and to my laptop (Mac). I can't install any software on the school computers, as they are not mine.
Thanks

Hi Jeremy,
It takes a bit of work in Terminal but you can have one partition FAT32 and one HFS+. Another option is to format the entire drive FAT32 but you couldn't backup System files to it, only data.
John

Old Itunes library (from PC) on external hard drive - Mac won't recognise

I feel like I've tried absolutely everything, so hopefully someone here can help.
I had my Itunes library stored on an external disc. This was when I was using Itunes on a PC. It all ran fine....
Now we've upgraded to a Mac and for the life of me I cannot get Itunes to recognise the library.
First I just tried changing the folder location with no luck. Now I've tried holding down alt when starting Itunes, I've located the folder, and at first it seemed all was well as the albums (sans artwork) all appeared in Itunes. But when I try to play them or send songs to my Iphone, it says it can't locate the file. I've tried to then manually point it to the external drive and the old library and it still won't recognise it.
Can anyone suggest anything??

AnnieeR wrote:
Can anyone suggest anything??
these two reads may be helpful: one and two.

Cant delete files on external hard drive (Mac OSX Lion, LR3&4)

Lightroom can't send items to trash when deleting files on an external drive if the trash bin is empty for the relevant drive on OSX Lion. This was in LR3 and now in 4. You can get round this by making sure the trash is not emptied after deleting a random file or folder but there has to be a better way!
Also it seems to be a lightroom problem more than OS as Bridge can delete the files with no problem.
Any ideas on this?

I'm having the same problem, but there are so many other issues with LR4 -some enormous, some just downright bizarre -that I almost forgot about this one. ;-). Good catch on the empty trash bin though. How'd you figure that out? I'm impressed.

External hard drive - mac specific or generic?

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