External Hard Drive - Partition or Not?

Ok, I have looked everywhere for the answer and everyone has a different opinion. So, I'd like to get opinions on my situation because the Discussions have always been the most helpful.
I recently had a post about whether I should upgrade my Powerbook's hard drive or just get an external Firewire drive to transport files here and there. In the end, I decided to get a 400GB internal drive (for storage) and bought an enclosure for it, since my hard drives only seem to be shrinking. I got an amazing price so I went for it - the other thing will just have to wait. I decided to keep my iPhoto Library on it, backup of important files (also burned to cds)... you get the point.
Up until now, I have only been backing up my user folder because I was only interested in keeping those files. After visiting the Discussions, I've learned a lot (what can I say, I'm young and I know my way around a computer, but I still have A LOT MORE to learn). Ok, so now I guess it's time to make a bootable copy of my hard drive (at least the Mini, because that's where all of the files are).
To the point... Should I partition my 400GB drive into 2 sections: one for a backup and one for all the other storage? Can I boot from this if my Mini's hard drive fails? Or is it best to leave the 400GB as storage and get an 80GB solely for bootable backup?
The problem is I don't have a lot of money to spend on this. I was looking forward to getting the new 30GB iPod (for music and files), but protecting my files is more important. There are so many options, but they are expensive options (to me, at least). I would be so grateful if anyone has suggestions on the best way to go about this. Thank you!!
12" Powerbook G4, Intel Mac Mini, iPod Nano Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Personally I would choose no. 2 primarily because I like to keep backups separate from regular working drives to minimise risks of mishaps, problems, theft etc.
If something happens to the single 400GB drive you could, potentially, lose both stored data as well as the backup. Ultimately it might cost more to have two drives but when it comes to backups I prefer not to cut too many corners.
15" 1.25GHz/12" 1GHz PBs, 2xPPC Mac minis, 12" iBook G4, Mac OS X (10.4.6) Cube, 2xTAMs, iPods 2G/4G, iPs, AEBS, AX

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Help needed. I have a 3TB external hard drive partitioned into 1TB's. I used one partition as backup for the main computer hard drive. But now it is greyed out as shown in the disk utility and its name changed, i dont know how that happened, i tried verif

Help needed. I have a 3TB external hard drive partitioned into 1TB's. I used one partition as backup for the main computer hard drive. But now it is greyed out as shown in the disk utility and its name changed, i dont know how that happened, i tried verifying and repairing it but had no luck. I also tried mounting and unmounting it but still no solution. Anyone to help please?

Looks bad. I would strongly advise backing up the stuff on the other two partitions as soon as possible in case the rest of the drive goes wrong.
Beyond that, Disk Utility has limited abilities to repair disks, DiskWarrior uses a different approach and might, emphasis might be more successful. It has certainly done the job for me in the past when Disk Utility could not.
See http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/

Time Machine Back Up for External Hard Drive Partition

Hey guys,
I have had my imac connected to an external hard drive which runs time machine for some time now (about a year and a half).
I now wish to partition the external hard drive with a Fat 32 section so that I can load data (vidoe's, music etc.) from my windows laptop onto it.
The external hard drive is currently not partitioned in anyway so I will have to create a new partition. Is there anyway of doing this without losing the time machine data already saved?
If not is there anyway of saving the time machine data onto the imac so that when the partition process is complete it can simply be 're-loaded' onto the external hard drive?
Thanks for your help!
Philippe

Hi, I've been trying to do that: using Disk Utility to create a partition on my EHD that already has Time Machine running on it. My EHD is 2TB and I have deleted last year's TM backups so now I have over 900GB available space on the EHD (previously was 750GB) but when I ran the Partition, after hours of processing ("modifying partition map...") - and I mean like 12 hours no kidding, it resulted in "There is no more space" error! What a waste of time!
Is there any way to find out how much space is needed for partitioning beforehand? I wished DU could tell me that before the "modifying partition map" process begun.
FYI I am running on 10.5.8 and the partition I want to add is to be in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, the same with the current format.
Any help is appreciated. Thank you very much in advance.

How do i repair or recover data from a corrupt USB external hard drive that does not show up on my Mac desktop or disk utility

How do i repair or recover data from a corrupt USB external hard drive that does not show up on my Mac desktop or disk utility?
Last night i was using my external hard drive, for some reason the folder just closed and i couldn't find it on my desktop.
After googling solutions, i found it in the disk utilities, i clicked on the 'repair' button many times, but it said the 'error...' message.
So i ejected it to try again, now when i connect the USB external hard drive it doesn't show up on my desktop or disk utilities.
I really just want to either repair or recover the data on it because it literally has everything (documents, work files, photos etc) on it,
I downloaded an application to recover my files but it needs the USB to at least show up.recognise it which mine doesn't.
I know i should've backed it up on another USB, this definitely teaches me for next time to back up all my files.
Are the files lost forever or can i recover them by going to a shop or using a software?

Thank you for responding.
This might sound stupid since i'm not really knowledgeable with Macs,
but since all my files were moved from my mac computer to the external hard drive,
is it possible to recover those files through my Mac - like recovering deleted files?

Old laptop died, got latest itunes on new laptop and recovered all music from external hard drive but ipad not recognised as device when plugged in? Do i reset my ipad2!!!

Old laptop died, got latest itunes on new laptop and recovered all music from external hard drive but ipad2 not being recognised as a device when plugged in so can't sync? Do i reset my ipad2?!!!! Its only taken 7 months to get to this point.
My ipad is set to sync via wifi but it is still trying to look for my old laptop which has been trashed..but i have deauthorised it and removed it from my account and still not recognised.
Please help (an extreme novice to Apple products)

Sync Your iOS Device with a New Computer Without Losing Data
http://www.howtogeek.com/104298/sync-your-ios-device-with-a-new-computer-without -losing-data/
iPad not appearing in iTunes
http://www.apple.com/support/ipad/assistant/itunes/
iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Mac OS X
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1591
iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Windows
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1538
IOS: Syncing with iTunes
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1386
Apple - Support - iPad - Syncing
http://www.apple.com/support/ipad/syncing/
 Cheers, Tom

I have an imac 2009 the disk drive is damaged and I have lost the passwords I need to reset passwords I tried booting with a macosx disk from an external hard drive but did not read the drive how else can I reset password ?

I have an imac 2009 the disk drive is damaged and I have lost the passwords I need to reset passwords I tried booting with a macosx disk from an external hard drive but did not read the drive how else can I reset password ?
I have a 2012 mac book pro can I use that to connect with firewire and load osx that way? and how woudl I do that?
Thanks so much!

To what password are you referring? Do you mean your user account's admin password? Or do you mean the master password for File Vault or do you mean a Firmware Password?
For an admin password:
Forgot Your Account Password
For Snow Leopard and earlier
     Mac OS X 10.6- If you forget your administrator password
For Lion/Mountain Lion
    Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
     When the menubar appears select Terminal from the Utilities menu.
     Enter resetpassword at the prompt and press RETURN. Follow
     instructions in the dialog window that will appear.
     Or see Reset a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Password and
     OS X Lion- Apple ID can be used to reset your user account password.
If you cannot do the above then try this:
1. Boot to Safe Mode by restarting and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-S keys until a black screen with white type appears.
2. At the prompt, type the following commands pressing return after each command line:
     /sbin/fsck -yf
     If you do not receive a "Filesystem OK" message then repeat this command until
     you do. If after seven tries you still do not receive a "Filesystem OK" message,
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     mount -uw /
     cd /private/var/db/netinfo
     mv local.nidb local.old
     rm ../.AppleSetupDone
     shutdown -r now
The second-to-last command above will cause OS X to think that the operating system is newly installed, and when the new owner starts up the computer it will send him/her to the startup wizard where he/she can start a new user without reinstalling.
This last method does not actually change a password. It simply removes the user accounts and lets you create an initial admin account as if the computer were new out of the box.
How to reset the OS X password without a startup CD:
Reboot into Single-user Mode. Enter the following and press RETURN after each command line
   1. Type fsck -fy
   2. Type mount -uw /
   3. Type passwd <username>
I have never tried this method myself.

My external hard drive is suddenly not recognized.

I have a thunderbolt enabled 1.5 Terabyte Seagate FreeAgent Go Drive. It was used as a simply external hard drive and then I added it to be used as a time machine location. After the first initial backup, it suddenly became no longer recognizeable. It does not apear in the finder, disk utility, or in the terminal when I ask for list of the Volumes. The drive light is on, I can hear the disk spinning, and it warms up as normal after being plugged in to the computer for a period of time. Still, I am unable to recognize the drive in any way.
Ideally, I would like to save the files if possible. If not possible, I'm happy to reformat the disk but this is not possible at this time with the drive being unrecognized by any means I am aware of.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I am using 2.3 GHZ i7 Retina MacBook Pro with 8GB RAM. I'm on 10.9.1.

Yes, exactly. It's very strange. I've never had this happen. Drives fail but then don't apear in the DiskUtility app. This drive is "there" but I cannot seem to preform any action on it. This is the type of response received (in Log) I get whenever I attempt any action:
Securely erasing data to prevent recovery failed.
2013-12-26 08:43:39 +0530: Erase complete.
2013-12-26 08:43:39 +0530:
2013-12-26 08:44:06 +0530:
          Name :           Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Media
          Type :           Disk
          Partition Map Scheme :           Unformatted
          Disk Identifier :           disk1
          Media Name :           Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Media
          Media Type :           Generic
          Connection Bus :           USB
          USB Serial Number :           NA0B3X6P
          Device Tree :           IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/XHC1@14
          Writable :           Yes
          Ejectable :           Yes
          Location :           External
          Total Capacity :           1.5 TB (1,500,301,909,504 Bytes)
          Disk Number :           1
          Partition Number :           0
          S.M.A.R.T. Status :           Not Supported
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530: Preparing to partition disk: “Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Media”
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530:           Partition Scheme: GUID Partition Table
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530:           1 partition will be created
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530:
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530:           Partition 1
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530:                     Name                    : “Untitled 1”
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530:                     Size                    : 1.5 TB
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530:                     File system          : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530:
2013-12-26 08:44:43 +0530: Unmounting disk
2013-12-26 08:45:04 +0530: Partition failed for disk Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Media Unable to write to the last block of the device.

External Hard Drive Partition, Erased Files. HELPPPP!

Something went wrong and has now "erased" all my files on my external hard drive (used for backing up with TM), after adding a partition second partition. I did not install anything onto the newly created partition as my focus was then distracted by the fact that all my data had now been erased.
This should not have happened as I followed every step carefully and thoroughly from this link: http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU3.html
I wanted to boot Snow Leopard from my external hard drive. So I used Disk Utility to add a partition on my external hard drive (clicking the + sign). The drive had around 264 GB (shaded in blue), with approximately 34GB free. So I type the newly desired partition of 8GB. Disk Utility was saying explicitly that "this partition will not be erased", referring to the original partition of 264GB that will become approximately 272GB, the one that contains all my files. I say to myself, okay, that is safe as it is telling me my files will not be erased.
With the partitions split and my original data of 264GB still shaded in blue, I click apply.
A box prompts me to confirm partition, reading:
"Partitioning this disk will change some of the partitions. No partitions will be erased"
This partition will be added:
"Snow Leopard HD"
This Partition will be resized:
"My Passport"
So obviously I confirm and click Partition...
It took about 30 seconds or under to partition and then I noticed my original partition was no longer shaded in blue but was completely empty
I open my external hard drive in Finder and none of my files are visible.
I open Time Machine and it is not displaying any of my back ups and will no longer back up. Its says Latest Backup: Failed i
So I click on the i button and it says:
Time Machine Error
The backup volume could not be found.
At this point I am panicking! I followed every step correctly and it clearly stated no files would be erased.
What has happened here? and how can I retrieve my lost files?
Disk Description : WD My Passport 071A Media
Format : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Partition Map Scheme : GUID Partion Table.

JOHN YOU ARE A GENIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!
I AM USING DISK DRILL RIGHT NOW AND IT IS SCANNING AND LISTINIG ALL MY FILES! EXCUSE THE CAPITALS BUT I AM SO THANKFUL FOR YOUR HELP! AHHH
NEXT STEP IS TO RECOVER IT ONCE SCANNING IS DONE! IT IS LOOKING PROMISING AS I AM LISTENING TO THE MUSIC FOUND ON MY HARD DRIVE WHILE SCANNING IS TAKING PLACE
THANK YOU SOOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!

WD Smartware, external hard drive back up not recognized by Macbook Pro

I use WD external hard drive as back up for my Macbook Pro using WD Smartware. All software is upto date but when I plug in my external hard drive it is now not recognised by my Mac. It does not appear in Finder or Disk Utility but it does show up in System Profiler. It has worked fine until now. I have changed the UCB cables multiple times, the external WD hard drive has its own power suppy and other external hard drives work in the same usb port. When I plug the external drive into a PC it is recognised but obviously will not let me use it. When I go to access via the PC it prompts me for the password to open the drive, however when I plug into my Mac, when I click on 'unlock drive' its says that the drive is not locked. The WD Smartware software runs to check the files on my Mac but after categorising them the 'back up' option is not highlighted and it will not access the external WD drive.
How can I access the WD external drive ? System Profiler data is below. Many thanks, apologies for any ignorance and thanks in anticipation of any help !
My Book 1110:    Capacity:     804.4 MB (804,421,632 bytes)   Removable Media:     Yes   Detachable Drive:     Yes   BSD Name:     disk1   Product ID:     0x1110   Vendor ID:     0x1058 (Western Digital Technologies, Inc.)   Version:     20./My Book 1110:    Capacity: 804.4 MB (804,421,632 bytes)   Removable Media: Yes   Detachable Drive: Yes   BSD Name: disk1   Product ID: 0x1110   Vendor ID: 0x1058 (Western Digital Technologies, Inc.)   Version: 20.18   Serial Number: 574341565931323033383539   Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec   Manufacturer: Western Digital   Location ID: 0xfd130000 / 5   Current Available (mA): 500   Current Required (mA): 2   Partition Map Type: Unknown   S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported   Volumes:   Capacity: 700.4 MB (700,448,768 bytes)   Writable: No   BSD Name: disk1s0   Capacity: 32 KB (32,256 bytes)   Writable: No   BSD Name: disk1s0s1 WD SmartWare:   Capacity: 229.7 MB (229,672,960 bytes)   Available: Zero KB   Writable: No   File System: HFS    BSD Name: disk1s0s2   Mount Point: /Volumes/WD SmartWare18   Serial Number:     574341565931323033383539   Speed:     Up to 480 Mb/sec   Manufacturer:     Western Digital   Location ID:     0xfd130000 / 5   Current Available (mA):     500   Current Required (mA):     2   Partition Map Type:     Unknown   S.M.A.R.T. status:     Not Supported   Volumes:   Capacity:     700.4 MB (700,448,768 bytes)   Writable:     No   BSD Name:     disk1s0   Capacity:     32 KB (32,256 bytes)   Writable:     No   BSD Name:     disk1s0s1 WD SmartWare:   Capacity:     229.7 MB (229,672,960 bytes)   Available:     Zero KB   Writable:     No   File System:     HFS+   BSD Name:     disk1s0s2   Mount Point:     /Volumes/WD SmartWare

mjunder Hong Kong
   I use WD external hard drive as back up for my Macbook Pro using WD Smartware.
To be a parrot,.......REMOVE the WD garbageware.
Western Digital warned its users about its OWN software couple months ago.
Remove ANY and ALL WD software products.

I have a Seagate 2TB external hard drive partitioned with one partition of Snow Leopard (my computer is running Lion). Can't seem to reboot using the option key. Any ideas as to what's wrong?

I have a Seagate 2TB external hard drive with 3 partitions, one for Snow Leopard - my computer has Lion. I cannot seem to boot from this hard drive but I could yesterday. Any ideas?

Didnt help. The night I asked this question I was able to reboot from the external hard drive after running Disk repair (which said everything was fine). Tonight I have tried again and cannot boot from the external. So I tried the Safe Mode restart and then chose restart with the option key held down as well as shutting down and trying holding down the option key while turning on the power. I have never been able to reboot just choosing restart and holding down the option key. Whenever the reboot from the external has worked I've had to shut down and hold the option key while turning the power on. Now that is not working. My computer is brand new as is the hard drive. I don't know where to go from here.
I can access the drive just fine while I'm in Lion. I just can't boot up using it. Help!

External Hard Drive and Computer NOT recognizing IPod

Can anyone please help me? I purchased an external hard drive to store all my songs instead of on my internal hard drive. I change the location of all my songs to the external hard drive and even import any new song there as well. But when I connect my IPod to my computer to update and import my new songs, my computer DOES NOT recognize the IPod. The only way my computer will recognize my IPod is if I disconnect my external drive first and then connect my IPod. But then I cannot import or update my IPod. This is driving me nuts. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks
IPod 20G Windows XP

Anyone find a solution for this yet??? I'm having a similar problem. I have an external drive but my tunes are on a partitioned drive on the internal. The external is off but when I go to enable disk use it keeps turning it off on me. When I have selected manually sync songs then it tells me that disk cannot be read from or written to. The computer never shows a drive for the ipod. This is really getting on my nerves!

Time machine external hard drive in windows not working.

I recently bought a Western Digital external hard drive to use with time machine so that I would have my laptop backed up. When I set up the time machine, it had to format my hard drive, erasing the WD files that were on the drive. I was able to continue using it as an external storage device on the Mac side of my laptop, but when trying to use it on the windows side, it wont show up in My Computer. I'm starting to wonder if I will be unable to use this external drive on anything other than a Mac now that it is set up as my Time Machine.
If that is the case, is there a way that I can reset my drive to not show up as my Time Machine Disk.
Thanks,
JT

If you're going to use the drive on both platforms, does it need to be set up first on the PC, allocating 1/2? to Windows NTFS format, then disable/reset/delete Time Machine backups doing the Mac HFS format thing on remainder of External?
Setup on my Acomdata 7200rpm External is Mac 150GB HFS, Windows 150GB NTFS. On Windows side, is Vista, W7 (32 &64Bit) and recently my daughter's HP Laptop XP which posed a problem until I found that NtBackup.Msi was in VALUEADD folder on the Windows XP install CD. Also available from Microsoft if no install CD. NtBackup makes a .BKF string of the hard drive, runs maybe a little slower than Vista & Windows 7 Backup/Restore Maint. Long time since I restore a .BKF but think it requires an OS - unlike Vista + Windows 7 where the install Disk will retore from External in ~30 minutes.
I have not figured out how to get Leopard restored short of format, then complete (re)install with Time Machine restore kicking in at the end of that process. Takes a great deal of time and some things need fixing after completion. Wondering if Snow Leopard/Disk Utility has any improvements on this score. Refuse to pay for anything that I consider to be intrisically necessary to use of product.

Cannot see a particular file on an External Hard Drive- file is not hidden!

Hi folks,
I think this should be a common problem, but I couldn't seem to find an exact match to my topic in the search, so I hope you guys don't mind helping me out if this has been asked before!
Well my problem is basically stated in my subject. A few days ago, I plugged in my friends external hard drive to copy some files off of. Everything loaded fine once I plugged it in, but the problem was that the file that I needed to copy was invisible in my finder! Other files were there, and the remaining disk space indicated that it was there, but the file itself was not!
I disconnected and reconnected the HD several times but to the same problem. I tried to search for it in the HD directory, but it didn't bring up any results.
My friend confirmed that the file was not hidden, and so we plugged it into her sisters Mac Book to test it and it was there! I ended up having to copy it from the Mac Book then transferring it back to my iMac, but I'm rather concerned about this problem because I wouldn't want it happening again!
One slight problem now is that I don't have my friends HD to test any solutions at the moment, so I guess my main question is to know why does this happen/what causes this to occur? I'm think it's my iMac acting up, because it has been running a bit slower and noisier lately, so I'm thinking of reformatting my iMac? What do you guys think?
Cheers!

Hmmm, only thing that comes to mind at the moment is Permissions, Admin Rights, Groups, or HW/SW!

Moved my files to external hard drive, now files not found. Help?

My Itunes folder having outgrown my memory, I moved all the files to my external hard drive, following the directions in Itunes. I was able to play the songs as long as the hard drive was connected. However, I opened Itunes mistakenly without the E: Drive connected, and it opened blank, with no files in place. I closed, hooked up the hard drive, and opened Itunes again, holding down the shift key and choosing the library on E: (the xmp file). The files now show up, but when I try to play them, I get a message indicating that the file isn't found, do I want to find it? I can, but I don't want to go through 5000 files and add each one individually. If I try adding or importing the folder again, the file is simply in itunes twice. I can always import everything again, but I don't want to lose all my ratings, last-played, etc. It took a lot of time to listen to and rate all those songs. Any help would certainly be appreciated. Thanks.

I am having the same problem. I moved my itunes library to an external drive to free up the space on my notebook and now I "get files not found do you want to search" If I search I can find the song in Windows but have to find each song individually, I have 2600 songs I burned from my CD collection, it would take way too long. I have tried copying the file to the same drive, I have reintalled itunes multiple times. I have checked Apple and my computer is "authorized". Is there any way out of this? Otherwise I will be limited to just having the music I already have on my ipod and being unable to add any more, and if that ever bocomes compromised I would be unable to restore it. None of my music is purchased from itunes, it is all burned from my CD's.

How do you erase an external hard drive which will not show up on your computer?

I bought a LaCie porsche design 2TB external hard drive from the Apple Store to use with time machine on my MAC 2 months ago. It will no longer show up on my desktopn. After speaking with LaCie, they sent me a replacement. However, I have to send the brooken one back to them and since we could not erase it or anything on my Mac is there anyway to erase the hard drive before sending it back to them with all my information on there?
Message was edited by: carolsh

I know. But after Yahoo, Target , Neimans and others. But I agree. They even sent me a more expensive replacement as they did not have my model in stock and is backordered. So, a win win situation. I was impressed that the tech person spent about an hour on the phone with me trying a variety of options. At first, they were going to charge me shipping- but then she changed her mind and shipped the replacement 1 day fed ex. I guess that is why I always buy LaCie vs others. My older LaCie which I still had but was smaller- I plugged in and did a back-up and I had just enough room on it so I have that for safe keepings now as well.
Thanks again for your pleasant response. I guess I need to limit my profile to "registered members" only. I hope Apple monitors these discussions and people's responses periodically.

External Hard Drive - Partition or Not?

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