Format and partition external drive if you want dual use Mac / PC

I had purchased from the Apple store in France a portable hard drive Iomega eGO USB 2.0/FireWire ov 250 Go capacity (P/N 31713900; Model: RPHD-C; S/N: FEAJ02011V)
Originally formatted HFS+, it would mount on any of my Mac desktops with Firewire, easily on the iMac using USB and with great difficulty on the iBook with the two USB plugs (together). It did not mount on any windows PC I had used for tests (so reformatting it FAT(32) or NTFS was *not an option).
I had reformatted it FAT32 using the iMac under mac OS 10.5 for use on multiple computers including Windows PC's. The drive would now accept to:
Mount on the iMac and iBook using Firewire
Mount on the iMac using USB, but it will NOT:
1 - Mount on the iBook using USB, nor
2 - Mount on any Windows PC using USB
The solution was found at the office with our IT helpdesk.
Whether I format it FAT 32 or NTFS (using the Paragon NTFS for mac OS X 10.5) on my iMac under OS 10.5, including when I do the same on another external drive than the Iomega, the PC would not recognise it while it would always mount on a Mac and it was even impossible on the PC to reformat it. The solution is (at least in windows world), you need to (1) format the drive, AND (2) partition the drive, even if this involves creating a single partition. Using Disk Utility of the Mac, I had only formatted the drive and not partitioned it into a single partition and Disk utility did not request that from me. The drive as prepared was perfectly usable on any Mac anyway.
The cure was to go back to the imac which had formatted it, mount it (it mounts), (1) reformat and (2) partition, using a single partition.
Then, the drive would instantly be recognised on the PC as a F drive, whether under FAT 32 or under NTFS.
The blame is in me and on the Apple Drive utility which did not help me (trust it would have been worse in windows world, but this is a bad mark on disk utility)
My suggestion to Apple would be that Disk Utilisty should tell us, once we have formatted a drive (HFS+, FAT 32 or NTFS using Parangon) that we are not done yet and still must create the partition(s), even if we only need one partition.
HTH

Hi Michel-Ange
You are talking to other user like yourself here and not Apple. If you wish to make a suggestion to Apple, I suggest you do it at this site - http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html
Allan

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Mavericks and unmounting external drive issues upon sleep

Greetings fellow Mavericks users,
I'm hoping someone here can provide some insight as to how to correct the issue I'm experiencing.
Little background:
I was using 10.6.8 for years on a 2008 Mac Pro. I saw no reason to update the OS until I recently acquired a USB 3.0 PCI card and an external drive. In order to use my new hardware, I had no choice but to upgrade to a new version of OSX. Rather than spend money, I took advantage of the free 10.9.2 upgrade available for my machine. The upgrade went surprisingly well with no major hiccups or problems encountered. Yes, a few apps and programs I had running prior to the upgrade were no longer compatible but in the grand scheme of things, my Mac Pro was still alive and kicking along with my most important programs and data. In fact, the upgrade to 10.9.2 fixed a sleep issue I had with 10.6.8 which required the use of an app called PleaseSleep. I don't need that app anymore as the machine goes to sleep and wakes up fine.
Now, on to my dilemma. Prior to the upgrade, I was using an external USB 2.0 drive to house media that I'd share between multiple network devices around the house via SMB (AFP stinks in this regard, hence my refusal to use it); i.e. BoxeeBox. I had run out of space on the USB2 drive hence the need to move everything to my new external USB3 drive that's connected to an internal USB3 PCI controller. The first problem I ran into was that Mavericks now uses Apple's own iteration of Samba (SMB2). After a bit of head scratching and research, I used an application called SMBUp as a replacement to Apple's SMB implementation. That's one problem solved. The next thing that I kept running into was that whenever the machine would sleep then wake up again, I'd get an annoying "Disk was not properly ejected" error message. After more head scratching and research, I've discovered that this appears to be a bug in OSX and how the OS interfaces with 3rd party USB controllers. Fine. I purchased a small app called Jettison which for all intents and purposes unmounts any external drives automatically before allowing the system to sleep. This is where my long-winded (apologies) description above starts to come into play. Now that I have the SMB issue figured out and am using Jettison to eject this USB3 drive when the machine sleeps, I've discovered that I'll still get the "Disk did not properly eject" error message despite Jettison IF there are users connected to the USB3 media drive. Is there a work around this where I can either get Jettison or Mavericks to kill the network connection to the share drive before it's unmounted prior to the machine sleeping?
TL:DR?
Using Jettison with Mavericks, I'm still getting "Disk did not eject properly" when waking the machine from sleep mode. Any way to fix this?
Thanks in advance for any help/suggestions provided.

I had the same problem with Time Machine and solved it by enabling "Enable Power Nap" in Energy Saver:
System Preferences...
Energy Saver
Restore Defaults
Check "Enable Power Nap: While sleeping, your Mac can back up using Time Machine and periodically check for new email, calendar, and other iCloud updates."
2013 21.5 iMac
OSX Mavericks
Seagate 1 TB slim USB 3.0 (power is drawn from USB port), formatted to Mac Journaling File System

Storing Music on External Drive Access from iTunes without using HD HELP !!

I have a 160 gb external drive that I store all my music on, I have a 30gb HD on my computer, I am trying to update my iPod with the files that are on my External HD and not use up HD space on my computer, I cant get it and keep either using up all the HD space and getting error messages, I hate it right now and I cant even email apple as they just keep sending you round and round, I am about to bucket my iPod unless I get some help, please somone help me !!!!
60gb i{Pod Windows XP

Hi GL,
Your a Star, it was in General Tab but in the Advanced option, iTunes was set to my previous on my laptop which had the local HD capacity to hold the volume of info, I have now directed iTunes to look at the External drive and the folders with the music and it seems to be fine , I,m so happy as I need my ipod to keep sanity, cheers for your help, dont hesitate if you have any problems to ask!, Regards Kevin
Hi Kevin,
I can empathize with your frstrations. If I
understand your question, you want to be able to play
your music on your pc, but not copy the files to your
local HD? I can only tell you what I did... maybe
there is an easier way, if you can figure it out, I
only hope that youll share it with me when you do.
Here goes:
First, open itunes on your PC, and go to
(edit/preferences)
Click on the (general) tab, and you will see a box
entitled (itunes music folder location)
Click on (change) and select the drive that you want
to have your music read from - NOTE this drive will
have to be connected for you to be able to hear your
music then click ok ONCE
BEFORE CLICKING OK THE SECOND TIME----- DESELECT the
(copy files to itunes music folder when adding to
library)tab
Now you can click ok
NEXT... go to (file/add folder to library)
select the folder you want to add to your PC library
- ideally your library should be empty or it will be
VERY DIFFICULT to determine which songs are on which
drive if you are using multiple drives for storage -
and click ok
what happens next is that itunes will scan the folder
and add all the titles to your library without adding
them to your HD.
I hope this helps.
GL

External drive, how to format and partition?

Hey everybody!
I'm about to buy an external drive for my mac. I am reasonably capable on a computer, but I've never done formatting or partitioning so I have two questions:
1) I just want to check that I do not need to buy a mac-formatted drive. A little big of googling told me I could do the formatting myself with Disk Utility, just wanted to double check that that was true.
2) Once I get my external drive, what I want to do is create two partitions within that drive, one for my Time Machine backup and one for random files and movies. I'm not sure how to do that (apparently I might need to pick different formats for each in Disk Utility?) so if anybody could help out that would be brilliant.
Thanks
(if that helps, I have a MacBook Pro with a 512GB hardrive, and I want to buy a 1TB external drive)

Hi,
Here is a link that will help you set up your external drive. http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-set-up-an-external-hard-drive-for-use-with-os- x/
You won't need different formats for Time Machine backups and storage space partitions. However, given the size of your hard drive, 500 gb for Time Machine may not be enough. You could buy a separate one for Time Machine, budget permitting.
Check the size of your startup disk, and if it is only 250 gb or less, then 500 gb for Time Machine may be OK, for a while. It will soon fill up, but the older backups will be erased.
Regards.

Is it possible to use Boot Camp to partition an external hard drive so there is a OSX partition and a Windows partiton? I want to use the external drive for backup only, NOT to load Windows and NOT to use as a boot drive.

I have partitioned the internal hard drive and am running Lion and Win7 Pro on my iMac i5 2.7GHz with 16GB RAM. Can I use Boot Camp to create a Windows partition on an OSX external hard drive to use for backing up both systems to the same HDD? I do NOT want to install OSX Lion or Windows 7 Professional on the external drive. I do NOT want to boot either system from the external drive. The 3TB external drive is for backup only.

Use NTFS for Windows and buy Paragon NTFS for OS X
You can also try Paragon HFS for Windows
As long as you are using for data and backups, you can leave the drive as GPT too.
I would recommend strongly to always have a 2nd bootable Mac OS drive, only need 30GB partition. System maintenance. Though LIon Recovery Mode finally makes it less but not totally unneeded.
And yes you can use Windows to create a partition.
Boot Camp is too broad. Do you want or mean BC Assistant? not needed but probably possible.
MBR has trouble with 3TB drives.

I am having sporadic issues after new hard drive install and recovery using Time Machine. The same sluggish response, start up screen pixelating...If I reinstall Lion will it wipe out other applications? My HD was formatted and partitioned correctly, I ha

I am having sporadic issues after new hard drive install and recovery using Time Machine. The same sluggish response, start up screen pixelating...If I reinstall Lion will it wipe out other applications? My HD was formatted and partitioned correctly, I have a late 2009 iMac.

Use the trackpad to scroll, thats what it was designed for. The scroll bars automatically disappear when not being used and will appear if you scroll up or down using the trackpad.
This is a user-to-user forum and most people will post on here if they have problems. You very rarely get people posting to say there update went smooth. The fact is the vast majority of Mountain Lion users will not be experiencing any major problems with the OS, or maybe with apps which are not compatible, but thats hardly Apple's fault if developers don't update their apps.

I just switched to Lion from SL, and am regretting it deeply, is there anyway to switch back to SL but still keep lion on your hard drive until you want it again?

I just switched to Lion from SL, and am regretting it deeply, is there anyway to switch back to SL but still keep lion on your hard drive until you want it again?
I hate to have paid for it and have it go away. Help please!

Start by creating a second partition on your hard drive:
To resize the drive do the following:
1. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
After the main menu appears select Disk Utility and click on the Continue button. Select the hard drive's main entry then click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
2. You should see the graphical sizing window showing the existing partitions. A portion may appear as a blue rectangle representing the used space on a partition.
3. In the lower right corner of the sizing rectangle for each partition is a resizing gadget. Select it with the mouse and move the bottom of the rectangle upwards until you have reduced the existing partition enough to create the desired new volume's size. The space below the resized partition will appear gray. Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed. (Note: You can only make a partition smaller in order to create new free space.)
4. Click on the [+] button below the sizing window to add a new partition in the gray space you freed up. Give the new volume a name, if you wish, then click on the Apply button. Wait until the process has completed.
You should now have a new volume on the drive.
It would be wise to have a backup of your current system as resizing is not necessarily free of risk for data loss. Your drive must have sufficient contiguous free space for this process to work.
Install Snow Leopard on the new partition:
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Be sure to choose your new partition as the target destination.
Download and install the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 update. Any additional updates can be installed using Software Update.

HT201250 Can I include external drives to be backed up using Time Machine. Not only do I want to back up my IMac, but I have several extenal drives for one iPhoto, one iTunes and one for other files & documents.

Can I include external drives to be backed up using Time Machine? Not only do I want to back up my IMac, but I have several extenal drives for one iPhoto, one iTunes and one for other files & documents. How do I know if they are included in the backup process?

Yes, if they are not exclude then TM backs them up.
Allan

MacBook and an External Drive

I'd like to backup my entire laptop, I have an external USB drive. I'd like to have a seperate partition for my backup files.
How do I partition my external USB drive?

Can you see the drive? Does it mount? You'll have to format it and then you can partition it. You can do both these things with Disk Utility which is in Applications->Utilities.
From Apple Help:
"1.If you're partitioning an external hard disk, make sure it is connected to your computer.
2.In Disk Utility, select the disk that you want to partition in the list.
3.Click Partition.
4.Choose the number of partitions from the Volume Scheme pop-up menu.
5.Click each partition and type a name for it, choose a format, and type a size. You can also drag the divider between the partitions to change their sizes. If a partition's name has an asterisk beside it, it's shown larger than its actual size in order to display its name legibly.
6.If you will use the drive on a Windows computer, click Options and choose the Master Boot Record partition scheme. It might be called the PC partition scheme.
7.Click the Partition button, and then click Partition again.

Use the default format and partition step to format disk0 partition 1 in multiple disks sutiation

As we know,we need to disable the default format and partition step in ts to let mdt deploy os on C and leave the other partitions stay safe when there is only one disk on pc，and the way of installing operation system is logical drive letter store in a varible.
But what if there are 2 disks on pc，and for a record the disk 0 is always the OS disk,don't need to confirmed this.How can we modify the format and partition step to format only C on disk0 under this condition?then lead the mdt to do the rest deployment
by itself.
Thanks

You are pushing up against the design limits of MDT, and the more complex and/or arbitrary the disk configuration the harder it is for MDT to perform installations.
If you want to maintain the *existing* disk configuration, and just update the OS present, then the recommended course of action is to run MDT from *within* the OS (cscript.exe
\\server\deploymentshare$\scripts\litetouch.vbs), not from WinPE. When you do this, it's called a "refresh" scenario. MDT can capture the user files via USMT, and it knows which
partitions to use, because it's launched from within the OS itself.
Disabling the default Format and Partition step has other unintended consequences.
Keith Garner - Principal Consultant [owner] -
http://DeploymentLive.com

I have my iMovies in QuickTime format on an external drive. Is there anyway to show them from the external drive without putting them into iTunes?

I havei my personal iMovies in QuickTime format on an external drive. I prefer not to have to import them into my iTunes library which is nearly 1GB already. Is there any way to play them from my MacBook Pro through Apple TV 2 without importing them into iTunes?

Just wanted to add a little to the excellent comments from those above... I have debated on adding the content to iTunes or just accessing the content through some folder structure.
What has worked best for me and my family:
use VideoDrive - http://www.aroona.net/VideoDrive/Home.html to import the videos/tvshows into iTunes and make them in the correct format for my iPad/iPhone/AppleTV devices in the house. This software is cheap and excellent and make the adding of content to iTunes (i everything) easy!
I store my videos on a usb 2tb drive and my tvshows on a different usb 2tb drive. And I swap a drive out every year or so and give old drive away to family/friends. That way my media drives are new(ish) and 1 drive is never older than 2 years.
for media that I don't want to add to iTunes I still use AirVideo as it is an excellent piece of software. I also use AirVideo to allow me to access content on my home network over the internet.
my "media server" is a simple 4 year old intel mac mini with 1 gig of ram best $700 I spent when I first flipped to all things mac. Family now have 2 mbp's, 2 iPads, 4 iphones and 1atv (2nd gen)
I'm working on a document that shows how I did my setup - if you want to read more please feel free to download my preview - https://files.me.com/lee.gaupp/aq0gst
Would enjoy feedback

Updated my OS to Yosemite ver 10.10.3 Need to access iPhoto library in Photos. I have over 400 Mega pictures on a partitioned external drive. Tried dragging but no change.

I updated my OS to 10.10.3. but now can't access my iPhoto library in Photo.
I have an iMac (20 inch, Mid 2007) with a 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 667 MHz DDRs SDRAM and have over 400 mega bits of pictures on a partitioned external drive: 2 TB G-Technology by Hitachi connected by FireWire 800 to my iMac. My iPhoto application no longer reveals what version of iPhoto I have, but it was last updated on Dec 14, 2013 with a 1.7 GB file.
Tried dragging from its place on external hard drive.
When I go into the iPhoto it says it is not compatible with OS X Yosemite but the link offered to App Store says they do not have an update.
Help?

Apple dropped both iPhoto and Aperture with the Yosemite release, and I am not happy about that as I used Aperture, but try holding down the option key when you click on the Photos icon. That should bring up a box asking what library you want to connect to. In my case it had both Aperture and Photos. But there is also a choice called "other" that I would think would allow you to navigate to where your library is located and select it.

How to format a pc external drive with a mac

Hello everyone! It's about a week I've bought a new imac. I used to have a pc. I have an WD external drive which was not compatible with macs, I am trying to format it using the disk utility and choosing Mac OS extended (journaled). When I am trying to erase it, I always get the following message: 'Disk erase failed with the error: couldn't unmount disk. I really need your help people, because I'm new to macs and I have already spend hours googling on that...
Thank you in advance for your response..
My operating system is Mac OSC (10.7.3)

It seems so ironic, but I have just found the answer to my question. I saw a movie which was stored in my WD hard drive yesterday and I hadn't quitted quick time. When I quitted quicktime I was able to erase the disc. I apologise for that people!!

Task Sequence Windows Server 2012 format and partition issue when using MDT2012

Hi all,
Currently I'm working on a task sequence to deploy a Windows Server 2012 image. We've integrated MDT2012 Update 1 in SCCM2012 SP1 and created a default 'Server Task Sequence'. This task sequence deploys the install.wim to a server which has multiple disks
attached.
We've configured multiple format and partition disk steps to create the following partition layout:
Disk 0: 499MB BDEDrive (do not assign drive letter) + 40GB OSDisk
Disk 1: 40GB Programs
Disk 2: 40GB Data
Disk 3: 25GB User
When the task sequence is finished I've noticed the drive letters assigned to the disk are not correct. In some cases the BDEdrive gets drive letter D assigned, sometimes drive letters are assigned starting with E, thus skipping drive
letter D.
The smsts.log files show an error when it's re-assigning drive letters after booting into Windows. Looks like an error in the DiskPartScript.txt.
<![LOG[==============================[ OSDSetupHook.exe ]==============================]LOG]!><time="16:59:40.889-120" date="05-10-2013" component="OSDSetupHook" context="" type="1" thread="776"
file="osdsetuphook.cpp:186">
<![LOG[Executing task sequence]LOG]!><time="16:59:40.905-120" date="05-10-2013" component="OSDSetupHook" context="" type="1" thread="776" file="osdsetuphook.cpp:279">
<![LOG[Loading the Task Sequencing Environment from "C:\_SMSTaskSequence\TSEnv.dat".]LOG]!><time="16:59:40.920-120" date="05-10-2013" component="OSDSetupHook" context="" type="1" thread="776"
file="basesetuphook.cpp:366">
<![LOG[Environment scope successfully created: Global\{51A016B6-F0DE-4752-B97C-54E6F386A912}]LOG]!><time="16:59:40.936-120" date="05-10-2013" component="OSDSetupHook" context="" type="1" thread="776"
file="environmentscope.cpp:659">
<![LOG[Environment scope successfully created: Global\{BA3A3900-CA6D-4ac1-8C28-5073AFC22B03}]LOG]!><time="16:59:40.936-120" date="05-10-2013" component="OSDSetupHook" context="" type="1" thread="776"
file="environmentscope.cpp:659">
<![LOG[Debug shell is enabled]LOG]!><time="16:59:43.806-120" date="05-10-2013" component="OSDSetupHook" context="" type="1" thread="776" file="basesetuphook.cpp:1440">
<![LOG[Successfully enabled debug command shell support.]LOG]!><time="16:59:43.884-120" date="05-10-2013" component="OSDSetupHook" context="" type="1" thread="776" file="debugwindow.cpp:156">
<![LOG[Configuring local administrator account]LOG]!><time="16:59:43.884-120" date="05-10-2013" component="OSDSetupHook" context="" type="1" thread="776" file="basesetuphook.cpp:1462">
<![LOG[Re-assign all drive letters...]LOG]!><time="16:59:43.884-120" date="05-10-2013" component="OSDSetupHook" context="" type="1" thread="776" file="diskutils.cpp:1941">
<![LOG[Executing command line: "C:\WINDOWS\system32\diskpart.exe" /s "C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\DiskPartScript.txt"]LOG]!><time="16:59:43.900-120" date="05-10-2013" component="OSDSetupHook" context=""
type="1" thread="776" file="commandline.cpp:827">
<![LOG[Process completed with exit code 2147942487]LOG]!><time="16:59:50.249-120" date="05-10-2013" component="OSDSetupHook" context="" type="1" thread="776" file="commandline.cpp:1123">
<![LOG[Diskpart.exe STDOUT:
Microsoft DiskPart version 6.1.7601
Copyright (C) 1999-2008 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: SRV03
Volume 1 is the selected volume.
DiskPart successfully removed the drive letter or mount point.
The volume you selected is not valid or does not exist.
There is no volume selected.
]LOG]!><time="16:59:50.249-120" date="05-10-2013" component="OSDSetupHook" context="" type="3" thread="776" file="diskutils.cpp:1807">
When I take a look at the generated diskpart_script.log file the volume D gets selected twice, which fails the second time because of the first remove drive letter command.
This is the output in the diskpart_script.log file:
select volume D
remove letter=D
select volume D
remove letter=D
select volume E
remove letter=E
select volume F
remove letter=F
select volume H
remove letter=H
select disk 0
select partition 1
assign
select disk 1
select partition 1
assign
select disk 2
select partition 1
assign
select disk 3
select partition 1
assign
It seems this error is caused by the first 'Format and Partition Disk' step before the 'Use Toolkit Package' step which is part of the default Server Task sequence. When I disable this Format and Partition step and create the partition manually
all looks ok showing no errors in the smsts.log file.
I've solved this by replacing the first 'Format and Partition Disk' step by an Powershell command which formats and partitions the disk.
Anyone seen this behavior?

I have a similar problem when I install windows on some clients. Have you found any explanation for the behavior?

I have an iMac and I am running out of disc space. I am considering an external drive to house my iTunes library. If I buy a second drive to operate as a back up will time machine back up the disc on the IMac and the external drive with the iTunes library

I have an iMac and I am running out of disc space. I am considering an external drive to house my iTunes library. If I buy a second drive to operate as a back up will time machine back up the disc on the IMac and the external drive with the iTunes library?

If you have a considerable photograph and/or movie collection you may want to consider off loading those to the EHD too. Here are Apple's article showing how handle iTunes & iPhoto libraries.
iTunes: library on EHD
iPhoto: How to move the Library to EHD
Roger

Format and partition external drive if you want dual use Mac / PC

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