Format hard drive or use a NTFS driver?

I have just purchased a Toshiba Stor.E Slim hard drive, which I do not require for Time Machine back ups. Should I use the Tuxera NTFS driver, or should I format the hard drive for Mac? Is any benefit over formatting vs using the driver? I pretty much use Macs all the time, but there may be rare occasions when it would be useful to hook up to a PC.
Thanks!

Functionally, it will work best if you format it for the Mac. If you think you may use it on your PC, then you could try using the ExFAT format which is usable on both platforms but close to both Mac OS and NTFS. If you format it this way on your Mac, then be sure you test it on your PC. If it is not usable on the PC, then reformat it on the PC to use ExFAT.
Since the drive is already formatted with NTFS it is not writeable on the Mac, so in order to reformat it on the Mac, you must first format it for FAT - MSDOS. To then format for the Mac alone, be sure you also change the partition scheme to GUID.

Similar Messages

How do i format a new hard drive without using an external drive

My hard drive crashed so i bought a new hard drive and have already placed it inside the macbook pro. i tried to use my install disks but nothing happens. i realized that i never formatted the new hard drive and started researching. i can not use my old hard drive since it is damaged so is there a way to format the new drive without using the old drive or an external hard drive?

Formatting, Partitioning Erasing a Hard Disk Drive
Warning! This procedure will destroy all data on your Hard Disk Drive. Be sure you have an up-to-date, tested backup of at least your Users folder and any third party applications you do not want to re-install before attempting this procedure.
• With compute rshut down insert install disk in optical drive.
• Hit Power buttonand immediately after chime hold down the "C" key.
• Select language
• Go to the Utilities menu and launch Disk Utility.
• Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in left side bar.
• Select Partition tab in main panel. (You are about to create asingle partition volume.)
• Click on Options button
• Select GUID Partition Table(Intel Macs)
• Click OK
• Select number of partition in pull-down menu above Volumediagram.
(Note 1: One partition is normally preferable for an internalHDD.)
• Type in name in Name field (usually Macintosh HD)
• Select Volume Format as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
• Click Partition button at bottom of panel.
• Select Erase tab
• Select the sub-volume (indented) under Manufacturer ID (usuallyMacintosh HD).
• Check to be sure your Volume Name and Volume Format are correct.
• Click Erase button
• Quit Disk Utility.
Open installer and begin installation process.
cornelius

Looking to buy a hard drive to use as network drive with EA4500, help with compatibility options

I need a new hard drive, I would like at least a 2TB, or more ideally a 3TB. The only drive I see on the list that would work is the STAY 3000100 Expansion 3TB External HD USB 2.0. There is another 3TB drive that shows as being compatible, but it's a Western Digital and I haven't had good luck with WD. I was wondering if anyone else has a 2TB or 3TB drive that they are using successfully, even though it's not on the tested compatible list. I have already tried using my OWC Mercury On-The-Go 1TB, and it won't even recognize a drive as being plugged in. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

As far as I know, that is the only list of compatible drives with the router. So, yes, that is the list I am referring to when I said "compatible drive list". There are very few 2TB or 3TB drives on the list. I would really like to be able to use a 3TB drive with a couple partitions, and that seems almost impossible with very few options. I have been reading around the last couple days and I hear lots of reports of people successfully using drives that are not on the tested compatible list. I just wanted to know more options from people like that.

Should I combine two 1Tb drives into one logical 2Tb drive or use one 1Tb drive for system/apps and move /users to the other 1Tb drive? (I'd like ease of b/u too.)

Hello,
I have two 1Tb drives in my Mini, the first is full and the second one empty. (I've been using the 2nd for Time Machine but the full source from dirve 1 soon has Time Machine complaining.) I am contemplating whether to form one 2Tb logical drive from the two 1Tb drives or segregate their use, i.e. use the first 1Tb drive to hold the system and applications while moving the /users directory tree to the second 1Tb drive?
I'm assuming both are straight forward to do accomplish but have nagging doubts about segregating drive usage, will moving the /users directory tree to the second 1Tb drive:
impact apps which might otherwise expect to see particulat fies and directories in specific user related locations on the system drive;
hinder backing up (by having to setup two separate Time Machine activities)?
Finally, is there a better 3rt option?
Thanks,

Thanks and sorry Allan,
The supplementary questions would arise should I NOT chose to combine the separate drives into a larger logical one but to keep one of the two drives for system/apps and the other for users data... I assumed that segregating drive usagel like this might reult in issues with apps which might expect to see some user directories/files on the same drive as the system/apps. similarly, with two physical drives, I'd be looking to managing separate Time Mchines. (I have a few 2Tb pocket drives for backups.)
Final question - if I do combine into a single logical drive (for system, apps, /users ... the whole lot), would I have any problem getting this logical one working from a Time Machine backup? I ask that this backup was taken from the 1Tb physical drive and now I'd be looking to put it back onto a 2Tb logicl drive.
Thanks,

A Firewire External Drive to use as Bootable drive?

Hello fellow Apple enthusiasts,
1.1 I was hoping one of you might care to suggest how would I go about using my Firewire (FW) drive as a bootable drive?(I believe during restart I press the "T" key to initialize this process)
It is a 120 GB drive that I have partitioned into 2 parts a 30 GB which has my apps, etc, and an 80 GB section with work files.
1.2 Should I just use an app like Super Duper to clone my G3 and iBook HD's? (hmmm maybe just one of them) But that would limit my ability to use the FW for all and any HD's
1.3 I do have a bona-fide edition of Tech Tool 4, should I make an "eDrive" on the FW to reboot from? or install Tech tool on the FW as an app itself?
1.4 Or possibly one of you may know of a better suggestion to make a part of the Firewire drive a drive that can rescue other Macs, namely my own

1.1 I don't think 'T' is what you're after - that will boot your computer as an external FW drive.
Given a bootable FW drive, you can either (1) choose it as your Startup Disk in System Preferences, or (2) hold down the Option key while restarting/booting and choose the drive from the options displayed. I believe that (1) is recommended but there might be situations where (2) is the only option.
1.2 I'm not sure what you mean by "limit my ability to use the FW for all and any HD's". Do you want to use the drive to backup all your computers?
It is perfectly possible to clone a HD to a partition of an external FW drive. To do this, you can partition the FW drive in Disk Utility making sure that the partitions you plan to clone to are big enough, of course. Doing this will erase any data on the FW drive, however, so be sure to back it up. Some people also recommend writing zeros over the disk before proceeding. Again, Disk Utility has options to do this. When you partition, make sure that you choose the same type of file system as you're using on your macs.
I've never used Super Duper, but Carbon Copy Cloner will certainly let you create a bootable clone a HD on a partition of the FW drive. I use it for this purpose and have happily booted from the clones when necessary. If you consider CCC, be sure to read the documentation - especially "B4 U Clone" - so that you prepare the external drive correctly and take the steps you need to to ensure a successful cloning operation. For details see http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html. Note that the latest version is only for 10.4/10.5, but the earlier version is suitable for 10.2/10.3. I believe the latest version does a very good cloning job. The earlier version does not copy all the extended attributes etc. that you may care about. On the other hand, I have certainly restored successfully from clones made using the earlier version.
Super Duper has an excellent reputation and is supposed to copy extended attributes etc. nearly flawlessly. I can't speak from experience in this case, though, and I don't know how flexible it is in terms of allowing clones to partitions etc. as I've never used it.
1.3 Sorry, can't answer this - I don't know what you're referring to.
1.4 Only that if Super Duper can't do what you want, CCC probably can. Whichever you use, be sure to read and follow the instructions and to test the clone by booting and working from it to assure yourself that it really is satisfactory.
Good luck.
- cfr

Backup Mac to Windows shared NTFS drive.

Hey. I'd like to backup my Mac's data (running Mavericks) with Time Machine to a Windows shared NTFS drive on my network. I'm fairly sure this is possible with some type of network drive. Anyone know how to make this work?

No, you cannot use Time Machine to back up to an NTFS formatted drive because OS X can only read NTFS drives, they cannot write to them. If you still wanted to use the NTFS drive, you could create a partition on it that is in HFS+ format(a.k.a. Mac OS Extended (Journaled)) and have Time Machine back up to the partition.

Backing up an internal 500GB Drive to an external 500GB Drive

I recently began to use Time Machine on my Macbook in which I installed a 500GB drive and, initially, had good success. HOWEVER, now, my Time Machine drive says it has no space for another backup. It has a grand total of 1 (that's ONE) backup on it. I thought Time Machine did an initial Full and then only backed up changes to the drive. The external drive I am using has over 200 GB available (of its original 500GB) and nothing I have added to the laptop is THAT big. My purpose in backing this up is to enable me to return to a previous system in the event of a "soft" (directory issue etc..) hard drive failure (I have already done this successfully once).
I am contemplating getting a bigger Time Machine dedicated drive, but don't want to right away. I have recently had some hard drive issues and am fearful I will not have a current backup if things go south again.
Is there a way to ensure that Time Machine is doing the incremental I think it is or am I wrong in my assumptions? Can I improve my backups space usage (I already have removed the Apps and users from the backup) or should I get the bigger drive?
Message was edited by: JOEL L APPENZELLER

You need at least a drive that is twice the capacity of the data you are going to back up and I strongly recommend more. The more capacity your TM drive has, the more redundancy. Since you don't have enough drive space currently you have two options: trim the backup tree or buy a bigger drive.
Basic Solution 1: decide what data is most crucial and use TM's preferences to deselect all other folders. Keeping in mind the double capacity equation, this will work okay if you can trim your backup to around 250GB.
Basic Solution 2: buy a new (1 TB minimum) drive and use the current drive for something else. A few ideas follow.
The big problem with solution 1 is in the event of a catastrophe you have to reinstall your OS and your programs from a source other than your backup. This is going to take some serious time, not counting restoring data from TM. You could be dead in the water for hours - assuming you can replace the drive or get it working again by reformatting or partitioning.
Option 2 means spending more cash but it leaves you with a second backup drive and a solution to the problem above. Use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to clone your internal drive to the 500GB external. Once you've cloned the drive and know it is bootable, turn it off. You'll want to keep it updated but I like to keep my clone one update behind my computer - ie I am on 10.5.4 but my clone is still at 10.5.2 - when Apple releases the next update I'll clone my computer before I apply the update - just in case of disaster. If my drive dies I can boot off the clone, grab my newest data from TM and be up and running in a matter of minutes.
How do you know TM is doing incremental backups? For one thing, as long as you have it running, if there's a failure or if TM needs to delete something, you'll get a warning. If everything is okay, TM is quiet.

Move Mailbox database and Public Folder database from VMwar RDM drive to VMware VMFS/VMDK Drive

Good Afternoon,
So I have 1 DAG with 3 mailbox server (1 physical and 2 Virtual (vmware)). The Vmware server Mailbox and Public folder databases/logs are currently on RDM drive. I need to get rid of the RDM drives and use VMFS/Vmdk drives for mailbox and public
folder databases. I was thinking 3 options:
1- Introduce new VM Members into DAG and simply give these new VMs VMFS/VMDK drives, add servers into DAG and have DAG replicate databases to new server. I really don't want to do this.
2-On current VM, delete RDM drive along with database, add VMFS/VMDK drive replacement and have the DAG copy database.
3- On current VM, suspend replication, copy database/logs in temp location, delete the RDM drive, create the VMFS/VMDK drive, copy the database and logs to new drive, enable replication. Do the same for public folder database/logs, but not sure how
to stop/start replications, since its not in DAG?
I'm looking for solution that will take least amount of time. Option 3 seems best solution, but not sure if there any gotchas.. What are you thought??
Thanks in advance for you help

Take the database offline means stop replications to the the passive mailbox server?
Also, what is procedure to take public folder offline. We have public folder replicated on all 3 servers.
Hi cuttabutta,
Yes, take the database offline on the passive server can stop replication from primary server.
you can also take the public folder database offline to stop replication.
In addition, you can refer to the following article to configure public folder replication:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691120(v=exchg.141).aspx
Best regards,
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help, and unmark the answers if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact [email protected]
Niko Cheng
TechNet Community Support

HT4796 Can i use windows migration assistant to transfer files from a windows formatted hard drive to a mac?

I have a windows formatted hard drive and a macbook pro. I was wondering if i could use the windows migration assistant to transfer files from my hard drive to the mac

No.
Just connect the drive to your Mac. The Mac can read most Windows formats (it cannot WRITE Windows New Technology File System (NTFS) formatted drives.

Formatting Hard Drive with NTFS instead of FAT32 on E1550

Is there a way to format the storage hard drive plugged into the USB port using the NTFS format.
When using FAT32 the backup software chunks backup files into 4GB blocks. I am told to avoid that I need format the drive with NTFS format to avoid this.
However, the Cisco Connect does not offer a choice on how to format the hard drive.
It was originally formatted with NTFS, but then I had permission problems and it would not allow me to add the "admin" administrator.
Is there a way I can format the drive using NTFS and still keep the correct permissions configured?
Thank you,
Solved!
Go to Solution.

I have seen those instructions and I am not getting the same information on the screen they say I should.
I plugged the storage drive into my computer and reformatted it to the NTFS format. I even created a folder under the root called "Backup."
But when I plug that drive back into the E1550 and go to the "Disk" tab it shows:
Detecting...
Partition
File System
Capacity
Free Space
Create Share
Total
232.885 GB
232.885 GB
It sees something there but it is not recognizing it and as such I do not have permissions to create shared storage.
If I select the FORMAT option at the bottom of the page, then it reformats it to FAT32 and is accessable, but it is not the correct format I need for the backup program. I need NTFS.

How do i format an external hard drive for use on both windows and mac book air?

how do i format an external hard drive for use on both windows pc and mac book air?

Use exFAT on the PC.
(71374)

How do you format an NTSF external hard drive for use with Mountain Lion

I'm switching over to Mac from PC, and have an external NTSF formated hard drive I regularly use. I understand from the forum the initial file transfer should be no issue, but for ongoing use of the HD, does it need to be formated to something other than NTSF... and if so, to what and how.

Do this when you're ready:
Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

Format hard drive and use the TM

the story is long but start from downloadingthe mountain lion. i try to install but the system told me i need to run hard drive repair utility becouse the hard drive is damaged. i did that but the software told me is too much and i need to format the hard. after that . i try to remove some un use software and even try to re install the lion first and then update it to mountain lion but it didn't work.
i have back up on time machine. i have outlook 2011 mac plus paralele with autocad and quickbook acounting software on windows.
i need to know if i format the machine and use the TM to restore the machine . do i need to install all software again . do i lose any data or just machine will look the same as now.
i am new in mac i have it just for year.
please help.
thanks

Yes, you can use an external drive. To upgrade, however, means:
Purchase Snow Leopard DVD then update Snow Leopard to 10.6.8.
Access the App Store with your Apple ID and purchase and download Lion.
Your computer must meet system requirements:
Snow Leopard General requirements
Mac computer with an Intel processor
1GB of memory
5GB of available disk space
DVD drive for installation
Some features require a compatible Internet service provider; fees may apply.
Some features require Apple’s MobileMe service; fees and terms apply.
Lion System Requirements
Mac computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor
2GB of memory
OS X v10.6.6 or later (v10.6.8 recommended)
7GB of available space
Some features require an Apple ID; terms apply.
Obviously, you do not have to upgrade to Lion but can stop at Snow Leopard 10.6.8 which is sufficient for the current versions of iLife apps. Note that iDVD is no longer part of the newest version of iLife. Lion 10.7.2 or later is needed should you wish to use iCloud.

Which format for external hard drive to use with time machine backup and connect to windows laptop?

Hi! I have an external hard drive on which I have transferred my iTunes library (just mine - not others). I have also a folder containing just films (some but not all of which are in iTunes too) Everything has been working just fine until yesterday I noticed that Time Machine was not including the external hard drive in back up as it wasn't formatted. So I have moved everything back to the Mac hard drive and and ready to format the external hard drive - but understand that if I do the contents cannot be opened from a windows laptop ... is that right? Is there are format I could choose that would allow Time Machine to back up and allow Windows to open as well (the idea being that I take the external hard drive with me on holidays etc!!) Many thanks for any advice.

ok - I understand. I have managed so far to format the drive (on windows) to exFAT file system - which apparently works with both Windows and Mac - but you're correct - it will not be included in time machine backup as I have checked the back up files and Samsung is not showing. Reckon I'm onto having to buy yet another portable hard drive just for windows - or of course buy myself a new mac book!! Can I ask you please - does the drive have to be clear of everything before I change the format - or can I change it with the files still in there? Also, got any quick ways duplicating the files onto another External Hard drive (for use on the windows laptop) At the moment the files are taking 2/3 hours + to copy over! Thank you!

How can i format my external hard drive to write files from Mac without loosing the files that i alredy have on my external hard when i used it with windows?

How can i format my external hard drive to write files from Mac without loosing the files that i alredy have on my external hard when i used it with windows?
I have been using Windows to write files to my 1TB WD external hard drive and I do not want to format to loose the files capacity of around 500GB
Someone, Please help

Hi Allen,
Is there any way to store the back up to Mac and restore after formating?

Format hard drive or use a NTFS driver?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for