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 advance

Time 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.

Similar Messages

  • Ethernet Connected external drive problem

    I have a 500GB external drive that I connect to the home hub via ethernet. When I connect it to the home hub it does not appear in the connections list for the router and none of the computers can see it. The drive was working fine when it was connected to the router we used with our last broadband provider. Has anyone got any ideas?
    Thanks in advance
    Chris

    Chead wrote:
    Thanks C1Rider. I changed the IP address of the drive to be in the 192.168.1.x group and I also changed it from dynamic IP to static IP. Now I can now connect to the drive from all our machines.
    The only strange thing is that when I look at the router settings the network drive still does not appear as connected to the router. This means I cannot use the "Always use this IP address" setting in the router.
    Section 8 from this link should help make sure your Static IP addresses never wonder into the Homehub Dynamic allocated IP address range.
    If you need to reset the Homehub make sure you record any needed settings so that you can re-enter them afterwards.
    How to change the working IP range of a V2 hub
    "I have this awful feeling someone is watching every move I make (one of my pet hates is router location tagging)." Marvin (A paranoid Android)

  • Question about Formatting Buffalo USB 1TB external drive for use with Mac Book Pro Mountain Lion HD

    Hi there, Have Mountain Lion HD operating system (not sure if it is 10.8 or 10.8.1. or 10.8.2)  and have a Buffalo USB 3.0 1TB hard drive. When go to utilities to try and format with Mac OS extended, following 3 files show. DriveNavi. exe, Slm.exe and Mac. The option to left click and erase menu is not there. Or at least not as shown in all the help videos.
    It is USB connection so will take ages but want to use drive to store video footage and also partition to back up Time Machine. ( travelling in South America and no other Ext Drive option available too buy) how much space should i assign to Time Machine when partitioning?  Is there anything else i need to think about? as new to formatting. Any thing else i can do to make process of transfering footage to Buffalo quicker?
    Final question is if it is finally reformatted am i going to have to spend so long accessing footage from hard drive when back home and editing that it really is not worth if, and i should just write this off as an inappropriate purchase, and try and buy more memory cards and not bother with transfering/storing? Thanks in advance for time spent trying to assist.

    Use Apple's Disk Utility in the Applications/Utilities folder to format the drive.
    The programs on the drive given to you by the manufacturer is likely backup software (or malware) and essentially worthless, it will be wiped when you format the drive.
    I do NOT advise you partition that drive for TimeMachine, rather I advise you not to use TimeMachine at all for your purposes because TM is just a backup, not a bootable drive.
    Rather do this.
    Get another hard drive that is equal to or slightly larger than your boot drive.
    Format the drive in Disk Utiltiy > 1 Partition, option: GUID, Format: OS X Extended journaled, click Erase and move the slider one spot to the right and click Erase. This will take some time as it's going to map off any failing sectors it can BEFORE you lay data on the drive corrupting it.
    Next, pay for and download Carbon Copy Cloner, use the default settings and simply clone internal drive to the external drive. this will also take some time the first time.
    Next use Disk Utility to Repair Permisisons on both drive. Now reboot the machine and hold the option key down, you can select the external drive clone to boot from!!
    You can update the clone the same way by using CCC, but it doesn't take as long, only copying changes.
    This is better than TimeMachine as a bootable clone is bootable in case your internal drive fails to boot the machine.
    Use the first drive for storage and be very gentle with it while it running, like you should do for all hard drives as they are subjective to shock damage.
    The objective with the clone drive is you keep it safe, and not carting it around where it can be more subjective to damage like the other drive will be.
    Remmeber you need 2 forms of hardware backup at all times.
    Most commonly used backup methods

  • Connecting hard drive from G4 to Mac Pro

    Hi! Bought my Mac Pro after my G4's (Digital Audio)hard drive bit the dust. I'd like to retrieve whatever I can from the old hard drive, but it's obviously not as simple as dropping the old drive into the Pro. What kind of connector should I look for? Any help is appreciated.
    Thanks!

    Ok. I thought i had it all figured out. . .
    I went to the website of the harddrive manufacturer of the G4 drive and figured out how to set it to "slave". After doing that, I attached it to the cable in the second position, leaving the original optical drive attached to the end. When I booted up, I immediately heard the whirring of the G4 drive, telling me that it was running. I got excited. The Pro took a little longer than usual to start up, which worried me as I sat watching the litte gear spin around, but it eventually came to. Unfortunately, it didn't work. When I checked the hardware infomation under "about my mac", it indicated that there were no ATA drives attached. On top of that, the original drive was no longer recognized, as it indicated that there was no equipment attached to use for Disc Burning. The optical drive that came installed is set to "Cable Select". Do I have to change that to Master? Any other ideas/recomendations?

  • Format External Drive - From Mac for Windows

    I have a Maxtor One-touch that I need to back up a bunch of data for a Windows XP user. After some research, I thought that formatting the drive in the MS-DOS (FAT) format would do it, however, after doing so and moving all of the data, I have tried the Harddrive on a PC running Windows XP. The drive doesn't mount.
    The external drive is a PC/MAC compatible version. Am I overlooking anything? Is there something I need to do in windows to access the drive.... because it's not obvious.

    Hi Christopher,
    follow either Templetons advise or (if not possible) use Disk Utility and set the partition scheme (behind the Options button) to MBR (Master Boot Record) and use MS-DOS (= FAT32) as file system.
    That should also do the trick.
    The 'standard' partition scheme on Intel Macs is GPT (GUID Partition Table) which can sometimes lead to the effect with Windows PC that you observed.
    Hope it helps
    Stefan

  • Can't save multiple folders to external drive. Get: "The operation can't be completed because you don't have permission to access some of the items." when dragging large folders to mac os extended journalled external drive from OS 10.6.8

    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 2011

    hi 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

  • Create shared library on external drive from scratch

    I have seen many posts about creating shared iTunes libraries on external drives with many different configurations, but mostly with pre-existing libraries. My question is creating the library from scratch. The purpose is obviously to share songs among several computers AND only have one copy of a song as to not take up unnecessary disk space on several computers.
    All of our songs are on an external USB hard-drive attached to Airport Xtreme. Every song is in album folder, and every album folder is in an artist folder (very organized). All the artist folders (with their album and then song contents) are in a root folder called "Songs" on the external hard-drive.
    We have upgraded our three Macs (iMac, MBP and MacMini) to Leopard and deleted all iTunes folders on each local hard drive (there was nothing in them anyway). We now want to create ONE iTunes folder on the hard drive so that each computer can access it. What are the steps? Here is what I "think" I've learned here on the postings with my questions:
    1) First I opened iTunes on my first, main computer (iMac) and went into "Preferences" to change the iTunes music folder to [Ext HD]:iTunes:iTunes Music. The option, "Copy to music folder..." is deselected. (This will also be done on the other computers).
    2) Now what to do? I could just move all of my song artist folders with their album subfolders and music files inside them, into the "iTunes Music" folder. But then what do I click to get iTunes to see all the songs and put them in its database? The other option is click "Add to Library" - but then don't I have to select all the individual songs? (I actually tried the latter method and it kept crashing). Can I just move all the folders into [Ext HD}:iTunes:iTunes Music folder and click something to get it to create its database based on all the music files that are now in its subfolders?
    3) Next step. I have seen many people write that they then create an "Alias" and put the Alias in their "Music" folder on their LOCAL, computer's hard drive. Could someone now explicitly, step-by-step, describe how this is done? I assume I go to the external hard drive. Am I creating an alias of the entire "iTunes" folder, or of the "iTunes Music" subfolder, or of the library file??? Please answer this specifically.
    So now I have "XXX alias" that I copy to my local, computer's hard drive and put it on my desktop. I take out the "....alias" word, and drag it to my local "Music" folder. It asks me to replace the existing folder/file, and I say yes. Correct? And then I do this on all three computers, correct?
    4) Finally, after I've done all of this, I still have the following functionality questions -
    4a) When we now add to the library, either from a CD or online purchase, ONE copy of the music should go in the "iTunes Music" folder on the external drive, correct?
    4b) This system means that all three computers MUST have the same iTunes library, playlists, etc, correct? The downside of this system is that you cannot personalize libraries for each computer and just share the actual music files, correct? (If so, is there another process [steps 1-4 above] that results in a more customizable system where *ONLY ONE COPY* of the actual song file is shared?)
    Sorry for the length of the message, and the questions. Truly I have read all the postings but was unable to map out my plan before I go and creating, finally, this one set of music that we can share. In advance, thank you all for your help.

    I was afraid you'd say that, because I'm a long time Mac guy and I don't have the perfect answer. Have you ever messed with remote desktop? That'd seem to give her full access and control, something I personally wouldn't do, although it may work for you.
    Another thought came to me that might work: copy over the complete library to her machine, and then when you do another major shoot, create a new catalog, edit, etc.and then import as catalog to you main one while sending her the new one.
    I am sure there are more elegant solutions, but these are a couple of ways.

  • How do I have itunes use/detect my external hard drive and place music on the external drive from the itunes store? There are no music files on my pc yet.  I will like to do this after installing itunes 11 on my pc for the first time. I am using windows 7

    How do I have itunes use/detect my external hard drive and place music on the external drive from the itunes store? There are no music files on my pc yet.  I will like to do this after installing itunes 11 on my pc for the first time. I am using windows 7.  HP computer intel Dual Core.  Thanks for any help!

    Hey idw3,
    Welcome to Apple Support Communities, and thanks for the question. Follow the instructions on this article to move your iTunes Media folder to an external hard drive:
    iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Media folder
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
    Regards,
    David

  • Clone a Mac Partition to an External Drive from within Windows 7 Bootcamp?

    Anyone know if it is possible to clone the mac os x partition to an external drive from within Windows 7 bootcamp? I (like a few others) had a problem with the latest 10.6.3 update and I cannot boot into the mac partition but I can access it via bootcamp so I was thinking about trying to clone it to an external drive and then boot from the new clone and see if that works.
    Appreciate your comments.

    setup a 30GB partition on an external drive, along with a partition of 150% the size of your Mac OS X volume -- or larger.
    Install OS X to 30GB.
    While booted from DVD, before you install, you'll need to go to Utility Menu => Disk Utility to do the partitoning. While there, in DU see if you can repair your system.
    And where is your TimeMachine or clone backup? The "Step #1: Backup before beginning your Boot Camp project."?
    No way to backup or clone from within Windows, though you may be able to write to NTFS backup volume, UNLESS you bought MacDrive8 which allows read AND write to HFS+ from within Windows.

  • How to remove an external drive from time machine backup

    In time machine I also backup to an external drive. I recently bought a new external drive and thats working fine. However, it still wants to backup to my previous drive which I dont want to use. In time machine preferences I see the old and new drive listed. Both are greyed out so I cannot deselect the older drive.
    Suggestions?

    mhattonmd wrote:
    So when I open time machine preferences I see time machine and both external drives listed. If I click on options I see both external drives but I cant select either as they are both greyed out.
    If you see them both listed on the initial screen of TM prefs, they are both selected as backup drives. They are not being backed up. They are being used by Time Machine as a destination. You need to use “Select Disk…” to remove the external drives from the destination drives. Select Disk does not choose the drives you want to back up. It chooses the drives you wan to back up to.

  • Can I install os9 on an external drive from mavericks

    Can I install OS9 on an external drive from Mavericks? I'm running Mavericks 10.9.4 on both my MBP and 27" iMac. I have my original OS9 install disc. I'd like to install OS9 on an external drive so I can use some classic apps that I'd like to use.
    I tried to install directly to an external drive, but when I click on the Mac OS Install icon, I get the message "You can't open the application "%@" because it may be damaged or incomplete." The icon for Mac OS Install is the generic page with an A. Figuring that Mavericks doesn't recognize the app. Then I restarted and held down the C key - no luck.

    I understand, but was hoping I boot off an external drive in 9. Thanks for your response and I apologize for my late response.

  • How do I Retrieve imovie projects from and external drive back into my mac internal drive

    How do I Retrieve imovie projects from and external drive back into my mac internal drive?
    Thank You

    Every working drive, Internal or External, should produce an Icon on your Desktop. If you cannot see those, click on the Desktop (to get Finder) and choose Preferences off the Finder Menu. The general pane has checkboxes for "Show these items on the Desktop:"
    Double click the Icon for your External Drive to open it. Open the folders on it until you find the Items you want to copy. Drag them to the Icon of your Internal Drive, or open the folder where you want them to land and drop them in there.
    A drive that does not appear on the desktop after you have asked it to may be damaged. But it would be smart to do a Restart to see if it is recognized again at next Startup.

  • I have scanned a document, how do I save to a specific folder on an external drive from the Preview application?

    I have scanned a document, how do I save to a specific folder on an external drive from the Preview application?

    There is no 'Save as' in Lion.  If it's a new document then select File -> Save will bring up a standard 'Save' dialog box which will allow you to specify the location.  Otherwise select File -> Duplicate and then save the duplicate.

  • 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

  • Easiest way to transfer iTunes library on an external drive to a new Mac?

    Hello,
    I currently have my entire iTunes Library (Music, Movies, TV Shows, etc.) on an external hard drive.
    I have a new Mac arriving tomorrow, to replace my current one. What is the easiest way to get my entire Library into iTunes on my new Mac?
    I know Migration Assistant is normally supposed to help with this, but I assume that's only if the Library has been stored internally. Can I simply plug the external drive into the new Mac, authorize the computer, and Import my entire Library from the File menu?
    Any pointers would be appreciated. Thanks!

    mattfromallston wrote:
    I have a new Mac arriving tomorrow, to replace my current one. What is the easiest way to get my entire Library into iTunes on my new Mac?
    From your OLD computer...
    Copy your ENTIRE iTunes FOLDER to an External Drive... and then from the External Drive to your New Computer..
    Full Details Here  >  http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
    An Added Bonus is that you will have a Backup of iTunes.
    Also... Have a look at these 2 Videos...
    http://macmost.com/moving-your-itunes-library.html
    http://macmost.com/moving-your-itunes-media-to-an-external-drive.html
    NOTE:
    It is important that the External Hard Drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled).

Maybe you are looking for