External hard drive - reformat for my Mac book - HP

I have been using my HP 2TB external hard drive on my PC and ant to use it on my new mac book pro. I can see the hard drive on the mac book and I can watch movies from it but can't move any thing or add anything to it.
I gues I need to reformat it please can you explain to me how I do this.
Thanks
Rachel

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Your external disk is formatted with NTFS, a filesystem that OS X doesn't support in order to copy data to this filesystem.
If you don't want to erase your hard disk, you can use an application like Paragon NTFS that will allow you to write in your external drive without having to format your external disk.
Another option is to format your external disk. As you have movies, you should format it in exFAT. You have to format the external drive on a PC unless you haven't got a PC. If you want to do it on a Mac, use Disk Utility > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html
If you aren't going to use your external drive with PCs, you can also use "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", designed for Mac OS X but it won't be read in any PCs

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External Hard Drives and iTunes, on Mac Book Pro and PC?

If you transfer your iTunes library from PC to an external hard drive, can you use itunes, from the external hard drive when you plug it into Mac Book Pro?
I'm very confused about this!
All my music is on PC and I want to save it to my external hard drive. But I will no longer be using that PC afterwards.
I would like to use itunes on my Mac but it only has 128 Gb, not enough storage for my iTunes library.
So, can you use your transfered itunes library from the PC to external drive on your Mac?
Another question I have is, when your itunes is on your external hardrive can you still sync, make playlists and add new songs?
I don't know very much about external hard drives, but I need the space.

No. Likely the drive is presently formatted NTFS which is no good on a Mac unless you want to buy spcial software to enable it (given your scenario it is not worth it). The best format for Mac use is MacExtended, but your PC cannot write files to that. The intermediate solution is to reformat the drive to DOS FAT, but as I already said this isn't ideal.
If it were me I would:
1) With the PC copy the entire iTunes folder to the current external, presumably formatted as NTFS.
2) Buy the new second drive I know I will need for backing up both my computer and my old external drive. Format it as Mac extended. In the long run you want to configure this for use with Time Machine but I can't help you with that because I can't run TM. For the time being you are using it to temporarily store files.
3) Using the Mac make sure the new drive is formatted to Mac extended.
4) On the Mac copy the entire iTunes folder from the old drive to the new.
5) With the Mac reformat the old drive to Mac extended.
6) With the Mac copy the entire iTunes folder from the new drive to the old one which is now in the Mac friendly format. Start iTunes with the option key held down as described earlier.
Others may be able to help with some details on formatting drives because I use an older system. I know with my system version when you reformat or partition you lose all files on a drive which is why you have to have somewhere to temporarily store your library. I think they did some changes but I am not sure of the details.

I transferred data from my external hard drive to my restored Mac Book Pro via migration assistant and now my external hard drive in time capsule has red minus signs. How do I get rid of that without getting rid of any of my data?

I used Migration Assistant to transfer my data from my external hard drive via Time Capsule to my restored Mac Book Pro. When I now go into Time Capsule I there are red minus signs in the corner of all the folders that are contained in my back up. How do I get rid of this and access my previous back-ups?

Select the drive and Finder > Get info and at the bottom "ignore permissions on this volume"
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..Step by Step to fix your Mac
Another method is to copy the entire folder, then change it's permissions.

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How to migrate iTunes and iPhoto librarys from an external hard drive to a MacBook Pro?

With iTunes:
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How do i move my photos from external hard drive to my local mac book pro hard drive?

I have my iphoto files on an external hard drive. I need to move them to my local Mac Book Pro Hard drive and I want to do it accurately. Anyone have any advice?

THanks Niel.
In typical "me" fashion I asked the question and then did the leg work and researched the answer (instead of doing the research first!). I learned exactly what you have posted here. It sounds REALLY simple. Thanks!

How can I use my external hard drive from PC to Mac without reformatting???

Ok, so I am computer illiterate. I have always used PC's and have just bought a MacBook. When I plug in my external hard drive into my new Mac, it says it needs to be reformatted to use with Mac, which would cause all data to be erased. Is there anyway to get around this?
Please help me!

OK... as Woggledog indicated, OS X cannot write to NTFS formatted drives. NTFS is a proprietary Microsoft format. Conversely, Windows can neither read nor write to an OS X formatted drive.
Both Windows and OS X can read and write to FAT32 (this is a fairly old format). The down side to FAT32 is that the largest file you can work with is 4GB. That is probably fine for most people... but if you're working with large files (videos, virtual drive images, large backup files, etc...) FAT32 is not suitable. There are applications that you can purchase for both Macs and Windows machines that will allow them to read and write to the other format.
An immediate option provided you have the space on either your PC or Mac is to create a folder on either machine and move everything from your external drive into that folder. Then you can format the drive to FAT32 and then copy everything back over to the external drive (and delete it from your Mac or PC's internal drive). It might take some time depending on how much data you have... but you'll only have to do it once... and this is assuming you have enough space on one of you machines to copy the data from your external drive.

I am not much of a computer technician. I bought a time capsule thinking I could use this for an external hard drive and keep my MAC hard drive free. Was I mistaken? One I back everthing up on the TC, can I delete everything off of my MAC?

I am not much of a computer technician. I bought a time capsule thinking I could use this for an external hard drive and keep my MAC hard drive free. Was I mistaken? Once I back everything up on the TC, can I delete everything off of my MAC and then use my TC as my hard drive??

Once I back everything up on the TC, can I delete everything off of my MAC and then use my TC as my hard drive??
TC was designed to backup your Mac. The TC literature is pretty clear about this:
If your Mac's hard drive has a problem....it will sooner or later....you can use your backup on the TC to rebuild your Mac.
But.....if you move all of your data to the TC from your Mac....you only have one version of that data now, and it is on the TC.
Have you thought about what will happen when....not if....the TC has a problem? Since the only version of your important data was on the TC, and the TC has failed......you lose all of your data.....because you have no backup.
A much better plan would be to add a USB or FireWire hard drive and connect it directly to your Mac. Move the data on your Mac over to the hard drive.
Then, the TC will backup both your Mac and the hard drive. So, you have original data on on one drive and backups on another drive.
That would be a minimum backup plan. Most of us have more than one set of backups.

Does all external hard drives work for mac?

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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.

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Formatting a PC-formatted External Hard Drive to work in Mac OS

So I have a 300 gig external hard drive formatted for Windows XP with NTFS. I recently got a Macbook Pro and as it stands in Mac OS X the hard drive is read only. I can copy files from the hard drive to my Mac, but I can't edit files on the external HD or copy from my Mac to my external HD. This of course is a problem and so I need to reformat it to work in Mac OS. While I will not be using PCs anymore, if possible I would like for the external HD to be Mac and Windows compatible.
First things first I have to get all 300 gigs of files off the external HD in order to reformat it. This will be a pain but I have the means to do this. Once I get everything off, how and with what method should I reformat it to work in Mac? Should I use the HFS file system or MS-DOS? Also, what utility in Mac OS lets me reformat it. As I said, I probably won't be hooking up this external HD to Windows anytime soon, but if there is a way to format it in Mac to work with Windows, then fine.
So what exactly are my options here? I understand that I can format the hard drive in Mac OS with either MS-DOS or FAT32. I just don't know which is better/faster/more reliable in Mac OS, as I'm still a Mac newbie. I don't have files that are over 2 gigs as far as I remember, so I don't think that will be an issue. If it helps, it is mostly media files (videos, music). I've read up online about formatting a drive to work with Mac OS, but there's just so much info I'm getting confused. Thanks.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.
So from what people are saying, I can format the drive in Mac OS as FAT32 (aka MS-DOS) and it will work fine between the two operating systems.
I've been reading more though and it seems that FAT32 drives can not be larger than 130 gigs? Or is that just for partitions.
I have a 350 gig hard drive and I don't plan on having any partitions. Can I just format the drive as FAT32 in Mac OS and the whole 350 gigs will be available? There's so much conflicting info in articles I've been reading.
thanks

If I have to format an external hard drive to make it Mac compatible, will it delete all the content in the external hard drive?

If I have to format an external hard drive to make it Mac compatible, will it delete all the content in the external hard drive?

As others have said, the answer to your question is a big YES. Formatting a drive will delete everything!
To keep your data, yet reformat the drive for optimal Mac compatibility, you will need to:
1) copy your files to a different hard drive (I would recommend two different locations if you value your data)
2) repartition/format the external drive
3) then copy the files back to the external.
You haven't given details but if you need the external to ONLY be compatible with the Mac (and no longer care if if can be read by Windows), then you will want to partition the drive using the GUID partition scheme, and format as the (HFS+) "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" filesystem. You can do so using the built-in "Disk Utility" application on your Mac (in the Applications/Utilities directory). Here are instructions:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ph5845
If you need the drive to be compatible with both Mac and Windows computers then please post that so someone can recommend a solution for your specific needs.

Viewing External Hard Drives on both PC Mac and in Parallels.

If someone could give me a clear answer on how to use an external hard drive b/w my Mac, Parallels and my work computer (PC) that would be most helpful.
I bought a external hard drive overseas and was having no problems with it on a PC but when i bought this Mac Book Pro i could only view and retrieve data and not write to it. I then partitioned it in the disk utility (master boot record) and am now unable to see the drive on a PC where all my files are, but it works perfect with the Mac.
I figured it was my dodgy hard drive from indonesia so i just bought a LaCie and i can't see it in the Parallels where i need to use a PC program even when i disconnect and connect when parallels are loaded. I haven't tried it on my work PC yet.
Is it possible to use a EHD between all 3 (Mac, Parallels and a PC)? if so how? and if not what are my options to maximizing the ability to access data on all three?
Thanks would appreciate any insight.
Mac Book Pro Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Hi and welcome to Discussions,
the reason why your MBP could not write to the HD was, because it was most likely formated using NTFS as file system, which OSX can read from, but not write to.
The best file system for all three is FAT32, which is read- and writeable for all three.
Two problems with FAT32:
1. single files can not be bigger in size as 4GB
2. Windows can not format partitions with FAT32, that are bigger than 32GB.
The first limitation can not be overcome with FAT32.
The second can be overcome, when using Disc Utility from OSX with MBR as partititon scheme and MS-DOS (OSX name for FAT) as file system.
Or you can use command-line program to do this with your PC: http://www.heise.de/software/download/h2format/40825
(Sorry, link is in german).
That way all three should be able to see and use the external HD.
Although it is a fact that Parallels can be picky sometimes with USB-connected drives, but with the newer versions of it, this problem has become less evident.
And since up to now Parallels does not support FireWire, you must USB with it.
Regards
Stefan

External hard drive setup for time machine reading as a virtual cd

Why is my MacBook Pro reading my external hard drive setup for time machine reading as a virtual cd?
Thanks

Hi Christian,
Is this something that has happened from the start? If so, I would reformat the disk and setup TM from scratch again.
Prepare the external HD by connecting to the Mac, open Disk Utility, select the manufacturer’s name of the external HD, select Partition and choose GUID Partition Table, format to Apple OS Extended (Journaled); quit Disk Utility.
Open System Preferences.
Click on Time Machine.
Click on “Select Disk.”
Click just to the left of "On" to turn TM on if it's not already on.
Click on the disk or partition you want to use.
Click on “Use for backup.”
Leave external HD connected, and TM will automatically do its thing.

Can you partition an external hard drive to run both mac and windows files

I have an external hard drive fomated for windows NTFS. I am unable to Write mac files to this drive. I need to be able to share the files
between both platforms. Any suggestions? Thanks

Format it as MS-DOS from a Mac or exFAT from a PC, or install Mac OS X software which allows it to write to NTFS drives, or hook it up to a PC and make it available as a network share.
(78564)

Hi, Can anyone recommended software to import dvd to iMovies. I need to import about a dozen homemade DVD's and edit them into a single DVD comprising the 'best bits'. How best can I do this. I have an external hard drive available for the job

Hi, Can anyone recommended software to import dvd to iMovies. I need to import about a dozen homemade DVD's and edit them into a single DVD comprising the 'best bits'. How best can I do this. I have an external hard drive available for the job

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http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html
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http://store.apple.com/us/product/D2187Z/A/quicktime-mpeg-2-playback-component-f or-mac-os-x
(unless you are running Lion in which case see below))
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http://www.dvdxdv.com/NewFolderLookSite/Products/DVDxDV.overview.htm
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For the benefit of others who may read this thread:
Obviously the foregoing only applies to DVDs you have made yourself, or other home-made DVDs that have been given to you. It will NOT work on copy-protected commercial DVDs, which in any case would be illegal.
And from the TOU of these forums:
Keep within the Law
No material may be submitted that is intended to promote or commit an illegal act.
Do not submit software or descriptions of processes that break or otherwise ‘work around’ digital rights management software or hardware. This includes conversations about ‘ripping’ DVDs or working around FairPlay software used on the iTunes Store.
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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3381
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External hard drive - reformat for my Mac book - HP

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