External Hard Drive with Snow Leopard/Windows 7

I just bought a 500GB external HD that I would like to be able to use with Snow Leopard AND Win 7. I won't be using it for any Time Machine backups. I just want to be able to read/write files on it with both Leopard and Win 7.
Is there any recommended format procedures in order to be able to do this. I may be wrong, but I don't think I can read/write to my external Time Machine external hard drive with my Windows lap top running Win 7.

a TM drive must be formatted mac os extended and windows can't even read that without extra software like Mac Drive. It also requires that the partition scheme be GUID which it's most likely not at the moment so repartition the drive with correct partition scheme now if you do decide to use it for TM in the future. also, snow bootcamp drivers once you install them in windows will let you red (but not write) to mac os extended formatted drives.
the only FS which is natively read+write from both OS X and windows is FAT. but it's very old and has many deficiencies especially on the OS X side.
but it's good for interoperability.
or you can format the drive NTFS and use some software like NTFS-3g or NTFS for mac by paragon to make it writable from OS X.
you may also wish to split the drive in two partitions and format them differently.

Similar Messages

Can't boot from external hard drive with Snow Leopard

I bought a new Macbook Air with Lion. I have my old Snow Leopard installation cloned onto an external hard drive, and I want to boot from it. I can choose my external hard drive during boot, it shows the Apple logo, but after that the screen goes black and nothing happens. Is there a way to fix this?

Can't be done. Snow Leopard does not contain necessary drivers and perhaps other items required for OS X on the 2011 MBA. In fact, the version of Lion on the App store won't install on the 2011 MBA.
This is totally normal in Apple's world. A new version of MAC hardware that comes with a new version of OS X installed usually will not operate correctly with previous versions of OS X.

I'm trying to boot my new iMac running Mavericks from an external hard drive with Snow leopard but it fails with a window telling me to power down manually. It works with my old iMac.

I have made a bootable copy of OS 10.6.8 onto an external G-drive from my 2007 24" iMac with success. I can't boot up my my new 2013 imac that has Mavericks installed. Any suggestions?

trey4 wrote:
I have made a bootable copy of OS 10.6.8 onto an external G-drive from my 2007 24" iMac with success. I can't boot up my my new 2013 imac that has Mavericks installed. Any suggestions?
Why do you want to run Snow Leopard on your new 2013 iMac with Mavericks?

Can I have mavericks time machine on one partition of a WD external hard drive and snow leopard data on another

can I have mavericks time machine on one partition of a WD external hard drive and snow leopard data on another

If you want to and it is so large that it has room (350% is a good estimate for TimeMachine), then use a partition(s) to hold system restore images or bootable clones. Or VM images.
Using SSDs most Mac Pro models can easily hold 6 or more storage devices inside, except the nMP cylinder 6,1's; which do need external Thunderbolt and USB3.
System drive / data / scratch / backup data / backups of system / ....
I recommend a couple system backups, especially when faced with dual boot situations as well as an OS that is still undergoing updates and changes.

External Hard drives and Snow leopard

Many of us here have huge files of images - and many of us store them on external hard drives using eSATA drves.
I have 15 TB of files on external drives, with tens of thousands of clients images.
And, now, it turns out that Snow Leopard cannot work with the Silicon Image drivers that run my external drives.
So, if I update to Snow Leopard, I will not be able to read from or write to my 15 external drives.
That boggles my mind! How can these companies fail to get their acts together and fail to make their systems work with 10.6?
I am afraid that Apple is becoming marginalized in the graphic workplace. CS4 runs faster on PCs - and CS5 is only in the future. And, now, I cannot even see my files if I update to Snow Leopard.
I need a driver that will support fifteen (15) 1 TB hard drives in 3 DATA Opitic enclosure while using Snow Leopard ... anyone else facing this problem?
Dick

Dick, Snow Leopard has only been out for 3 days. It's a little early to decry Silcon Image for not having a driver available. The sad reality is that eSATA support for both windows and mac has always been poor. I've tried MANY times with both systems to convert to eSATA and every time have foudn it unreliable. SI was the best, IMHO, but even that seemed to have problems for me over the long run. It's no excuse but the blame does not lie with Adobe or Apple. Further SI doesn't to my knowedge only makes chips and doesn't market directly to end users, so someone else is responsible for your support, who marketed your eSATA card?
You're posting to an Adobe Photoshop forum about what you know to be an Silcon Image problem.... I know you're looking for other to commiserate with, but you really need to contact SI or the manufacturer of the card.

Can I boot an internal hard drive with snow leopard?

Hi, I Have an Mid 07 macbook which i'm in the process of upgrading. I have a hard drive that i am up grading from 160gb to 500gb. my problem is i dont have a boot disc, because it's ethier been lost or didn't come with one. my question is can i just format the new hard drive with a copy of snow leopard?

Clean Install of Snow Leopard
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc. Insert the disc into the
         optical drive and restart the computer. After the chime press and hold down the
         "C" key. Release the key when you see a small spinning gear appear below the
         dark gray Apple logo.
     2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
         button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, set the format type to Mac
         OS Extended (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Partition button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
         Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.

Mac Pro can't find hard drive with Snow Leopard installed on

Hello there,
I have a three harddrive setup.
Harddrive 1 is in bay 1 and has two partitions.
1: For system and apps
2: For Documents and stuff
Hard drive 2+3 are in Bay 2+3 and are combined to a RAID 0 drive.
Some time ago I installed Leopard and the brand new an formatted hard drive.
It happened that it always took 2 start ups to run Leopard because always on the first time it didn t find the system on hard drive one. Pushing the 'D' button often helped.
Of course that was nothing to work with, although I at least could get some work done, once I loaded Leopard successfully.
So I tried Disk Utility, fsck without success.
I also tried the way of using fdisk to mark the partion as active, which only resulted in now not being able to boot at all.
Booting from DVD I also tried choosing my Leopard install on my hard drive as boot device (it has always shown up here) but still without success.
I am afraid things are quite messed up, since there were a few things happening at one time, which I am not overly happy about now. (Installing new RAM, installing SNOW LEOPARD on the new harddrive 1 in bay one, having still the RAID with LEOPARD on in bays 2+3).
I am already certain to do a fresh and complete reinstall of the system, I have my backup, but still there is some iTunes music and a few documents I haven't backed up yet, which I'd rather would not like to lose...
Put it short:
What could I do to get my system running at least once?
Thanks a lot,
max.

After some research I found out about the nice TargetDiskMode which I used to save all my important data with my MacBook.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
Ready to perform a complete and fresh install now!
Max.

I made a bootable disc on an external hard drive, with Yosemite on it. I am running Snow Leopard on my iMac. How can I open the Yosemite disc from the desktop on my iMac? Does the external hard drive need to be connected to my iMac by firewire to

I made a bootable disc on an external hard drive, with Yosemite on it. I am running Snow Leopard on my iMac. How can I open the Yosemite disc from the desktop on my iMac? Does the external hard drive need to be connected to my iMac by firewire to do that?

kahjot wrote:
Snow Leopard's Startup Disk pref can’t see Yosemite volumes. So the only way to switch from Snow Leopard to Yosemite is to do what Niel mentioned. Doesn't matter whether it's connected by USB or Firewire, although performance via FW would be faster.
Are you saying that Yos/10.10, as a volume located in a mounted external drive won't appear as an option in Snow Leopard's Startup Disc, in Sys Prefs? I've never heard this one before. AFAIK any mounted volume, regardless of OS, should appear there. I would think that, if it appears in the Boot Picker/Startup Manager it would also appear and could be booted to from Snow's Startup Disk. I can't test this myself, since I don't have Yos. Is what you are saying documented somewhere?

I tried to install a new hard drive using Snow Leopard to back up with Time Machine. When I installed the new HD I installed Leopard (10.5) on it and tried to use time machine to restore the backup I had made using 10.6. Kernel panic screen occurred.

I backed up my system using 10.6 Snow Leopard's Time Machine to an external hard drive. I did this because I purchased a new internal hard drive to upgrade my 2007 White Macbook from 80GB to 320GB. When I installed the new hard drive, I installed 10.4 (Tiger) and then 10.5 (Leopard) and once Leopard was in I tried to use Time Machine to restore my backup from 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and received a kernal panic screen directly after the bootup.
The screen had code asking for 10.6, so does this mean that the computer is searching for Snow Leopard? If so, how can I do this? Will a bootable drive with Snow Leopard on it be able to solve the issue or will I somehow need to find a way to wipe out this new hard drive?
-Steve

Booting From Snow Leopard Installer Disc
1. Insert Snow Leopard Installer Disc into the optical drive.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple logo appears.
5. Wait for installer to finish loading.
Drive Preparation and Installation
1. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. After formatting is complete quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.

I have a seagate external hard drive with files copied from windows pc. If I will download NTFS driver from seagate to my mac, could I install it safely without harming my files in the external hard drive? I am afraid I may erase all files in there.

I have a seagate external hard drive with files transferred from my windows pc. If I will download NTFS Driver from seagate to my mac, could I install it safely without harming my files? I am afraid.. I might erase all my important files during the installation..

Thanks a lot! I have already downloaded Paragon Driver and it works well with seagate external hard drive. I am copying as of now my important files from my mac to it. However, I have only the trial version which will expire in 10 days. I don't have credit card to buy for it.

External hard drive for Mac and Windows?

Hey all,
Is it possible to set up an external hard drive with a partition that has one side compatible with Mac and the other with Windows, similar to a Boot Camp setup on an internal drive? If so, how do I do that? Thanks for any advice you can give.

Rekishika:
Yes it is possible. Use Disk Utility from Leopard and partition the external drive to the desired space for each. Format one side with Mac HFS+ Journaled and the other with FAT32 (You can reformat the FAT32). You can also format both external partitions to FAT32 if you want Leopard and Windows to access (read and write)either one of them.
Axel F.

Cannot access shared external hard drive with other mac accounts

I cannot access a shared external hard drive with other mac accounts (all accounts are on the same macbook Pro). The shared external drive is shared via time capsule and is connected (of course) in USB. I see well this external hard drive as a shared disk with my main account. Yes shared option has been activated with the Airport Utility .. but when I open other account these othe accounts can see the external drive but cannot access to its content that is flagged with a no way sign. Strangely enough when I close my main account and start opening a new session with one of the other account then fine I can access the external hard drive and its content .. BUT then it is from my main account than I cannot access its content the no way sign showing ..
Looks like only one account at a time can access the content of this SHARED external hard drive .. any one as an idea on how to really make it a shared hard drive so that all accounts on the same mac can also access it ? I am at my wit ends on this case. THANKS ..

Results of my enquiries at Apple Genius Bar .. the guys found the problem interesting. They've been unable to provide a fix neither to give any explanation as to the reason why. To be fair I was not much impressed by the technical level demonstrated ..
In the mean time I have found that if account no.1 can see the shared external drive content and in such case account no.2 (same Mac computer) cannot see its content (only the external HD with a no way sign) this account no.2 can UNMOUNT (by ejecting) this external HD from account 1 and then remount it (just clicking on the TC shared part in a finder window) and .. see and access its content ; whilst account no.1 cannot see its content anylonger. Unless it unmounts the shared external HD and remount it .. then account no.2 can see its content anylonger. This can goes on an on.
So eventually YES the TC can allow to share a USB external drive between several accounts and a same Mac .. BUT this require to unmount and remount EACH time the external drive is accessed from a "no.2 account". So OK to share files with seldom access but not practical in case of frequent access needed.
I just I have now to figure how iTunes can automatically unmount and remount a shared external HD when it needs to access one of this shared HD content from on time account no.1 and then next time from account no.2. May be I am asking too much ..

Can't play music from external hard drive through iTunes on Windows 8?

I recenty bought a new laptop running Windows 8 with a small internal hard drive, so I don't want to store all my music on it. I backed up my iTunes library onto an external hard drive, but when I plug this into my new laptop I can't play my music no matter what I do.
I have tried:
- selecting the newly created iTunes library by pressing Shift when opening iTunes and playing a song directly through the iTunes player. It selects the song, comes up with the speaker icon next to it to indicate it is playing, but the time doesn't count down and no music plays
- I have gone into Advanced Preferences and specified the iTunes media folder location, still no songs play
- coped a single song onto my new laptop desktop and tried to play this through iTunes, Media Player and the Music app. Media player says "Windows Media Player encountered a problem while playing the file". The Music app says it can't find any music on the computer, so when I select the music folder from my hard drive, it says "Can't Play. Make sure your computer's sound and video cards are working and have the latest drivers, then try again".
I know my laptop can play sound and video as I can watch YouTube videos with no problems. I went to Windows Update, and there are no available updates, I already have every available update.
I have also plugged in a different external hard drive, with different music files on it, and have encountered the exact same problems. It seems I can't play any music at all on this laptop. I know the files are not corrupted, as I can plug both hard drives into a different laptop that runs on Windows 7 and play the music on them with no troubles. Could it be a problem with the files compatibility with Windows 8?
I can also access my iPhone backup through this iTunes library on the new computer, so I know there is no problem with my backup.

I am experiencing a similar problem in Windows 7 64bit. Since my laptop has a 128gb SSD, I have loaded my iTunes library on to an external drive. I can sync my iPhones and iPads from this library, and the songs play fine from those devices. However, when I select a song from my library, and click the play button, nothing happens. iTunes does nothing. I have also tried right-clicking mp3s in my library and selecting "Play", with no results. I do not receive an error message of any kind.
I have also noticed that some of my mp3's within iTunes denote the Time as 00:00. The same mp3's will play and register properly using other mp3 players on my computer, and they also play normally on my iPhones and iPads.
I am running Windows 7 x64 on a Lenovo T530, in iTunes 11.1.3. Everything else in iTunes appears to function normally. I can listen to internet radio stations without an issue, through iTunes, and they play as they should. I have tried three different external drives, with different drive formats, and they all have the same issue. If I copy my iTunes library back to my internal drive, iTunes will play my mp3s.
I did not have this issue with iTunes 10, so I am assuming it is something that has occured within the last few updates.
Has anyone found a fix for this? Unfortunately, I am forced to use iTunes 11 because of my iOS devices, otherwise I would revert to iTunes 10.

Can you use external hard drives with the HP Omni 10 5600US

Since this a Windows tablet, can you use external hard drives with the HP Omni 10 5600US?
I know there is a micro-sd reader for additional storage but can you use the usb for external hard drives like a regular pc?
I tried looking at the spec's for this tablet and it said the usb port was host only. I'm not sure what that means exactly.

Yes you can. You'll need to purchase a USB OTG (on-the-go) cable. I recommend using a drive that has its own power supply but I've successfully used small USB powered drives also.

I am not able to use my external hard drive with my Mac.

I am not able to use my external hard drive with my Mac. It was initially used with my Windows 7 laptop. Now when I insert my Hard drive in the Mac, it doesn't allow me to delete, format, make folders or copy new files on to my hard drive. I no longer have a Windows PC and am stuck. I tried going to Disc utilities,selected my HD, clicked on Erase and then changed the Format type to MS-DOS (FAT) but no luck .. Any other steps or advice?

It was likely formatted in NTFS which is readable by the Mac, but not writeable.
You should be able to reformat the disk in Disk Utility.
After having copied all the data off of it, you can try re-partitioning it.
Select the hard drive in the disk list in Disk Utility. Hard drives are the device itself, are left-aligned in the list, and are usually named with the manufacturer, size, and model number.
Click on the Partition tab.
Select 1-partition from the partition menu.
Click the Options button and set to GUID
Set the format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Give the Volume a name and click Apply.

External Hard Drive with Snow Leopard/Windows 7

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