Formatting HFS+ or NTFS hard drive

hello, i have an external hard drive (180gb) on which i would like to do 2 things. i would like to use part of it as my "Time Machine Backups" and i would also like to use it as a big portable hard drive that is able to be read on windows and mac. is there any possibility that i would be able to format this hard drive to a HFS+ or NTFS hard drive.
ps. i have MacFUSE ready to install on it if i can format it to NTFS. MacFUSE is a program that allows mac to read and write on a NTFS hd instead of just read it.

Hello Brian
This may not be exactly what your looking for, but a 180GB HD seems a little small for both TM and for sharing files. Time Machine backups can easily grow to nearly twice the size of what's on your Internal HD and then you would need more space!
I would like to suggest formatting the 180GB drive FAT 32 and using it for backing up your music, photos and doc's files and for sharing between the iMac and PC.
http://www.macworld.com/article/51972/2006/07/ww_drives.html
http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/partitioningtiger.html
Then taking into account your budget and amount of data currently on your iMac's HD pick up a second External HD strictly for Time Machine.
http://www.apple.com/support/leopard/timemachine/
Dennis

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How do you connect an NTFS hard drive for time machine???

So I have this 1.5 TB hard drive connected like so:
1.5 TB HDD ==========> Wifi Router (configured to be accessible using FTP, and SMB, also able to connect using HTTP, but haven't tried)
                       (USB)                 ||
                                                 ||
                                                 ||
                                                 ||   (Wifi, 2.4 ghz wireless G /OR/ 5 ghz wireless n)
                                                 ||
                                                 ||
                                                 ||
                                                 V
                                    To my macbook pro (which logs onto this NTFS hard drive just fine and shows it as a server)
So that's how it's setup. I can access the files and everything just fine as a server, which is all peachy. But I want to use Time Machine. So here's how I got my hard drive connected in the first place, I followed these steps from OSX Daily:
Map a network drive to Mac OS X
This method maps a network drive that will disappear if the network connection drops or if you reboot your Mac:
From the Mac OS X Finder, hit Command+K to bring up the ‘Connect to Server’ window
Enter the path to the network drive you want to map, ie: smb://networkcomputer/networkshare and click ‘Connect’
Enter your login/password and click “OK” to mount the network drive
The drive will now appear on your desktop and in the Finder window sidebar
Did everything it says right up there, and worked like a charm. Plus I used this command that allows Time Machine to see my hard drive and supposedly make it usable, if you want to know it, tell me and I'll put it on here, if you don't need to I'm to lazy to find it
anyway, I went to Time Machine, selected my hard drive (yay! It wasn't there before) and all seems just fine. Then it hangs on the "Making Backup Disk Usable" bit. I did lots of searches and it seems to be a problem with something like bundles or whatever, but I can't figure it out. Help?

Why do you want to use a NTFS format that's Microsoft's for protecting your data with TimeMachine a Apple software?
Doesn't make much sense. Just format the drive in Disk Utility HFS+Journaled like TimeMachine expects instead of having to use workarounds as NFTS isn't a native Mac format.
Select hard drive name, click Erase tab, click HFS+Journaled, give it a name and click Erase...
If you want the drive wiped of all data, then use Security option Zero erase. (takes a lot longer)
I think you need to read up on TimeMachine
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Home.html

Format a seagate external hard drive

wondering if anyone can help me to format my seagate 500GB hard drive so i can you the hard drive on a PC and my mac book pro.
what do i need to do and what type of format do i need to do.

how can i format it to fat32.
Plug the thing in, open Disk Utility (located in the Utilities folder), select the volume (under the device), check its format (all store-bought drives come preformatted). If it says FAT32, you're all set. If it says NTFS, it is going to take a bit more effort cause Leopard's Disk Utility has a bug and it can't erase NTFS. So, [here's a writeup of how to get rid of the NTFS volume|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7783365#7783365]; the only difference is you don't need to change the partition from MBR and you will choose FAT32 instead of *Apple Extended (Journaled)*. Write back if you need more help.

Lion won't open iPhoto library on external NTFS Hard Drive.

Lion doesn't open the iPhoto library on my external NTFS Hard Drive. The caution window says: "The iPhoto Library is locked, on a locked disk, or you do not have permission to make changes to it." This is weird because I have installed Paragon for MAC OS X v. 9.0.1 (Lion compatible) and Lion reads and writes files on the NTFS drive without any problem.
Before updating to Lion, Snow Leopard just worked fine with the same configuration.
I have tried to delete and tranfer again my iPhoto library to the external HDD, as well as creating an alias of the iPhoto library on my Mac internal HDD but nothing worked. Any ideas or solutions?

I would caution you:
iPhoto needs to have the Library sitting on disk formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Users with the Library sitting on disks otherwise formatted regularly report issues including, but not limited to, importing, saving edits and sharing the photos.
Regards
TD

Converting old windows ntfs hard drives to mac

hello All
i hope that someone can help i have 3 old Ntfs hard drives, but my mac will not search thought them for files via spotlight, even though i have a program which allows the info to be read, peg something its called.
i want to convert the drives to mac, but is there a way to do which will keep the data on the drives and with out loosing the data or corupting it.
also i have a drive with window which i run boot camp and parallels, does that have to be nfts to work or can that be converted too?
i hope some can help
mike

Hi Mike and welcome to Discussions.
Spotlight can't index drives formatted to NTFS because OS X can't write on them (indexing involves writing on the drive) and so can't search them, but you can search them using EasyFind for instance because OS X can read NTFS volumes.
http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/freeware/index.html
I believe with MacFuse you can add write capability to OS X for NTFS.
I'm wondering if you couldn't convert your NTFS drive (while connected to a PC) to FAT32 which is read/writeable by OS X. But note though that FAT32 has a file size limit of 4GB, in case that matters to what you use the computer for. And _make sure_ you have a backup before attempting this. There are various ways of doing it it depending on the OS of the PC. I believe Partition Magic can do this, but Google around.
also i have a drive with window which i run boot camp and parallels, does that have to be nfts to work or can that be converted too?
What do you mean by this - is Windows installed on the drive using boot camp?
/p

So I formatted a brand new hard drive to MAC OS (Journal), I then could save on the hard drive. Not two days later Im back at square one, the program wont recognize the hard drive again.

So, hard to beleive, but I am having some trouble with Final Cut Pro X.
This last week I formatted a brand new hard drive to MAC OS (Journal),
so that I could save on that hard drive.
Well it went great.
I saved my project on there and copied a few others over as to free up space on my Laptop.
Then, not two days later Im back at square one,
the program wont recognize the hard drive.
It wont even open the events up off my hard drive,
as to jog the program into reqcognizing the scratch disk (which worked twice before).
What happened?
How do I get the program to re-recongize my newly formatted hard drive?
Please help!

The name of the drive, or the name of some folders inside the drive, may fool FCP X into believing it is a camera.
Also, you should not use the drive for time machine backups.

How do I format a new external Hard drive for Mac?

Simple question I know for many of you out there but I could do with some advice as I have never done this before. I would like to buy a new external hard drive to store my music and photos on. I will get one with firewire and usb2 connectivity.Could someone walk me through the steps needed to format and prepare a hard drive for use with my Macbook (if it is not already Mac formatted). Will any brand of hard drive work with Mac or are some better than others?

In addition to what Templeto Peck said, make sure that you select the formating to be OSX Extended.
As far as the best esternal drive, type into the "Search Discussion" box: Best external hard drive. This will bring you to several previouslly posted threads that discuss quite thoroughly your question. The following is extracted from one thread:
The best drives are those that use the Oxford 911 chipset. I like the Mercury Elite Pro drives from OWC, but there are plenty of others that use the same chipset.

How do I download videos in different formats from an external hard drive?

How do I download videos in MPEG and other formats from an external hard drive to a MacBook?

If the external hard drive is the source, then "download" is a confusing term. To "download", refers to the action of transfering by internet protocol from the internet to a device.
To "copy" those files, it is simply a matter of plugging in the external hard drive via the USB cable provided with that drive to a corresponding port on your Air. The drive should automatically mount, and either be visible by an icon on your desktop, or in a Finder window.
You simply click on the icon, or do similarly within a finder widow to examine the contents of the drive. You would open an additional Finder window and naviagte to your desired flder destination.
Then, simply "drag and drop" the files you wish to copy from the source (the external hard drive), to the destination fold on your Air.

[Solved] Spanish characters not read on NTFS hard drive

Hi there,
Every time I mount my NTFS hard drive with the windows partition on it, I can't read the file names properly. Instead of á, é, í, ó and ú it introduces boxes or interrogation signs. Any idea why that may be?
Last edited by Zespris (2008-11-19 12:28:20)

Yes, it's surely missing support for utf8. I guess that's happening with automount? Are you running Gnome? For I encountered that just shortly ago there. HAL isn't getting the correct locale options. (It can't be KDE for it got fixed there in 4.1.1 or .2)
In Gnome run gconf-editor
/ -> apps -> system -> ntfs-3g -> mount_options: [locale=es_ES.UTF8]
Set locale to whatever your locale is, I just assumed Spain now. That should get you going. Additionally you might want to add ",utf8" to vfat mount_options as well, just in case you use FAT32 drives as well (or will in the future).
If that doesn't help you please tell us where exactly you get this issue and, what DE etc. Good luck.

Encoding on terminal to read/write ntfs hard drive help!

I encoded in Terminal the codes that were posted online regarding the enabling of read/write for ntfs hard drive but something went wrong during the process. Would it be possible to undo it? Would there be any code to disable it so I could at least read it? It won't even read my hard drive anymore. I think I have accidentally delete the Volumes part where it was supposed to appear.

Difficult to say without knowing what you did more precisely. Use the terminal history command as follows:
     history > ~/Desktop/MyNightmare.txt
to save what you got up to in a file on your desktop. Copy and paste the lines that will show us what you did. Check for, and redact as necessary, any personal information such as user names, passwords, etc. before posting.
Also, I assume that you tried to edit your /etc/fstab file so please post the results of these terminal commands
     ls -la /etc/fstab
     cat /etc/fstab
too.
C.

Can I use NTFS format on an external hard drive?

Hello all,
I have a Western Digital MyBook 2.0 500GB External Hard Drive that is formatted in fat32 format. The problem is, the files I wanted to back up are all 6-8GB dmg's and fat32 only supports the transfer of files up to 4GB (more like 3.75 in reality...).
Can I reformat the drive to NTFS and still be able to use it on my Mac?
If so, is there a particular way to do so that anyone can recommend?
Or, is there another format that is out there that allows larger file transfers than 4GB and is still Mac-friendly?

I don't need to use it with a PC at all, thankfully I've ditched every remnant of PC's in my life...
Except for my Xbox 360
So, reformatting to OS Extended (Journaled) will allow me to transfer files that are about 7GB?

Trying to find the best format for an external hard drive

I have a new iMac 20", and I am now converting an external hard drive I had on another computer to be compatible with this one. The ext. HD was formatted as NTFS, and I would like to make it much more easily read/write. I've tried using various tools to enable write support on the drive, but I'm giving up on that, instead opting that I just format the drive to something else.
Disk Utility doesn't really offer me a comprehensive comparison of UFS and Mac OS Extended (Journaled), or any of the OS Extended derivatives.
Since Everything is either:
a) Mac OS Extended
b) MS-DOS or
c) Unix File System
What are the differences between a) and c) and why would I choose UFS over the others? For the time being, I just want to set up the drive as a backup, but I may use it for more than that, since it has a Firewire connection to it, enabling much better performance than USB.
Thanks in advance,
Nick

File system formats and partition map schemes are two different things.
OS X requires the Mac OS Extended (HFS+) file system formatting scheme. Details on file format schemes are in http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Performance/Conceptual/FileSystem/Artic les/MacOSXAndFiles.html
ICBMs (Intel-chip-based Macs) require 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 and further information on GUID is in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUIDPartitionTable.
Erasing. When you erase a volume, you delete the volume's file directory (when you erase a disk, you also destroy its partitions and directories); and, when you zero out the data, you write 0s and 1s to the disk and map out bad blocks.
So, I suggest using Disk Utility and erasing, zeroing out data, Mac OS X Extended, and the GUID partition scheme.

I've formatted my wd external hard drive but I can't put photos on it?? Help

I've bought a WD external hard drive and formatted it for mac but it won't let me save photo and I've tried single photos and as albums but with no joy can anyone help me.
Cheers

looks like you formatted it as NTFS
get info on drive (cmd-i) and see how it is formatted and what permissions are set
if NTFS - reformat it to HFS+ journaled

Formatted WD Elements external hard drive for mac, not working

Hey.
So i recently got a new television and found that i could plug my WD Elements hard drive into it and watch my movies etc.
the hard drive hadnt been updated in a while, so last time i had updated it was before we got a mac. i plugged it in the other day to put new things on it and my mac recognized it but it said it was read only and wouldnt allow me to put new things onto it. After doing a bit of googling i realized i needed to format it. I thought i would give it a go see what happened. after looking on the forums i formatted it through either exFAT or NTFS. and my hard drive changed to read & write and i could put my things onto it. But when i plugged it into the tele it said no media was found(still recgonized my hd though)
I'm guessing ive done something wrong. i just don't know exactly what. any tips or suggestions on what to do next would be much appreciated! thanks
oh and my mac's version is 10.9.1

You did nothing wrong, you just need to find a format that can be shared by the Mac and your TV.
Mac can work with Mac formats (HFS), and Windows formats (FAT and NTFS), but NTFS will be only read only.
So your TV set, read NTFS but perhaps not FAT?, and your mac cannot write NTFS.
In order to write to NTFS devices, you must install one and only ONE of this comercial software:
Tuxera or Paragon

I have formatted my SSD and hard drive.... I am running a clean install from disk of 8.1 pro. I cannot determine if it is a compatibility

issue or hardware issue. I had run a memory test and scan disk for bad sectors from the bios. As administrator, I enabled automount in diskpart to allow windows to assign a drive name.
From the bios, I can see both drives and only the ssd. I have not pinpointed when the harddisk is unmounted. It is formatted as NTFS. I can hear it unmount either during boot or upon waking from sleep mode. The bios sees no bad sectors nor does windows.
However, when I had the intel compatibility software installed, my hard drive never mounted. I did a restart and inorder for windows to see my hard drive. I disabled the intel software for the 4th gen i7 processor. This problem is happening less often. I do
not think I have solved the problem. Intel or Windows... I think a bit of both.
If there is a software patch, please guide me to it. I am in school and use my laptop ALL the time. I believe it is a compatibility issue. I have attached this from searching intel's site for downloads and windows is up to date.
I am quite concerned because I can hear my harddrive unmount. It is labeled as healthy NTFS partition. I have checked for hidden volumes and done everything I know to do to check the integrity of the hardware as administrator. I have searched microsofts
libraries and forums and have done everything I can find as suggestions.
I have checked for malware, viruses, etc. My only clue this is going to happen is the hard disk spins up and I hear the fan, then I hear it unmount the drive. Of course, after unmounted there are other issues which I have ruled out as the cause of the problem.
Basically, I am experiencing a lack of swap space after my hard drive unmounts.
Any suggestions, are welcome! I would really like to know if this is a known windows issue. I should not have to disable intel's processor software. I paid for the features of the i7 and would like to utilise the processor.

Hi,
According to your descriptioin, I don't think this is system problem, it should be Intel driver problem. It would be contact Intel to confirm this issue whether this is their driver problem.
Roger Lu
TechNet Community Support

Formatting HFS+ or NTFS hard drive

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