Formatting WD MyBook 1 Terabyte External Hard Drives

I recently purchased two WD MyBook Personal Edition 1 TB hard drives. These come formatted as MS-DOS FAT32, which is pretty useless for a Mac-only system. They are connected to my Mac Pro via a FW400 daisy chain.
When I went to format these drives with Disk Utility, I wanted each to have a single partition, formatted as HFS+ (Mac OS Journaled). Each time I tried to format, I got an error that the disk could not be formatted due to a file system error. However, I have no problem formatting these drives into two or more partitions using the preferred file system. If I want to have a single large partition, the only way I can have that is if I format the drives as FAT32.
Is this a problem with Mac OS - that it won't accept HFS or HFS+ partitions over a certain size? This doesn't see right, since I can buy Mac formatted LaCie drives with the right file systems.

Just want to let everyone know that I have been able to format the 1 TB drives as HFS+, in a single partition. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread.
By changing to a single partition, then selecting the "option" button, I switched the partition map scheme to GUID, and then executed the new partitioning. It is worth noting that I accomplished this via screen sharing - from my laptop in my bedroom, three floors above my home office.
Just to fill in the blanks for other contributors:
Selecting the upper drive icon in the list of drives before partitioning results in the error message. Selecting the lower icon results in an endless looping process of reading the drive and doing nothing. The issue is the partition map scheme. I purchased these MyBooks from Costco - the price was about $150 cheaper than the Apple Store. I have been using a 500 gb WD MyBook to as the target for a SuperDuper! clone of my boot drive for about a year, without any problem.
Thanks to everyone.

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I purchased a MyBook Studio 4gb external hard drive. I can't get it to work properly. WD have assessed it and say its fine and that the problem is with Apple?

I purchased a MyBook Studio 4gb external hard drive. I can't get it to work properly. WD have assessed it and say its fine and that the problem is with Apple? Any ideas?

Hello EucaBlue!
So in Disk Utility, with the external harddrive selected, go to the Partition tab, and then under "Partition Layout:" select 1 Partition.
After than, verify that it is formatting the drive as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled) under "Partition Information"
Also verify that it's using using the GUID Partition Map under the Options button at the lower left of this window.
Then click apply and confirm that you want to format the drive. It will ask you if you're sure, and probably for an Administrator password.
Once your harddrive is formatted properly, you should be able to use Time Machine, or any other Mac backup software.
Happy tinkering!
Paul

Moving Garageband Music Files to MyBook for Mac External Hard Drive on OSX 10.5.8 I'm a musician and need to make space on my mac hd. Is it safe to move music files there and delete them on the mac? Thanks!

use a MyBook for Mac external hard drive.
I need space on garageband or the entire hard drive, since I am getting the "need space on the hard drive" messages.
It's scary to move my precious music files!
How should I move them to the external and feel safe about doing so?
Or are there other methods besides the obvious, clearing caches, deleting the trash and downloads, etc., that are recommended?
I am doing music now and producers are waiting for the new vocals!
Help!
Thanks!

The process is as simple as just copying your Garageband project to the external drive and deleting from the macs hard drive. But before you delete anything you really need to back them up to someplace else also. Having just one copy is not safe. Get another external drive, DVDs or even flash drives, you absolutely need anything important in more then one place.

I want to purchase a two terabyte external hard drive to utilise Time Machine on my new iMac....but which one? Western Digital, Time Capsule, Seagate? Any advice would be most welcome please.

I want to purchase a two terabyte external hard drive to utilise Time Machine on my new iMac....but which one? Western Digital, Time Capsule, Seagate? Any advice would be most welcome please. Thanks Phil

If you are looking for high quality drives and enclosures I'd recommend these 3:
http://g-technology.com/products/g-drive.cfm
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10330
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
I use the LaCie's, I've got three connected to my system and a 4th acting as my TM drive on my MacBook Air. Any of the above would be welcome on my desk though.

What format is best for an external hard drive for video editing on a mac?

What's the best format for an external hard drive for video editing to be use with a mac only? I need to format my new hard drive and want to be sure I choose the right format.

I concur with Kappy. His suggestion is correct.
Allan

Computer will not recognize Hp pd1000a terabyte external hard drive

I have a 1 terabyte external har drive, model no. hp pd 1000a. I recently loaned it to a co worker so he could download some files from it. He came to me and said it had stopped working. I plugged in back into my laptop and now does not get recognized or read. I have tried on other computers and still no change. I have even tried keeping it plugged in usb and rebooted computer....nothing. The indicator light comes on and flashes, you can also feel and hear the drive mechanism working. I have a lot of documents on this drive that needs to be recovered, and have no back up file.
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i cannot use both at the same time for some reason.
all my music is now stored on the external hard
drive but i can't access ipod if the external hard
drive is on. please help. i've tried contacting
dell but they can't help.
allen
Hi, Allen.
I had exactly the same problem (See my post of early this day). Get a powered external usb hub. Run your external hard drive off it. Your iPod shoud work fine off an on board usb port.
If this doesn't work, install a pci expansion card with usb ports for the hard drive.
HTH.

What is the best format to use on an external hard drive so I can both back up my Macbook Pro and also put movies on it from another hard drive (PC)?

I am looking for a solution to whether if it is best to get two hard drives or one that can do two things that I want.
I am looking for a hard drive format that can both back up my 500GB Macbook Pro but I was also wondering if I could also put movies on it from another hard drive that is PC based. Would partitioning the hard drive work for this? I don't know what are the best formats to use.
If this is too hard it might just be easier having a separate 500GB hard drive for back up of my Mac and another bigger hard drive for the movies etc (the files are probably bigger than 4GB). Any help would be greatly appreciated as I need to make a decision soon!

Csound1 wrote:
Microsoft has not released the official exFAT file system specification, and a restrictive license from Microsoft is required in order to make and distribute exFAT implementations. Microsoft also asserts patents on exFAT which make it impossible to re-implement its functionality in a compatible way without violating a large percentage of them.[13] This renders the implementation, distribution, and use of exFAT as a part of free or open-source operating systems or of commercial software, for which the vendors could not obtain a license from Microsoft, not only technically difficult, but legally impossible in countries that recognize United States software patents.
Can't help with that, if one is using a Windows machine then they are subjected to their rules and control.
Limited support outside Windows and Mac OS X operating systems as of 2012, when most consumer electronic devices could only handleFAT12/FAT16/FAT32, rendering exFAT (and flash memory formats using it) impractical as a universal exchange format.
The OP said they plan to store movies on the external drive.
Many movies today are well over 4GB in size, thus exFAT has to be used and formatted on the PC, which the Mac can then read.
Older Windows NT versions up to Windows Vista without Service Pack 1 do not support exFAT.
Irrelevant, Microsoft provides a free download of exFAT for Windows XP, and Vista shouldn't be running on pre SP1 anyway.
Some distributions of Linux have begun to include support for exFAT. It is however, only available as a file system in user space, as it's not supported by the kernel.
Irrelevant, OP is using Windows and OS X, not Linux and if they did Linux can read the files at least and transfer, which is all they care about really.
Windows Vista is unable to use exFAT drives for ReadyBoost. Windows 7 removes this limitation, enabling ReadyBoost caches larger than 4 GiB.[14]
Irrelevant, the OP's is intending to use it as transfer drive between Mac's and Windows for movies.
The standard exFAT implementation only uses a single file allocation table and free space map. FAT file systems instead used alternating tables, as this allowed recovery of the file system if the media was ejected during a write (which occurs frequently in practice with removable media). The optional TexFAT component adds support for additional backup tables and maps, but may not be supported.
Some relevancy, but only exFAT can handle 4GB+ files between Mac's and PC's, so the need outweighs the possible problem.
The OP needs to follow the standard Windows practice of "safely removing hardware" before physically disconnecting the external drive. If a write is occurring, it won't allow disconnecting until the write is finished.
Support for up to 2,796,202 files per subdirectory only.[1][nb 3] Microsoft documents a limit of 65,534 files per sub-directory for their FAT32 implementation, but other operating systems have no special limit for the number of files in a FAT32 directory. FAT32 implementations in other operating systems allow an unlimited number of files up to the number of available clusters (that is, up to 268,304,373 files on volumes without long filenames).[nb 4]
Not a issue, only in extreme cases of a lot of small files. The OP plans to use it for movies which are usually large and take up a lot of space on the drive.
IMMO It looks like you just ran off and copied something to argue your point when all the points are basically irrelevant.
There is only one format that can easily share 4GB sized files between Mac's and PC's without further complications.
It's ALSO possible to install MacDrive on the PC and format the drive on the Mac HFS+, but I didn't recommend that because I know it's a hassle just like third party NTFS writing software is a hassle on Mac's.
If you so anti-Microsoft format, then you must know Paragon has to pay a license fee to Microsoft for using the NTFS format.
At least with exFAT there is no fee to Redmond, at least not yet.

Having Trouble Formatting a 4.0 Buffalo External Hard Drive

Try using http://gparted.org/

I'm trying to format one of my "no longer in use" 4.0TB Buffalo drives that I was using for a backup with (Shadow Protect), but it's giving me a hard time. Only part of it will let me format, the other unallocated section seems stuck, or locked or something. All the options are greyed.
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This topic first appeared in the Spiceworks Community

My new Macbook Air is not finding my 2 terabyte external hard-drive that is plugged in?

Hi,
I just got a Macbook Air. I need to use items on my 2 tbt external hd. It is plugged in but I do not see anything on the desktop. Whats going on??
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What are your Finder.Preferences>General?
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Reading MP3 music files from an external hard drive formatted for PC

I have 60 Gigabytes of MP3 files (my whole CD collection, mostly saved in high quality format) on a 120 GB external hard drive that was attached to my IBM Thinkpad. They are arranged in folders and subfolders, e.g. folder "Great pianists of the XXth Century" subfolder "Sviatoslav Richter" subfolder "Sviatoslav Richter CD1" files "(01) Bach English Suites 1", "(02) Bach English Suites 2".
1) My Mac (OS X.4 - Tiger - or is that X.3?) recognizes the drive as a drive (its icon appears on the desktop), but not its contents. I was told by somebody that I'd need a differently formatted PC Hard Drive for the Mac to recognize the content, and then by somebody else that the titles would all then be truncated to 8 characters. Is there a way around this? Preferably I'd like to be able to read a HD that is formatted for PCs in the way that is now standard, directly from my Mac.
2) Is there a way for iTunes - or some other music programme for the Mac - to play the MP3s as they are currently arranged, without having to reorder or rename them, or copying my whole CD collection onto a HD from scratch? (Getting 60 Gigs of MP3s from CDs is a task I'm not keen to repeat). If necessary, I could find a way to copy the current folders and files onto an external HD formatted for the Mac, but then that would hopefully be it.
At present I'm having to use the Thinkpad with Windows Media Player to play back all this music over my Hi-Fi, but would like to free up the Thinkpad for other uses by my family, and would like to run all my music from the Mac I use for everything else.

Thanks, Jason & Mike. This is how I resolved the problem. Turned out the disk with the data was in NTFS format. Neither my eMac nor my wife's Carbon iMac (prehistoric, in other words) was able to read it, on repeated attempts. In process I discovered (to my surprise) that the external hard drive attached to my eMac (a 320 Gig My Book) was formatted in FAT 32 format, and that the PC laptop (Thinkpad) read from it, and wrote to it, without any problem. (Is FAT 32 less than optimal for use with a pre-Intel Mac?). So I just copied the needed files from the NTFS disk to the FAT 32 disk, via the Thinkpad. When I reconnected the FAT 32 drive to the eMac, it turned out that it was easy [with some fiddling] to put the titles of the new music into the iTunes Library, without having to copy the music itself into iTunes. Making playlists does still seem to have to go manually. Sometimes the "New Playlist from Selection" option automatically gives a name (the original name) to the album from which the music came, sometimes it doesn't. Rationale not clear to me. Other problem: often the sequence is jumbled (this is after I added the whole collection of folders containing music to my iTunes Library in one fell swoop). Usually it was possible to correct this by copying track names for albums one album at a time from the external HD (in Columns view, selecting all the tracks in each folder simultaneously) directly into the playlist; the playlist name then always had to be copied or typed in separately. I don't know if I'm missing an easier route. Also, I see that I have version 4.7.1 of iTunes - I'll download a newer version! Don't know whether newer version will affect what I want to do in a positive sense.

Tiger randomly stopped allowing my External Hard drive to mount and...

Hello, I have been using an External Hard Drive (1 terabyte Seagate, new) for a couple months if not a year by now for saving movies, and all of my iTunes on it. Its been working wonderfully. However it recently stopped being able to mount citing invalid hard drive and gives me the options of either eject, ignore, or initialize. Im not sure what to do. And also my computer has been acting funny every since the day it started. I will walk you through it step by step.
July 6th I was surfing the web and unfortunetly clicked on a link that aparently contained a trojan. Or atleast thats what my Antivirus notified me of. I had downloaded the trojan some how without a pop up or anything telling me I was downloading anything. (using safari) So i ran a virus scan and saw one virus was in my system and that it couldnt be deleted or repaired by my antivirus program, Im working on getting rid of that but at the time I had my Seagate 1 terabyte external hard drive attached via fire wire to my Macbook. It was working then.
Later that day I unplugged my hard drive and took my laptop around a little bit, nothing unusual. Then when i came back later that night I tried plugging in my hard drive and a pop up stated that the hard drive was unable to mount and I could either eject, ignore, or initilize. I tried may different routes, restarting, letting it all rest, etc. And in Disk Utility i try to verify the disc and it says its unable to and needs repairs. So I try repairing the disc and it says unable to due to an error.
Then yesterday I went to my applications and noticed none of my applications are there anymore. These applications were saved on the internal hard drive so it was very odd to me. However i can still use spotlight to find and open my apps.
My question is, What can I do to allow my external hard drive to mount? I dont figure it is the trojan on my system but could it be? If so how would I fix it? Im mostly worried about getting the data off the external hard drive then I can reformat it. Or if theres a way to just get it back to normal without reformatting Id love to hear it. As for the applications missing and the trojan on my internal hard drive I can fix that, at the very least Ill just reboot my system with my original OS Disc and just start fresh, its about time anyways.
But please. If anyone has ever had their external hard drive just stop mounting and figured out what to do I would be ever so grateful to hear how you did so. The hard drive itself isnt damaged, its not making any unusual sounds. Whenever i plug it into the computer it acts like normal (turning on and what not) until the computer tells me it cannot mount then nothing happens. Ive looked online and it seems to be a software issue.
If its any help I was downloading a torrent (.avi, no viruses) at the time. I know sometimes if one file on the hard drive becomes corrupt the whole thing becomes unusable. Regardless I would appreciate it if anyone knows a way to at the very least retreive the files on the drive, but preferably know how to just get it back to normal. If i could get it to force mount (via terminal or something) I know which file would possibly be the corrupt one or something so I could work with it.

Bejan:
Thanks for posting back with the pics of the messages from your computer. Disk Utility reports "Underlying task reported failure" when repairing a volume is a directory error which cannot be repaired by Disk Utility. Unfortunately, Disk Warrior may not be able to replace the rebuilt directory, either. Tech Tool Pro has a better chance of repairing it, although this particular directory issue can be stubborn, and is often rooted in a hardware issue. Your surest bet is to backup/clone the information on the HDD using a utility like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner, completely reformat and erase the HDD (directions below), then restore data from backup.
Formatting, Partitioning Erasing an External HDD
• Connect external HDD to computer
• Turn on external HDD
• Start up computer and log in
• Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility and launch DU.
• Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in left side bar.
• Select Partition tab in main panel.
• Click on Options button
• Select Apple Partition Map (PPC Macs) or GUID Partition Table (Intel Macs)
• Click OK
• Select number of partitions in pull-down menu above Volume diagram.
For more partitions than one, after you have selected the number of partitions adjust the size of the partition by selecting the top partition and typing in the size; then move down if more adjustments need to be made.
(See Dr. Smoke’s FAQ Backup and Recovery for tips on partitioning external HDD)
• 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
• Check to be sure your Volume Name and Volume Format are correct.
• Click Erase button
• Repeat above procedure to erase each partition
• Quit Disk Utility.
cornelius

External Hard Drive/Time Machine 101

I was using a 500 GB external hard drive with my MacBook Pro. I cloned my hard drive to the external hard drive, then used the remaining space to store videos, images, etc. When my aging MacBook Pro finally crashed, I was able to boot up the cloned drive and work with it.
I now have a new MacBook Pro with a bigger hard drive (750 GB, I think). I also bought a 2 terabyte external hard drive (My Book for Mac), planning on doing the same thing - cloning my hard drive, then using the remaining free space to store extra stuff.
However, I discovered that my new external hard drive is much more sophisticated than the last one. It gives me the option of using Time Machine or automatically copying all my files to the external drive. So I'd like to go back to square one, find out what my options are and figure out the best strategy.
First, if I use Time Machine to back up my files, will they effectively create a clone that I can boot up? (I've never used Time Machine before.) If so, then I'm thinking I might not partition my new hard drive. Instead, I would just let Time Machine back up my files. If it creates a 1,200 GB clone, then I could copy videos and images to the remaining 800 GB of hard drive space.
If Time Machine doesn't create a bootable clone, then I'll probably just do what I've been doing - use a program like Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my hard drive, then use the remaining space to store graphics. However, I wonder if I could still get by without partitioning my new hard drive. With two terabytes, it seems like it might be more efficient to just leave it unpartitioned and copy things into it as needed.
Any tips?
Thanks.

Time Machine does not create bootable clones. It does not even create a bootable backup. If that's what you prefer then do not use Time Machine.
If you use Time Machine then you must allocate at least twice as much space for the backups than the capacity of the drive you are backing up. A 2 TB backup drive would be suitable for a 1 TB main drive or smaller.
If you plan to create a bootable backup, then partition the backup drive with one partition the size required for the clone. Then use the other partition for you additional storage neeeds.

Suddenly can't write to an external hard drive that I have been using consistently

I have been using a WD 1 terabyte external hard drive to transfer movie files between 2 MBP's and suddenly I cannot write any files to the HD. The error message is that the external hard "cannot be modified" if I try to add any files. I have tried the same hard drive on another MBP and it works fine and I can write to the hard drive (with the aid of Paragon NTFS for Mac OS). I have Paragon NTFS on my computer as well and have been able to write to the hard drive previously. I spoke to Western Digital phone support and told them the problem and noted that the icon for the hard drive is grey with a clock on my computer and is orange on the other MBP. They explained that the icon change was due to Time Machine on my computer. I currently have Time Machine turned off.
Of note, I recently upgraded my internal hard drive on my computer to a WD 500 GB internal drive. Not sure if this will make a difference. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks,

Found the issue. When I changed the internal hard drive, most softward transferred over, but not all. I had to reinstall the Paragon NTFS and I was then able to write to the external hard drive. That seemed to solve the problem.

What's the best way to transfer iphoto pictures to an external hard drive?

Just bought a new LaCie 1.5 Terabyte external hard drive to back-up all my photos. What's the easiest way to copy my iPhoto library?
Also is there a way to copy an entire "event" in iphoto and paste these events into subfolders on my external drive?
I am trying to create a system of subfolders on my hard drive that groups some events together instead of copying my entire library into one folder.
I tried the "drag and drop" way, but found that sometimes when I let go of the mouse button over the appropriate folder they would somehow miss the folder and end up pasted on-top of the folder instead of inside the folder.
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Thanks,

The best way, IMO, is to copy the iPhoto LIbrary package intact to the external HD. That will backup all your photos, edits, books, slideshows, etc.
To keep the backup copy current use a backup application like Synk or Synk Pro which is capable of making incremental backups, i.e. backing up only those new or changed files.
OT

Recommendations on partitioning a large external hard drive.

Hello
Well, I'm stepping up and purchasing a new Western Digital MyBook 500 GB external hard drive.
What's the current thinking on partitioning something like this? I thought at least making one or two 50 GB partitions in case I want to load parallels and run windows from one section. Otherwise, will be using this largely for backups and media files (music, films). Any thoughts on advantages/disadvantages of partitioning would be great.
Thanks in advance!
MBP 2.16 2GB Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Hi,
I do have the same drive (actually 2, one for each) and had them partitioned in a way to have one partition with 50GB as a sort of 'disaster boot' with a OSX system on it (made with SuperDuper) and the rest for backup purpose.
As for Parallels, the main app must be on your boot-up system, whereas the VM could very well be put on another, even external, drive.
So far no problems.
Regards
Stefan

Formatting WD MyBook 1 Terabyte External Hard Drives

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