EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES AND FORMATTING
I am using 10.6.4 / Intel Macbook Pro
I have to format a drive so it can be used on both PC and Mac. In the default, store bought hard drives come formatted NTFS (I believe) - I can mount the drive but not copy to it as I only have read permission.
I am well familiar with the MSDOS fat 32 format and it is worthless.
I have to use large 1tb external drives batch copying tens of thousands of multiple files. I am constantly getting errors because of characters or the names are too long even though NTFS supports it. So even though I can mount an NTFS disk and copy the files onto a FAT32 drive, that drive still rejects a lot of the files.
So my questions are:
Do you know of a format (other than fat32) that supports both Mac and PC and can handle longer naming conventions and "&-" ampersand characters?
Or - How can I adjust permissions to write to an NTFS disk without erasing all the info on the disk?
Or - is there an app so I can read/write/mount to PC disks without futzing with permissions?
If I format standard Mac HFS will PCs be able to read write? Does journal formatting affect PCs read or write? Anyone? Thanks
Windows cannot read Mac formatted drives without third-party software like MediaFour's MacDrive. Macs can read NTFS and MSDOS but cannot write NTFS. You can modify OS X to both read and write to an NTFS formatted drive. You need two pieces of freeware:
MacFUSE-2.0.3
ntfs-3g-2010.10.2-macosx
Look for them at CNet Downloads or MacUpdate. You will also find one or two alternatives by searching for "ntfs."
Similar Messages
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Hello ...
My name is Rui, i'm from Portugal ... (so please be patiente with my english, it can get a bit confusing)
so... first of all ... i have to say ... i'm still a pc user ... i don't have a Mac ... yet ... they are sold out right now in the shops near me ... i am waitting for them to arrive so i can pick up mine ... (i wish in a couple of days i will be entering the Mac world ....) ... i'll be picking the "entery" iMac model, the 21,5'', i5 with 500gb hard disk ... well .. i know it's the cheapest one (i hope it is a good machine tho) ... but it's my entering Mac world too (my only apple products till know were the ipod ...) ... one of my concerns are being the 500gb hard drive ... that for my pc experience is a little bit short ... that makes me a little scared (but paying 300e for the next model to have a 1tb disk, it's not a good option for me right now) ...
so..
I've been reading a lot about iMac's ans OS X so i can get familiar with this all new world ...
and i couldn't get any answer for some of my doubts... so i decided to ask you Mac Users ..
My idea is to have an external HD to store files (and not to fill the 500gb of the iMac) ... and i am wondering if it would be possible to make this ...
- make three partitions on the external Hard Drive and
- the first be formatted in Mac OS extended (journaled) mode
- the second on fat 32 - so i can store and share files with a mac or pc
- third be reserved for Time Machine
i wonder would that be possible... or would make sort of incompabilities ... would it work all well ?
hummm ...
I hope someone can help me with this ...
... if it is a silly question ... sorry ... but please remember, i've never had a Mac computer (i'm waiting for my 1st iMac to be available on store) ... so a lot of things are "flying" in my head right now ...
... and of course .. sorry for my english ... i hope you all understood me ...
thanks (obrigado) a lot for your patience...
Rui from PortugalHi! Dwagner, once again ...
I've just got my Mac last friday ... i'm still getting amazed with this new world to me ... eehe .. quite different ... but
... "i can do it, i can do it" eheeh
i'm in that period that a new question appears at almost every mouse click ... lol
so ... can you help me (once again) ..
you said you had your hard drive with this settings...
"You can partition for OSX (extended Journal) - read/write by only OSX or read only by Windows via BootCamp
You can partition for Windows (NTFS) - readable by only Windows
OR - you can format with ex-FAT and this is read/write capable for both operating systems."
how did you formated the partition in NTFS ? ... on the mac? using the "disk utility" ? or did you use another program to do so ...?
i hope i'm not "bugging" you ... this might be a silly question for most of people ... but right now ... it's a major question for me ... ehehe
once again Obrigado (Thank You)
Rui from Portugal -
Backing up photos on iMac using external hard drive and time machine
How do i back up photos from my imac using an external hard drive and time machine
Thanks in advanceApple explains how to use Time Machine in http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427.
Setting up and using TM is very simple to do, connect any external HD (format as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using Disk Utility ) and your computer shoudl ask if you want to use that EHD for a Time Machine backup. If you have any questions visit your local Apple Store or reseller and they can answer how to setup and use TM and also should be able to offer suggestions on EHDs. My personal preference is OWC (www.macsales.com) Mercury Elite Pro due to the build quality and OWC's level of support. -
I am trying to save a doc. to a external hard drive and it wont allow me. I says its read only, any ideas on how to correct it?
Save it on the internal HD then copy it from this safe location to the external device.
iWork applications can't apply their save process on devices which aren't formatted as HFS+.
But it may also be that for some reason, an external device formatted as HFS+ is set to Read Only.
If it's this case, you will have to change de setting before moving the file on it.
Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) vendredi 20 mai 2011 11:01:05
Please :
Search for questions similar to your own before submitting them to the community
To be the AW6 successor, iWork MUST integrate a TRUE DB, not a list organizer ! -
How can I backup my iPhoto Library to an external hard drive and keep my photos grouped by their events?
I have attempted to make sure my iPhoto library has been backed up on the external hard drive and that it is safe to delete some events from my internal hard drive
You need to think this through.
Time Machine is a back up application. It keeps a rolling back up of the data. It's called rolling because it means you can revert to the data you had on a specific date and time. But that's not eternal, and as time goes by, and your drive fills up, older backups are deleted. So if you delete Events on your Mac they will - eventually - also be deleted from the Time Machine back up.
If you wan tot archive data hendon't use Time Machine for that job. Here's how you might archive an iPhoto Library:
Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
Now you have two full versions of the Library.
3. On the Internal library, trash the Events you don't want there
Now you have a full copy of the Library on the External and a smaller subset on the Internal
Some Notes:
As a general rule: when deleting photos do them in batches of about 100 at a time. iPhoto can baulk at trashing large numbers at one go.
You can choose which Library to open: Hold down the option (or alt) key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library'
You can keep the Library on the external updated with new imports using iPhoto Library Manager -
How can I move the photos I have in iPhoto to an external hard drive and use that as my library?
I bought a new Mac Pro. My old computers main drive is so bloated that I need to reduce it's size. I want to move my photos, music and movies to an external hard drive and have iPhoto, iTunes, and iMove access them there.
How do I do that so it work?
Thanks,
KeithMake sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
There are similar options for iMovie and iTunes, but best to check their forums for details.
Regards
TD -
I have tried transferring my iphoto library to my external hard drive and it's not working.
I have a Macbook Pro. I have recently gotten into photography and to save space on my internal hard drive, I bought an external hard drive to keep all of my photos on. It's a Toshiba with 1 TB of memory. I have searched and searched on how to transfer my iphoto library to it and I'm getting the same answer. I open two finder windows, one with pictures open, the other with the external hard drive open. I have tried to drag the iphoto library icon to the second window to the external hard drive and instead of it staying there and loading everything it gives me the circle with a diagonal line through it and floats back up to the pictures finder window. I'm not sure what the problem is, but I really need help!
you need to make sure the drive you are moving the iphoto library to is formatted in the mac OS extended journaled format
you can view and/or change this in the disk utility which is found in the utilities folder in applications within finder.
on the left side select the external HD and then click on the erase tab it will show you the format it's currnetly in, if it's not mac OS extended journaled select that from the drop down and then hit the button that says erase.
after the erase is complete try the article i gave you again to move the location of the lbrary and it should work.
good luck -
can I move all my photo that I can see on iPhoto from my Mac hardrive and put them on an external hard drive and still be able to see them as thumbnails in iPhoto? Thanks! The reason, I need to know if I can do this is b/c I am running out of HD space!sp
Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Regards
TD -
External hard drives and Error Code -36
Just wanted to know if anyone knows what this error code means. I tried copying a bunch of video files about 600-700 mb to my USB external hard drive, and this error message popped up and said the disk could not be read or written to. I contacted the manufacturer of the hard drive and they said it was not a manufacturing fault, but an issue regarding the operating system.
Does anyone know why this might be? And also, does anyone know of anyway to get around it?
Thanks.You can try DiskWarrior to repair the directory. If DW can't do it, you'll need to re-format the drive. I'd also suggest a zero out erase.
Steps for zeroing the drive Disk Utility:
1. Insert your Mac OS X CD-ROM disc or Restore DVD disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key until you see the spinning gear.
2. Once started up from CD or DVD, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from disc to access Disk Utility.
3. Choose the entire disk (top icon).
4. Choose erase tab.
5. Click on "Security Options"
6. Choose "write zeros".
7. Erase
This will take a bit of time because the computer is physically writing zeros to each block. -
How to move huge HD video files between external hard drives and defrag ext drive?
I have huge high definition video files on a 2TB external hard drive (and its clone). The external hard drive is maxed out. I would like to move many of the video files to a new 3TB external hard drive (G-drive, and a clone) and leave a sub-group of video files (1+ TB) on the original external hard drive (and its clone).
I am copying files from original external drive ("ext drive A") to new external drive ("ext drive B") via Carbon Copy Cloner (selecting iMovie event by event that I want to transfer). Just a note: I do not know how to partition or make bootable drives, I see suggestions with these steps in them.
My questions:
1.) I assume this transfer of files will create extreme fragmentation on drive A. Should I reformat/re-initialize ext drive A after moving the files I want? If so, how best to do this? Do I use "Erase" within Disk Utilities? Do I need to do anything else before transfering files back onto ext drive A from its clone?
2.) Do I also need to defrag if I reformat ext drive A? Do I defrag instead of or in addition to reformating? If so, how to do this? I've read on these forums so many warnings and heard too many stories of this going awry. Which 3rd party software to use?
Thank you in advance for any suggestions, tips, advice. This whole process makes me SO nervous.Here is a very good writeup on de-fragging in the OS environment that I borrowed
From Klaus1:
Defragmentation in OS X:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1375 which states:
You probably won't need to optimize at all if you use Mac OS X. Here's why:
Hard disk capacity is generally much greater now than a few years ago. With more free space available, the file system doesn't need to fill up every "nook and cranny." Mac OS Extended formatting (HFS Plus) avoids reusing space from deleted files as much as possible, to avoid prematurely filling small areas of recently-freed space.
Mac OS X 10.2 and later includes delayed allocation for Mac OS X Extended-formatted volumes. This allows a number of small allocations to be combined into a single large allocation in one area of the disk.
Fragmentation was often caused by continually appending data to existing files, especially with resource forks. With faster hard drives and better caching, as well as the new application packaging format, many applications simply rewrite the entire file each time. Mac OS X 10.3 onwards can also automatically defragment such slow-growing files. This process is sometimes known as "Hot-File-Adaptive-Clustering."
Aggressive read-ahead and write-behind caching means that minor fragmentation has less effect on perceived system performance.
Whilst 'defragging' OS X is rarely necessary, Rod Hagen has produced this excellent analysis of the situation which is worth reading:
Most users, as long as they leave plenty of free space available , and don't work regularly in situations where very large files are written and rewritten, are unlikely to notice the effects of fragmentation on either their files or on the drives free space much.
As the drive fills the situations becomes progressively more significant, however.
Some people will tell you that "OSX defrags your files anyway". This is only partly true. It defrags files that are less than 20 MB in size. It doesn't defrag larger files and it doesn't defrag the free space on the drive. In fact the method it uses to defrag the smaller files actually increases the extent of free space fragmentation. Eventually, in fact, once the largest free space fragments are down to less than 20 MB (not uncommon on a drive that has , say only 10% free space left) it begins to give up trying to defrag altogether. Despite this, the system copes very well without defragging as long as you have plenty of room.
Again, this doesn't matter much when the drive is half empty or better, but it does when it gets fullish, and it does especially when it gets fullish if you are regularly dealing with large files , like video or serious audio stuff.
If you look through this discussion board you will see quite a few complaints from people who find that their drive gets "slow". Often you will see that say that "still have 10 or 20 gigs free" or the like. On modern large drives by this stage they are usually in fact down to the point where the internal defragmentation routines can no longer operate , where their drives are working like navvies to keep up with finding space for any larger files, together with room for "scratch files", virtual memory, directories etc etc etc. Such users are operating in a zone where they put a lot more stress on their drives as a result, often start complaining of increased "heat", etc etc. Most obviously, though, the computer slows down to a speed not much better than that of molasses. Eventually the directories and other related files may collapse altogether and they find themselves with a next to unrecoverable disk problems.
By this time, of course, defragging itself has already become just about impossible. The amount of work required to shift the data into contiguous blocks is immense, puts additional stress on the drive, takes forever, etc etc. The extent of fragmentation of free space at this stage can be simply staggering, and any large files you subsequently write are likely to be divided into many , many tens of thousands of fragments scattered across the drive. Not only this, but things like the "extents files", which record where all the bits are located, will begin to grow astronomically as a result, putting even more pressure on your already stressed drive, and increasing the risk of major failures.
Ultimately this adds up to a situation where you can identify maybe three "phases" of mac life when it comes to the need for defragmentation.
In the "first phase" (with your drive less than half full), it doesn't matter much at all - probably not enough to even make it worth doing.
In the "second phase" (between , say 50% free space and 20% free space remaining) it becomes progressively more useful, but , depending on the use you put your computer to you won't see much difference at the higher levels of free space unless you are serious video buff who needs to keep their drives operating as efficiently and fast as possible - chances are they will be using fast external drives over FW800 or eSata to compliment their internal HD anyway.
At the lower end though (when boot drives get down around the 20% mark on , say, a 250 or 500 Gig drive) I certainly begin to see an impact on performance and stability when working with large image files, mapping software, and the like, especially those which rely on the use of their own "scratch" files, and especially in situations where I am using multiple applications simultaneously, if I haven't defragmented the drive for a while. For me, defragmenting (I use iDefrag too - it is the only third party app I trust for this after seeing people with problems using TechToolPro and Drive Genius for such things) gives a substantial performance boost in this sort of situation and improves operational stability. I usually try to get in first these days and defrag more regularly (about once a month) when the drive is down to 30% free space or lower.
Between 20% and 10% free space is a bit of a "doubtful region". Most people will still be able to defrag successfully in this sort of area, though the time taken and the risks associated increase as the free space declines. My own advice to people in this sort of area is that they start choosing their new , bigger HD, because they obviously are going to need one very soon, and try to "clear the decks" so that they maintain that 20% free buffer until they do. Defragging regularly (perhaps even once a fortnight) will actually benefit them substantially during this "phase", but maybe doing so will lull them into a false sense of security and keep them from seriously recognising that they need to be moving to a bigger HD!
Once they are down to that last ten per cent of free space, though, they are treading on glass. Free space fragmentation at least will already be a serious issue on their computers but if they try to defrag with a utility without first making substantially more space available then they may find it runs into problems or is so slow that they give up half way through and do the damage themselves, especially if they are using one of the less "forgiving" utilities!
In this case I think the best way to proceed is to clone the internal drive to a larger external with SuperDuper, replace the internal drive with a larger one and then clone back to it. No-one down to the last ten percent of their drive really has enough room to move. Defragging it will certainly speed it up, and may even save them from major problems briefly, but we all know that before too long they are going to be in the same situation again. Better to deal with the matter properly and replace the drive with something more akin to their real needs once this point is reached. Heck, big HDs are as cheap as chips these days! It is mad to struggle on with sluggish performance, instability, and the possible risk of losing the lot, in such a situation. -
I have just purchased my 1st Mac Mini,
I haven't imported any music yet except from purchased music.
I have 100gb of music on an external hard drive (already formatted to Mac OS Journaled.
I want my iTunes to be store on the External Hard drive, and to update my External Hard drive with new music I add to iTunes.
I also want to know the best way of adding my music on the Ext Hard drive e.g.: "add folder to library" or "import"
I plan on buying a Macbook Pro soon, and want to be able to use the same iTunes library.Launch iTunes with the Option key held down, click on Choose Library, and specify it. If the external drive doesn't contain the iTunes database files, create a new library there and import that music.
If the library contains any rented movies, they won't play on a different computer.
(109334) -
My hard disk has been damaged for about 4 months now. When I ran the disk repair under disk utility, it told me to back my files and send it in for repairs. My problem is that I had a external hard drive, but I lost it, so I obviously can't back up my files. Also I tried using other external hard drives and that didn't work, pretty sure it was because they were not formatted for a mac. So my question is that if I send my computer to Apple, for repair, that would they back up my files there before repairing my computer. It could be a dumb question but at least I asked. Also my mouse pad no longer works. The "clickability" of it stopped about 3 months or so after getting the computer and just around last Christmas the mouse would not click anymore at all, it would move if one put there fingers on the mousepad but it would not "touch click" anymore. So yeah, help!
And the OS X was still a snow leopard, not sure the number of the OS.Can't you just get another external drive, format it for Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and backup some if not all of your files? Apple's not in the data recovery business. You should have maintained a backup and now it might be too late. Your best bet would probably be just to call it a loss and buy both an internal, to put in your machine, and an external, for backup purposes. You can boot from your installer disc, format the 'new' internal and begin restoring your apps at least.
I'll never understand why some people don't have backups. Drives fail. It's best to have redundant backups so that all three or four drives don't all fail at once.
Sheesh - I know that I'm not helping your problem but maybe now you've learned your lesson and others will as well.
Clinton -
How do I move music from an old external hard drive to a new external hard drive and have itunes find it?
If you have a time machine back up of your current drive you can do this
Shut down your computer, install the new drive. While the computer is off plug in the external hard drive that you have your time machine back up on. Hold Option key while the computer turnes on, let go of the option key once you get a grey screen. Shortly after you'll see a list of bootable drives, select the one that has your time machine back up on it and boot into that drive.
From there go into disk utility, format your new drive too, osx extended journaled ( I think, double check that, its been awhile since ive had to do this), hit format
Exit disk utility and then you can use time machine to copy all your exisit data to the new hhd and then your pretty much done.
There is also a program called Carbon Cloner that will do esentially the same thing however I've never uesed it. -
External Hard Drive and Time Machine questions
Hello, I am new here to the forums and I have looked all over for the answers to two questions that I have regarding external hard drives and the time machine feature.
For some background, I recently had a scare (water spill but luckily I had a keyboard cover on and the entire spill landed on the cover) with my Mid-2012 13" Macbook Pro (2.5Ghz) and due to almost losing all my data I've decided to invest in an external hard drive. However, rather than just purchasing a 500GB HDD to use as an external hard drive, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and upgrade my Macbook Pro as well by investing in the 480GB OCW Mercury Extreme Pro SSD. I'll be using the SSD as my internal drive so the original hard drive that came with my Macbook will serve as my backup external drive. Lastly, I plan to use the external drive solely for the purpose of backing up my MacBook in case something ever happens to my Macbook.
I am using this guide to help me with this whole process: http://circuitremix.com/?q=content/macbook-pro-solid-state-drive-upgrade-guide-a nd-performance-testing.
My two questions are:
1) When following the guide, it never mentions anything about the Partition Map Scheme. After being alerted to this and doing some additional research, is it better to go with the GUID Partition Table rather than the Master Boot Record?
2) After I have cloned everything onto my new SSD and replaced the HDD in my MacBook with it, should I erase everything on my HDD before setting it up with time machine? I was thinking about keeping the original data on the original hard drive (which would now be my external drive) just in case something goes wrong with time machine but I have read that people recommend solely dedicating the entire external hard drive for time machine backups.
Thanks in advance!Format the new SSD in Disk Utility to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and that will solve question No. 1.
After formatting, clone the new SSD using Disk Utility>Restore or Carbon Copy Cloner (down load from the Internet). Test the new SSD and if it performs as expected, do the physical swap.
Question No. 2. Erase the Time Machine HDD using Disk Utility and then install Time Machine. See this excellent website regarding Time Machine.
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
If you want an external boot HHD, get another one and use Carbon Copy Cloner. This will give you redundancy in backups as well which is a good strategy. CCC also can update the contents in an incremental manner similar to Time Machine.
Ciao. -
I have MacBook Pro. I have my iPhoto library on external hard drive only. It has 30,000 photos on it. I have bought a 2nd external hard drive and would like to copy my iPhoto library onto it as a back up. I tried plugging both in and dragging the iPhoto library into the 2nd external harddrive. It looked as though it was working as it said 20 hours, however I then got a message box saying FiNader could not complete the task due to incompatible files. How do I do this please.
lllaass wrote:
Yes, you should format the HD.
A Mac can natively write to a NTSF drive and that is what most drives com formatted with.
You should use the Mac journaled format.
Once again you are posting incorrect information
Until we know what format the drive is it is impossible to state that it must be formatted - that is just a guess
And a Mac can not Natively write to an NTSF drive - it can natively read it but can not write to it with special software
And since formatting a drive erases it it is critical to tell users not to format until they have a positively known good backup
The TOU for these forum state that you should test your answers prior to posting them -- you obviously are not doing that and you advice is endangering users photos - please only post tested answers
LN
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