External Hardrive - from PC to Mac
I recently got a Macbook and when I plugged in my external hard drive (used originally on my Toshiba) I am able to see all my files however when I wanted to transfer photo to the hard drive I am not able to. No pop-up messages just the circle with line through it that doesn't allow you to move documents.
Looking online there seems to be complicated ways of reformatting a hard drive but will this wipe all the data? And, if I want to be able to use it on both a PC and a Mac is that possible to have it formatted for both?
Any help would be great for a non-tech savy Apple convert!
Thanks
1. Yes, it will. In any case, all the files you want to keep should be on at least two drives; one may fail at any time.
2. Use FAT32 or exFAT.
(117568)
Similar Messages
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Reformatting an external HD from Windows to Mac
I tried to re-format an external (LaCie) hard drive from Windows to Mac using the Erase option in the Disk Utility, but it would not go through. The error message is not informative; it just states the formatter encountered an error and was unable to finish the operation. Any pointers on how to solve this issue? Thanks!
Hi and welcome to Discussions,
you should use the 'Partition-Tab' from Disk Utility and then click on the 'Option'-Button to set the partition Table to GPT (GUID partition Table).
Sounds to me like the external HD is till using the MBR (Master Boot Record) common to Windows PC on which you can't make a partition using the 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' file system.
Regards
Stefan -
Seagate Expansion 3TB External Hardrive trouble reformatting for mac.
It is a pain in the *** trying to reformat my Seagate Expansion 3TB so I can use it with my mac. Im sick of having people tell me stupid stuff on how I can reofrmat it but it doesent work. Apparently its not even formatted as it says. Please help if you think you can resolve this issue of mine. Thanks
http://youtu.be/ltPuFaazQGIConnect the HDD to your MBP and open Disk Utility>Erase. Select the external HDD from the column on the left and the click on the ERASE button. Select the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format.
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Formating my external HD from pc to mac...
Hi, i have just moved from pc to mac. I have a WD 500 pro. I reformated it on my pc, it is recognised by the mac, but when I try to use it as a backup system using retrospect 6.1, it doesn't recognise there is a drive there....
Also drag and drop doesn't work, it says the file cannot be modified....
I have tryed to format it using the mac using disk utility, but I can't get the HD into the right hand window..... I have looked in the help and it has something to do with the S.M.A.R.T status:not supported.
Help...Hi kim
Your drive is probably formatted NTFS, the default Windows format which Macs can read, but cannot write to.
If you want to continue being able to use it on both Mac and PC, you should format it to "MS-DOS Format" (also known as FAT32)
If you only want to use it on the Mac, format it as Mac Extended (Journaled).
For either of these, in Disk Utility, you would highlight the drive in the left hand pane, then go to the Erase tab, set the format, and click Erase. What happens when you try this? How is the drive connected to the Mac?
Matt -
Format an Ethernet Connected External Drive from PC to Mac System
Hi there, apologies for my ignorance however after suffering Windows PCs for 35 years I have finally changed over to 2 iMacs and loving it.
I have a new model WD 1 TB (MsDOS formatted) external drive attached to my router via ethernet.
My iMac (imac7,1 a running OS X 10.5.2) recognises the external drive as a "PC Server" fine and I can access it from Finder and copy files to it.
Unfortuneately NEITHER Disk Utility nor Timemachine recognises its existance.
I believe I may have to format the drive for the Mac system. However how can I do this if Disk Utility does not recognise it as a drive? Is there some utility available that allows me to format an Ethernet attached PC drive to the Mac system.
Thanking you in advanceTime Machine can't use a NAS drive even if it's formatted with a GUID partition map scheme and HFS+ Journaled. Apple dropped support for network drives before they released Leopard last year.
Apple does support their own Time Capsule device and network backups to Leopard Server running Time Machine Server.
There's not much point in formatting the drive at all if you ever plan to be able to connect to it with a PC. -
Problem accessing Seagate External Harddrive from iMac and Mac Book Air
I have a brand new Seagate 2TB external harddrive which I have just used to backup my entire iMac files (photos, videos, etc) via the Time Capsule programme. However I now can't access the files which apparently have been copied onto the Segate. I have now connected the Seagate to my Mac Book Air and it is not even being recognised as an external storage device.
Is someone able to tell me how I can access the files on the external drive?do you mean "time machine" as opposed to "time capsule" the latter is a back up drive in itself.
before you did your backup was your seagate drive formatted or did you just connect and instruct the mac to back up to the drive.
if the drive was not formatted then you will need to format the drive using disc utility. -
Convert External HD from PC to Mac
I have an external hard drive hooked up to a PC. I no longer use the PC and would like to use the external HD with this iMac. I have a feeling that it will not work because it's probably formated for the PC. How can I make it work with the iMac.
Can I just plug it into the USB port and reformat it? If so, how do I configure it to re-format it?Hello and Welcome to Apple Discussions.
I've never used a MacBook Pro nor TimeMachine so you may be best to ask in a more relevant forum.
Windows can't read HFS+ drives by default but the application MacDrive (link) will enable them to do so. Clearly you can't install this on the PCs at school.
Also TimeMachine takes up large amounts of space so I would serious recommend purchasing different drives for these two distinct purposes.
In fact, for transferring a few files between school and home a USB Thumb Drive formated in FAT32 (can be write/read by both) is probably more than enough.
cheers
mrtotes -
Buying external hardrive for Mac OS X 10.5.8
I am looking to buy an external hardrive but I can't find any that are compatible with my version of the mac. What external hardrives are compatible with Mac OS X 10.5.8?
Most any drive will work, some are far better than others, & the System Requirements are for some software provided on the drive that not only you likely do not need, but even more likely don't want to install.
Allan's suggested link is good.
I'd really avoid Bus powered drives unless you simply must have portability. -
External hardrive not workon on MacBook Pro
I own a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex that is 1TB and have had it for about 3 or 4 years. I used to be able to plug it in and with ease insert files (pictures, music, documents, etc .. basically everything in case my MacBook stops functioning.)
Back in May, I took my external hardrive to my University before I graduated and I could not insert some video files (using another computer, which was a Mac.) Our school's tech expert said it was because my external hardrive is not applicable with Macs. Long story short, I showed him I can do it on my MacBook Pro, then I had to save my video files on a flash drive instead. Anyway.
I want to back up everything incase the MacBook stops working soon (it's six years old.) However, when I put in my external hardrive, I can't change the name of files/folders in the external hardrive nor can I insert anything into the hardrive. Oddly enough, I can drag stuff into my desktop and it will copy a file into my desktop while the same file still stays on my hardrive.
My MacBook Pro is Version 10.9.5 (if it matters) and I have more than 90 GB of free space on my MacBook and have nearly 700 GB of free space on my external hardrive and obviously I'd like to use that. Also, I'd like to use my external hardrive not just on Macs, but all machines in case I need to save large files. I used to be able to do this at one point, especially with a previously owned hardrive (it was Western Digital.)
Anyway, that's all the info. All help would be greatly appreciated.Chiefsfan212006 wrote:
Back in May, I took my external hardrive to my University before I graduated and I could not insert some video files (using another computer, which was a Mac.) Our school's tech expert said it was because my external hardrive is not applicable with Macs. Long story short, I showed him I can do it on my MacBook Pro, then I had to save my video files on a flash drive instead. Anyway.
I meant to also say that your school's tech expert does not appear to be much of an expert. -
I have an external hardrive for MAC, I needed to save something from my work computer so I can pass it on to my MAC, it requiered me to re-format my external HD and now when I connected to my MAC I only have "read only rights". How do I fix it? I run my Itnues from this external and now my library is gone. Luckily I have it saved somewhere else, which is not a problem, but I won't be able to write to this HD for right now. I can't see an option to give those permission back.
cptjuanjvarona wrote:
I have an external hardrive for MAC, I needed to save something from my work computer so I can pass it on to my MAC, it requiered me to re-format my external HD and now when I connected to my MAC I only have "read only rights". How do I fix it?...
Unless what you have to transfer is enormous, skip the external HD altogether and use a USB flash drive; you can get them with capacities to 128GB. Format the flash drive as FAT32 or ExFAT as LowLuster suggests so it can be read and written to on both PC's and your Mac. -
I am switching to Apple macbook pro from Windows laptop. Is Apple compatible with Microsoft Office? How can I transport from Windows to Mac? What I have saved on external hardrives, will I be able to open it on Mac?
Office for Mac, http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products, can open/edit/create Office documents.If your external drive is formatted NTFS then you can copy the Office documents to your computer and work on them. You won't be able to save the files back to your NTFS formatted drive. But you will be able to save the documents to your internal drive. You can move all the external files to your internal drive then format the external drive for Apple. Then you can copy the files back to your external drive for ongoing use.
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I am switching to Apple macbook pro from Windows laptop. Is Apple compatible with Microsoft Office? How can I transport from Windows to Mac? What I have saved on external hardrives, will I be able to open it on Mac?
Is Apple compatible with Microsoft Office?
Any computer is compatible as long as it can read and write Office files. But for perfect (or at least near perfect) compatibility, you would want to purchase Office 2011 for Mac.
How can I transport from Windows to Mac?
You can't directly transport any installation of Windows. All PC's come with a machine specific version of Windows intended for that PC. They don't have all of the hardware drivers the retail disks cover.
If you want Windows on your Mac, you would first purchase a full version copy (NOT an upgrade disk) of Windows 7 or 8. Those are the only supported versions on newer Macs. You install it through the supplied Boot Camp utility that comes with the Mac to create a new partition for Windows, and then install the retail copy of Windows you purchased.
The reason only these versions of Windows are supported is the same basic reason as a machine specific version of Windows for a PC. Apple only includes the necessary Mac hardware drivers for Win 7 or 8 on new Macs.
Once Windows is installed, you could then install the version of Office for Windows you already own. The nuisance of a Boot Camp partition is that you have to physically boot to either Windows or OS X, so you can only use the apps of the OS you're in at the time. To use both at once, you'd have to use virtual machine software (Parallels, VMware, VirtualBox) and then install Windows within that. Then you'd be able to run Windows inside of OS X and have access to both at the same time. -
My mac won't recognize my external hardrive!!
I have a Maxtor One Touch II 300GB external hardrive with all of my pics and backups, and ever since I installed Leopard it won't recognize the drive. I've read other forums and know it's because it's password protected and Seagate or Apple has come up with a solution yet. So I did the only other thing I could...re-install Tiger with my backup disc which was 10.4.7 for my Mac mini Intel. Now it still won't recognize the drive! The software doesn't automatically startup and even after starting it manually it doesn't recognize. I'm guessing because when I re-installed Tiger and it asked me to archive the newer version it must have kept the same coding or whatever. I don't know much about coding so I'm lost there. I have my Powerbook G4 with Leopard on it, but of course it won't recognize that drive on there either. Right now I have a few options I could re-install Tiger on my powerbook and erase everything, but I can't find the install disk and I'm not sure the install disk from the Mac-mini will work because it's for the Intel processor hopefully that won't matter. Another option is to try and see if my wife's HP with Vista will recognize it, but the drive is formatted for Mac so I'm not sure if it'll work and ask for a password. I'm stuck at frustrated right now...if I could just get a computer to recognize it, take the password off... I would shell out the money to get a new drive recognizable by Leopard and transfer the data over. I DO NOT WANT TO ERASE THIS DRIVE!! I know it still works, but I can't access it. Anyone got any ideas?
Follow the instructions in the section of this FAQ which is relevant to your situation.
(21534) -
My Mac hardrive Crashed and had to get a new one, sadly my iTunes wasn't on my external hardrive. I have all my songs on my iPhone, will iTunes Match work with my songs on my iPhone then, i download them on to My Mac. Will This work? Thanks
Welcome to the Apple Community.
The easiest thing to do would be to sign into your iTunes account on your computer, connect your phone and sync. iTunes should copy anything from your phone that isn't already in your library on the computer. -
Hi
I am feeling VERY desperate!
After losing an external drive [dont ask....] - I got another one : 2TB WD formatted properly [ OS extended journalled for mac ] ready for action to move my thousands of files and images and ppts in hundreds of folders across from the laptop to this drive because I travel a bit with the laptop and this is too risky not to back up at home.
But this message came up after starting on moving folders across [** and not straight away, sometimes after moving a folder when 4 of 6 gb of files across then the message comes up = very frustrating]:
"The operation can’t be completed because you don't have permission to access some of the items."
I am dragging mixed sometimes large complex folders to this os extended journalled external drive from my mac book pro OS 10.6.8 - it would take decades to move items one by one or even folder by folder and really confusing.
I have dragged-copied various small folders and files across successfully, but it is only working 50:50 and I can't leave machine with the idea of things copying eg: overnight - it just won't work....
I have been browsing google and find some people describing in CODE how they overcome this 'message' .... but I [and I guess some other viewers of this in future & also in desperation] would need instructions for beginners.... to try this type of thing. I don't know any code.
How can this be happening - I feel ANGRY at APPLE !!!! for not posting easy fix instructions yet re; this, or better still updating software so it doesn't happen [ that I can find at least !!! ] . There seem to be hundreds of people stuck with this stupid message and inability to back up their projects etc.
Can anyone help ?
Many thanks
Julie
15 August 2011hi Samberl
thanks a lot for the fast reply.
I was dragging folders from main folders on the laptop-desktop onto the external drive icon - to copy them across....
Your suggestion sounds very promising - I didn't know about 'cloning'.
Yes the idea is to backup the laptop - I thought I would just move it all now, new - and then keep saving/dragging physically across to the new drive myself each day or two...
Would this be the sizeof the internal hard drive = c.500 gb ? = under the HD icon on desktop is written :
" 499.76gb , 311.5 gb free "
I can erase and start agin on the new external drive - so this plan is to make two partititions, rather than the one at present, and make one of them 500 gb ?
I have found CCC [carbon copy cloner] googling - looks good.
When CCC site says it backs up the hard drive - would this mean all my files [over 100 gb] that are mostly in folders on the desktop, plus the others in itunes, iphotos etc found in the HD icon, would all copy across successfully [wherever they are in the computer ] ?
thanks again, hope you can clarify these things and then I will go for it.
It would be great and amazing if this 'lack of permission' message doesn't show up in the process of doing this ccc transfer - hopeful!
Julie
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