Formatting an external drive to use with my new Mac

Hi
As per my other posts, I'm expecting a new Mac i7 with OS X Mountain Lion, due in mid Feb.
I am currently a PC user (have been for years, apologies ) and want to take all my photos (tens of thousands) from the PC and load them to the mac, or store them in a useable way...
I have a Western Digital 1tb NTFS drive, and i understand that I need to reformat this into a FAT32 format.
Does this give me issues with a 4gb or 32gb limit? Not sure if it's relevant but I don't have massive files... movies at 700mb perhaps...
Anyone done anything similar that might be able to offer advice?
Thank
Liam

Let me clarify further (but thanks for the input so far...)
I am migrating from a life of PC use, to an all singing all dancing Mac. Once migrated, the PC will go to a nephew starting uni shortly, never to darken my doorstop again.
The ideal solution would be to produce a drive that can copy all my stuff onto, that can be read and copied from to the mac, and then ideally be formatted again, to use solely with the mac..
Does that alter anything?
Liam

Similar Messages

What should I format my wd external hard drive to to use with my new Mac Pro?

What format should my wd external hard drive be in order to use with my new Mac Pro?

If you're going to use it only with Macs, use Mac OS Extended (Journaled). It's the fastest filesystem to use on Macs.
If you're going to use it with PCs and Macs, use exFAT or FAT. I recommend exFAT because it hasn't got limitations as FAT and it's faster, but you need Windows XP Service Pack 3 or later to use it on PCs

Is Time Machine something that I can back up to in a separate particle of my new MacBook Pro or do I need an external drive to use with it?

.....ie we have Seagate external drives but both have Windows files on them, although plenty of room. Am I able to keep the Windows files on them and back up to them with Time Machine on new MacBook Pro? Don't understand....and not very clear. Thanks
Belinda

Belinda,
In order to use Time Machine the external volume must be formatted in Disk Utility as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". You can't use a drive that is formatted to be used for both a Mac and a Windows unit (exFAT, etc.). You should purchase a new external drive to use with Time Machine and never let your work go for over a week with hooking up to the TM drive and allow Time Machine to do it's thing.
Clinton
MacBook Pro (15” Late 2011), OS X Yosemite 10.10, 16GB Crucial RAM, 960GB M500 Crucial SSD, 27” Apple Thunderbolt Display

I need to connect a Micro SD Card to my MacBook (10.6.8) 2011 so I can switch my Magellan RoadMate GPS for use with the new Mac Content Manager from Magellan. Can I do this? from

I need to connect a Micro SD Card to my MacBook (10.6.8) 2011 so I can switch my Magellan RoadMate GPS for use with the new Mac Content Manager from Magellan. Can I do this? from

Hi Robert and welcome to Apple Discussions,
There are adapters available that convert micro cards into fullsize ones.
You will also need a USB card reader if you do not have one.
Good luck,
Alan

Format external drive for use with both Leopard & XP, & maybe Win7

I want to repurpose one of my old small Firewire drives to use with both Leopard and XP via Boot Camp on my MacBook. It is is 60GB and is currently formatted with MacOS Extended Journaled, and Apple Partition Map. I don't think I will have any need at the present time to store files of more than 4GB on it (most of the ones I want to store are no more than a few hundred MB each).
Is using FAT32 with Master Boot Record adequate? Up until now I have just used flash drives for external Windows storage, but I would like to consolidate lots of topographic maps files onto this one Firewire drive instead of using multiple flash drives, and use these files with both Leopard and XP. If I want to try Windows 7 in the future via either Boot Camp or virtualization, will there be a problem with FAT32/MBR?

Hi,
using FAT32 as file system and MBR as partition table should work just fine with OSX and all Windows versions up to 7.
And since your files don't come close to 4GB single-file-size, that FAT32 limitation is no hinderance.
Use Disk Utility to do this, since Windows won't format partitions/drives with more than 32GB to FAT32 (built-in limitation).
Nonetheless it can use such partitions (I have a 200GB on my external HD).
Regards
Stefan
Message was edited by: Fortuny

Can i use my old mac hard drive to boot with my new mac?

just bought a new mac identical to my old one (13 inch) the last one got water damage and the logic board and screen were the only part that needed to be repaird. can i use my old hard drive in an external and boot it from my new mac ? so i can access stuff like book marks and other setting?
the old mac was the 2011 model on snow leapord and i just got my new one yesterday currently running the latest OS will there be any issues if i do, if i can?

you should be able to get and external enclosure, install the hadr drive from the old machine inside, then connect to your new computer.
You need something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-3-5-Inch-Aluminum-Enclosure-EC-3US35/dp/B003CJQ69A /ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1394736238&sr=8-7&keywords=hard+drive+enclosure
You can use migration assistant to move your data and programs:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5872

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

How do I format my external HD to use with iMac?

I have an external HD by Maxtor that I have used with a Windows computer. I am changing to iMac and want to use the same drive. I have transferred the files on it to my iMac successfully. But now I can't clean up the drive because everything is "read only". I read in Maxtor support how to format the drive but it was directions for Mac OS 9 and I couldn't figure it out.

Additionally, you need to be aware of OS X file system formats and partition mapping schemes are two different things.
OS X requires the Mac OS Extended (HFS+) file system formatting—applies to both PPCs and ICBMs (Intel-chip-base Macs). Details on file system formats are in <http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Performance/Conceptual/FileSystem/Art icles/MacOSXAndFiles.html>.
PPCs require the ApplePartition Map scheme and the ICBMs the GUID Partition Table scheme. Details on partition mapping schemes are in <http://developer.apple.com/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/universalbinary/universal_binary_tips/chapter_5_section10.html>.
So, for your situation, in addition to Mr. Clifton's advice, you need to select the GUID partition map scheme.

How to format external drive for use against windows and mac

Hi.
Please bear with me, a possible MAC newbie here
I'm about to buy the 13" Mac Book Pro (after ditching the Lenovo X301 because of a super slow processor, slow FSB, slow intel graphics).
But I have a couple of questions before I buy this Mac Book Pro.
NOTE:
My main OS (stationary pc) is Windows, and will probably be so for a long time.
But I need a lightweight laptop while on the run, and could not actually find any other one than the Mac Book Pro that met my requirements.
I'm using Adobe Lightroom for indexing and managing images on my windows stationary computer and will also use Lightroom on my Mac Book Pro.
I'm to use an external HDD for this purpose and will need to be able to both write and read to/from that HDD from both MAC and Windows.
Export lightroom library to External HDD from Windows (thumbnails + keywords).
Import new images and edit keywords etc from mac book pro in lightroom.
Import changes into my windows library version after been edited from library in mac book pro.
What options do I have when it comes to formatting that HDD?
What will the PROS and CONS be for the different options?
Note (I'm not to switch to Aperture (my main computer is still Windows))
Regards

Hi.. and thanks for that answer... another related here:
I'm to buy this external drive:
http://www.lacie.com/no/products/product.htm?pid=11038
This page:
http://pc.wikia.com/wiki/FAT32
tells me that windows XP will only format FAT32 to max 32GB,
will my upcoming MAC book PRO be able to format that whole disk using FAT32?
Or do I have to use something else to format it with?
Regards

Mac-formatted FAT32 external drive: cannot read with windows

I'm posting here in the hopes that it's a mac problem. I have 2 external drives, each USB and each very large (120+GB each). both contain a few files larger than 4 GB each. I formatted each drive using my Mac, one in Leopard and one previously in Tiger; each is FAT32 formatted and can be read easily with my Macbook in Leopard. I also have a 4GB flash drive that is FAT32 formatted, which was formatted using my Macbook.
when I plug either drive into a Windows machine (Vista or XP Pro SP2) it goes through the new hardware wizard but the drives do not show up in Explorer. the disk management service shows the drives but they appear as "unallocated space" and cannot be accesed. the option I have when I right-click on the drive is "Initialize". I sold my Macbook and don't have access to it anymore, and even if I did, the process of moving all of these files (a total of ~150GB) to an FTP server and then onto my new Vista machine is not possible. the even weirder thing is that my FAT32 formatted flash drive shows up on any windows machine without a problem.
Can someone explain what might have happened here? since the drives are both easily readable with any Mac (I've tried two, one with Leopard and one with Tiger) and they both show up in the Mac as FAT32 formatted, I can't imagine why they cannot be read with a Windows machine.

You cannot give yourself full access when connected like this. It is not supported. the only way to access an NTFS device with write privileges is while it is connected to a Windows host. This is because your Mac doesn't know what to do with the ACL information. While it's connected to a Windows host, you can get at the share and use the host's information to authenticate to it.
If you want to use it directly attached to the Mac, you need to have it formatted in a Mac readable format. Mac OS Journaled, HFS+, FAT32 among others... It'll need to be FAT if you want Windows to access it too though (and you can't set permissions on FAT drives like you can NTFS or HFS etc).

Formatting an external drive after use on NSLU2

I have a Western Digital 1TB My Book that I am trying to reclaim for use on another windows system.
When I plug it into a Windows 7 system it fails to find the HID driver - but I think this could get fixed by downloading the right driver. Seems to work without the HID driver anyway, so I carry on.
The drive is not visible in Windows Explorer, so I open Manage and go to Storage -> Disk Management. A window appears informing me that "You must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it.". I select the disk and use the MBR partition style, then click OK. A new pop up appears with the title "Virtual Disk Manager" and the message "The system cannot find the file specified.".
Right, I'll fix this. Time to break out the big guns. I start DISKPART, the command line process. "LIST DISK" shows me which disk number I need. "SELECT DISK 1" makes it active. "CLEAN" clears it. "CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY" will activate i... Oh. "DiskPart has encountered an error: The system cannot find the file specified. See the System Event Log for more information.". Not good.
Any ideas? The drive has been used as the backup drive - drive 2 of a two-external-drive set - and has been reported fine as of last backup. I've done a lot of searching for this and found nothing so far, any idea why the NSLU2 has made the drive unformattable?
Solved!
Go to Solution.

When you first plug in a WD mybook straight out of the box, it has an autorun.inf that runs the installer for the HID driver. I think you can download the software from the Western Digital website.
The HID driver is not strictly necessary, by the way: it's only used for the button on the back side and the light on the front side. The drive itself is controlled by the USB Mass Storage Device that's included with Windows.
From your post, it sounds like you are doing the right thing: use disk management or diskpart to re-initialize the partition table (CLEAN does that). But then CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY fails? That's strange and it shouldn't happen. Perhaps you have a virus scanner running that is trying to protect your disk from writing the MBR.
Try switching off any virus scanners you have; if you can't, you can try burning a System Rescue CD and booting it to do the partitioning and formatting. See the link in my signature.
===Jac
Frequent NAS200 Answers:
1. DISABLE the "convert failed logins to guest logins" option to fix permission problems.
2. NEVER insert or remove hard disks while the power is on. NAS200 doesn't support hot swapping.
3. ALWAYS use the power button to turn the NAS200 off, don't just unplug it.
4. Don't trust RAID. Make BACKUPS!
5. To ACCESS the disks directly, you will need ext2 and/or XFS file systems. I recommend using SystemRescueCD.
6. Disks will get HOT with standard fan, use "green" disks or consider replacing the fan.
7. FTP server is insecure and doesn't work behind a NAT router. Use my firmware and SCP instead.
8. MY FIRMWARE supports SSH shell prompt and SCP for secure file access, and allows running other software.

What sort of external drive to use with Time Machine

Hi all,
I was wondering if there are requirements to the sort of external drive Time Machine can use: does it have to be a FireWire drive or will an USB drive suffice? Additionally, what would be the best type?
Wil Dieteren

Time machine will per default do incremental backups on an hourly, daily weekly and monthly basis. Therefore you need an external harddrive that is larger than the harddrive you are backing up. Depending on how many changes and large files you work with, the requirements for the right size may vary.
I'd suggest getting an external HD that is at least 150% of your HD. 200% would be more generous.
I just bought an Iomega MiniMax 500GB and it works great with Time Machine (my iMac's HD is 320GB).

Copying Time Machine files to external drive for use with PC

Hello! Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
My MacBook Pro recently died. I have it backed up by Time Machine on an external drive. Now I'd like to copy my files from the backup to another external drive so that I can access them later from a PC computer running Windows (7 or 8). Is that possible? The Time Machine drive, I believe, is formatted specifically for Mac, but the external drive I'm trying to copy to is FAT32. Can I connect both to a friend's Mac, look for the files I need, and then copy them from the backup drive to the other external drive? Will a PC computer be able to read them?
Thanks!

Usually that error indicates a drive malfunction; specifically, the drive is spinning down and not responding to bus signals. Some "Eco" or "green" drives are known for this behavior. The following steps may help:
Select  ▹ System Preferences ▹ Energy Saver ▹ Power Adapter and uncheck the box labeled Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible, if it's checked.
If the drive is connected to a hub, connect it to a built-in port on the computer.
If a firmware update is available for the drive, apply it.
Contact the drive manufacturer to see whether there's a firmware setting you can change.
If you installed vendor software for the drive, uninstall it.
If none of the above steps resolves the issue, try another drive.

Formatting an External Drive to work with Leopard AND a PC

Hello,
I have 400 GBs of video footage on an external drive that only works with PCs.
I need to get this material onto my Mac running OSX Leopard.
I am guessing that my best option is to format a second external drive to work both with Leopord and Windows. Then transfer the footage onto the 2nd external drive via a PC.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Marc Griffin

What size is this HD? FYI, FAT32 has a 2TB limit on partition size & a 4GB limit on file size.
 Cheers, Tom

How to partition a 2TB external drive to use with TM for a 250GB backup?

My MBP only has a 250GB hard drive, but the new external drive is 2TB. I don't want to use the whole ext drive for TM back-up so what size should I create the TM backup partition so that I can use the rest for regular file storage? I saw a guideline in the FAQ that said you need 2-3x the size of the data back-up for TM. So is 500GB for TM and 1.5TB for storage a good size?
Separately, will TM recognize to use the correct partition once they are re-sized and there is a new partition on the ext drive?
Thanks

vpr80 wrote:
is 500GB for TM and 1.5TB for storage a good size?
i'm backing up three Macs to my 500 GB TC.
who needs two year old files ... let TM start clearing out the old junk earlier.
JGG

Formatting an external drive to use with my new Mac

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for