Fromat External WD hard drive versus encrypting it

I bought new WD external hard drive ( written on it formatted NTFS, requires formatting for Mac OS X. As soon as I connected it to my mac , I got the window asking of I would like to install time machine in which I was interested I clicked ok with encrypting option, I started the process. However I realised need to use the hard drive with my mac book pro and my pc , so
1- can the time machine be used on PC and mac ( as I transfer work between both computers often)?
2- Should I (2.1) format first or (2.2) I can install time machine and encryption and then format?
3- if option 2.1 above does that mean when I will format , it will erase the setting for time machine and can I re-set it once formatted ExFat or Fat32?
3- if I should format which one I should choose Fat 32 or ExFat?
4- what the repartition part of the process useful for? when I clicked the sign + it devised the disk in to two section .... does that mean it will format only half of the disk?
I would be grateful if you can answer my questions

Time Machine will only work on a volume formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). If you want to use that WD HDD on a PC as well, you will have to partition it and format one partition for Time Machine and the the other with a common format for Mac and a PC.
Fat32 has a 4 GB file size restriction. ExFAT does not.
Use these instructions to partition the HDD:
osxdaily.com/2011/04/26/partition-hard-drive-mac-os-x/
I am of the opinion that Time machine should have a HDD dedicated solely to it and you should have a separate HDD set up to work on the Mac and a PC. Take into consideration where and how you will back up the data on the PC//Mac volume/drive.
Ciao.

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Wiki: Using multiple hard drives, LVM & encryption

I have lately found myself with the issue of having multiple hard drives and wanting to do LVM stuff & encryption with while retaining maximum flexibility. After scanning through wikis, manpages and forum entries I came up with a solution for myself. The only thing I don't cover with it is mounting while booting as I don't need and can't test it.
I want to share the knowledge I gained and help other people find a solution faster and so I wrote a Wiki entry (first on my user page). I would now like to hear the opinion of the community regarding the following questions:
Do you see any security risks with my solution (especially the part on storing the unencrypted keyfile on a ramdisk)?
Do you think this text is worthy for a wiki entry or should I keep it in the forums?
Do you spot any errors (typing or else)?
Would you improve this article anywhere?
Of course, if you have further comments, I would like to here them as well. And now without further ado: Using multiple hard drives, LVM & encryption.
Regards,
javex
P.S.: As a small side question: Is my user page a good playground for article creation or would you recommend some other area where to do this (since here noone else could improve the article while in this early stage)?

mwmmartin wrote:
I have a 1 TB hard drive; but I have a 500GB and 250GB usb external hard drives.
Wouldn't it be cool if I could make the two external hard drives a RAID drive and use Time Machine to use all the 750GB of external memory to do my backups???
You can, but I would +*strongly recommend against+* it. See +Concatenated RAID+ in the Help for Disk Utility.
There are several potential problems:
Depending on how much data is on your 1 TB drive, 750 GB may not be enough to back it up. See #1 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
To set up a +Concatenated RAID+ set, both drives will be erased.
When (not if) either drive fails, you'll lose all the data on both.
Both drives must be connected any time you do a backup or want to browse your backups.
Especially with USB, if one drive wakes from sleep, or spins up, quickly enough, but the other one doesn't, the backup may fail and/or your backups may be corrupted.
For now, it looks like my only solution is to go buy a bigger external hard drive and spend more money,,,
That's your best solution +*by far.+* Anything else is taking a large risk with your backups.

How to use AirPort Time Capsule 2TB as an external storage hard drive only?

I have a new AirPort Time Capsule 3TB, now I want to use my AirPort Time Capsule 2TB as an external storage hard drive only, how do I it?
I would like to connect the AirPort Time Capsule 2TB directly to my Mac Pro. using OS X 10.7.5.
I have erase disk and reset the 2TB to factory default, after that, I cannot make it to connect to my Mac. Please help.

The 2TB Time Capsule needs to connect to your 3TB Time Capsule using a wired Ethernet connection.
Connect from a LAN <--> port on the 3 TB Time Capsule to the WAN "O" port on the 2 TB Time Capsule and configure the 2TB Time Capsule in Bridge Mode and turn off the wireless function on the device as well.
Once that is done, you can connect your Mac directly to the 2TB Time Capsule using another Ethernet cable, or your Mac can connect to the network using the normal wireless network, if you prefer.

How to use iPad (4th gen) to edit with iMovie - but using an external source such as a USB stick or external USB hard drive

Want to use my iPad (4th gen) to edit a movie using iMovie - easy enough if the movie file is on the iPad - but what if it's too large - can I keep the source file on a USB stick or external USB hard drive and edit from there? How can you do this?

You can't export any type of file using the camera connection kit, so a USB flash drive or SD card won't work.
There are some wireless external hard drives that can be used with the iPad.
The Kingston Wi-Drive, which costs $50 for the 16 Gigabyte, and then $30 more for every 16 gigs more. It works by you turning it on and then accessing the files on it from an app that you download on your iDevice. You can access music, movies, and other stuff. No connections or anything, it works like a WiFi connection, you connect to it from the setting on the iPad under wireless networks.
Then there is the Seagate GoFlex, which some would recommend over the Wi-Drive. But this one costs $199 and had 500 Gigabytes of storage. It works the sameway as the Kingston: no wires, runs over its wireless connection. You can actually fit up to 300 HD movies on it.
Another option:
Expand your iPad's storage capacity with HyperDrive
http://www.macworld.com/article/1153935/hyperdrive.html
On the road with a camera, an iPad, and a Hyperdrive
http://www.macworld.com/article/1160231/ipadhyperdrive.html
 Cheers, Tom

How do I stream purchased movies to my Macbook Pro if I've already downloaded them and moved the source files to an external desktop hard drive and I'm away from home?

I recently added a number of movies to my iTunes library by redeeming digital copeis that came with Blu-rays. Due to limted disc space on my MacBook Pro, and for safe keeping, once I downloaded the movies, I moved the source files to an external desktop hard drive. When I'm home and I'm able to access that external HD via my home network, I'm able to watch the movies without an issue. However, if I'm away from home and I want to watch them, I'm not sure how to do that. I thought I could "stream" purchased movies from within iTunes - even after downloading them - using "iTunes in the Cloud" but can't figure out how to do that, or it simply isn't possible.
What are my options?

I understand that I can't play my downloaded movies when my external HDD is not connected becuase iTunes is looking for the downloaded files. This is not the issue. The issue is that because my HDD is not connected (as in when I'm away from home) I'd like to be able to stream the movies via the cloud.
If I hadn't downloaded the movies when I redeemed my codes, would I have been able to keep the movies online via Apple iCloud and watched them anytime by streaming them or must the movies be downloaded in order to be viewed on my MacBook? I read that Apple allows movies purchased (or redeemed) via iTunes to be stored in the cloud via Apple iCloud so that they can be viewed any time, on any device. IF this is the case, how does it work? From what I can see, it looks like movies can only be "streamed" from the cloud when useing Apple TV; on my iPhone and MacBook Pro, it looks like they need to be downloaded in order to be viewed.
Can someone clarify this for me?
Also - Michael - when you said that If I've already downloaded the film but I'm away from my external HDD I should "Delete the entry from the iTunes library so iTunes only sees the iTunes in the Cloud version", what exactly would this mean? Would this mean that I could then stream the movie from the cloud or would I have to re-download it to my Mac's internal HDD in order to watch it?
Many thanks!

External USB hard drive not being recognized

Hello! I'm sure this has been posted before, but excuse my naivety with this sort of thing...
I have a mac mini 10.5.6 (1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) and I run the Time Machine function to an external usb hard drive. The hard drive worked fine (plugged into the usb port on an older keyboard), but I went out and bought a new aluminum apple keyboard (because they look so cool ^_^ ) - I plugged the external usb drive into the keyboard and it wasn't recognized, so I tried plugging the external drive directly into the mac mini, but it is still not recognized. It is not showing up in Disk Utility or in System Profiler
Help? I'd hate to have to give up this fancy keyboard...
Thank you!
Dr. E

I believe I had my external drive plugged into the (old) keyboard because with the old mac that I had didn't have a free usb port for it - so when I got the mini I just plugged things back in where they were. But I have always had the Time Machine back up to this drive (connected to the keyboard) though it has been slow (another reason I thought the new keyboard was a good idea).
I tried restarting the computer without the alu keyboard plugged in, but same problem of no drive showing up.
Here is what System Profiler has to say about my drive:
USB2.0 Storage Device:
Capacity: 93.16 GB
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: Yes
BSD Name: disk1
Product ID: 0x6830
Vendor ID: 0x04b4 (Cypress Semiconductor)
Version: 0.01
Serial Number: DEF107920F07
Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Cypress Semiconductor
Location ID: 0x3d130000
Current Available (mA): 100
Current Required (mA): 0
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
USB:
Capacity: 92.84 GB
Available: 53.14 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk1s2
Mount Point: /Volumes/USB
I don't know the brand or model as it has 'always' been in the case that in which it currently resides and I didn't physically buy the thing :\ I do know that no software was installed with the drive as I assumed that when I put all the old info from the original mac to the mini that it was the sort of thing that would carry over.
Sorry I'm not terribly helpful - Thank you!
Dr. E

Files on external FAT32 hard drive have disappeared

My friend attached her external USB hard drive to my Mac. She didn't know that she was supposed to eject her drive before pulling the USB cord.
Now, she can't see any of her files when she attaches her drive to her Windows XP machine. She's very upset; this drive has years worth of files, including some wonderful photos from a workshop we both went to.
I was able to attach the drive to a Linux computer, and I can see file and directory names. I wasn't able to change into any of the directories, though.
When we attach it to a Windows machine, the drive looks completely blank, and Windows asks if we want to format it.
What should we do?
Catemaco

Catemaco wrote:
My friend attached her external USB hard drive to my Mac. She didn't know that she was supposed to eject her drive before pulling the USB cord.
Now, she can't see any of her files when she attaches her drive to her Windows XP machine. She's very upset; this drive has years worth of files, including some wonderful photos from a workshop we both went to.
I was able to attach the drive to a Linux computer, and I can see file and directory names. I wasn't able to change into any of the directories, though.
When we attach it to a Windows machine, the drive looks completely blank, and Windows asks if we want to format it.
What should we do?
Catemaco
if the drive is still visible on your computer, copy everything to your HD and burn a CD or DVD with the data. Then you can reformat the flashdrive and copy the data back onto it.
Obviously you have learned the lesson of never disconnecting a drive without first ejecting it.
I have two flashdrives that I use on my MBPs and my PCs and it has never lost any data, but even a flashdrive should regularly be backed up onto something more permanent.
Your friend obviously has been yanking the flashdrive out of her PC without ejecting it and that's a no-no also. There's an icon in the Windows taskbar on the lower right that is used to eject any portable hardware, from flashdrives to cameras, to whatever. Let her know that it is very important to properly eject the drive, no matter what computer it is on.

I HAD AN EXTERNAL WIRELESS HARD DRIVE, I NO LONGER USE IT, BUT MY IMAC AT START UP CONTINUES TO LOOK FOR IT. IS THERE ANY WAY TO DELETE IT ?

I HAD AN EXTERNAL WIRELESS HARD DRIVE, THAT I DO NOT USE ANY MORE, BUT MY IMAC KEEPS LOOKING FOR THE HARD DRIVE AT STARTUP. IS THEIR ANY WAY TO DELETE IT, SO IT WONT KEEP LOOKING FOR IT ?

Boot in safe mode.
Log in and see whether you still have the problem. If you don't, it's caused by one of your login items or a system modification that loads at startup or login.
If the problem isn't resolved that way, other possible causes are references in the iPhoto, iTunes, or iMovie library pointing to the server, and bookmarks in the Preview application
See Connection Failed, Server Does Not Exist.

2.5" external USB hard drive not recognized by my iMac

I have a small 2.5" external USB hard drive that my intel iMac will not mount or see. My 12" G4 Powerbook sees it fine and it is formatted in Mac OS Extended. My iMac is bootcamped and XP on my iMac sees the drive but not OS X Tiger on the iMac, (wierd) I have Tiger on both my Macs too.
Why does the intel based OS X refuse to see this external 2.5 HD. It sees a 3.5" USB one I have but not the small one. I know it is software.

Hey coby,
Well thanks for the star. Not sure I deserve it.
i then tried connecting the drive to each USB port again, and voila! i have found one it works in. I guess my computer's ports must be a little worn.
Hmm well try looking inside and see if there's some smutz in there, if the contacts are dirty or bent or worn.
i was starting to think i would have to go out and get a USB hub to give it some more power.
Is it powered off the USB? If so that actually might be a good idea since that puts a lot of strain on the connectors. Even if it's self powered it might be a good idea since it would take the strain off an obviously flakey USB.
richard

External USB Hard Drive not showing up on Time Capsule

Hi all,
I have a 500 Gb Time Capsule that used to be able to detect my external USB hard drives. I had to store my things for a while and have just started using the Time Capsule again. The TC works fine, however, the same USB external hard drives I used to connect to the TC are not showing up anymore :s They show up on the desktop when I connect them directly to my MacBook via USB. I have been through most of the file sharing options in Airport Utility and System Preferences but have not been able to solve this. I can't think of any settings that would have changed from when they were showing up in the past. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thx

yosemite won't work with ntfs drives for some reason, i've had the same issue with my toshiba. i thought ok lemme buy another one, and transfer it over maybe it's a driver issue which i've tried over and over, apple support can't figure it out.
here's a simple fix, but the problem is i have an external where all my photography and video files are stored, so i can't access them right now and it's making my life ****.
http://guides.macrumors.com/Formatting_an_External_Device
that does work and make the drive mountable now, but problem being i can't obviously reformat the old drive and lose everything. once the new drive is formatted for mac i can't plug it into a pc to transfer the files from. which is the only problem now. but formatting the drive for mac only DOES work. but you're just screwed and not able to use it ntfs. hope the link helps SOME people.

External PC Hard Drive won't show up on my Mac

My friend copied a bunch of files on his home PC to his external USB Hard Drive.
I plugged it in to my USB hub, turned it on, but my Mac won't recognize the drive. It doesn't show anything.
How do I get it to see this drive so I can pull the files off?

Not all USB drives work well with Macs.
Have you tried direct connect?
Do you have a USB2 controller? one of the first things to add.
Is it FAT32 format? NTFS? something else? You should be able to read both of those.
Have you looked to see if it shows at all in System Profiler or Disk Utility?
How about after a restart with it plugged in and already on?

Copying .avi files from Imac to external WD Hard Drive

I'm new to the Mac and having a few file issues. I have copied from my old PC a number of large (12GB) .avi files to the internal (500GB) drive on my Imac. I have recently bought a 1TB WD external drive and wish to copy the avi video files on the Imac to the external WD hard drive but it comes up with "sorry the operation could not be completed because an unexpected error occurred. (Error Code 0)". The WD drive is firewire connected and I believe is "Mac ready".
Any help would be much appreciated because my internal drive has only about 16GB left.
Thanks in advance.

You need to keep a good amount of free space on the internal drive (the startup volume). 16GB free is too low. Mac OS X uses the free space on the startup volume for hidden system files that are part of its normal operation, including things like virtual memory swap files. Finder copy processing probably also writes hidden temp files into the free space. You should try to keep 10% of the total space free, as a minimum; I use 15% as my minimum, although I've off-loaded most of my personal files to an external FireWire drive, so I have more than 50% free these days.
For your current situation, I would copy some other smaller files (or folders with smaller files) to the 1TB external drive, and erase them off the internal drive. I think the problem is that those .avi files are really large, and that may be a problem with your current lack of free space. So copy over some smaller files first, to get the free space up to about 50GB. Then, try to copy those large files again, starting with any that are on the smaller side. Once you delete them off the internal drive, you will have plenty of free space. You can copy back some of those smaller files you copied over initially (to free up space), if you want to do so, since you should have plenty of free space now.
And remember not to ever get the free space on your startup volume down to 16GB going forward.

I have macbook pro 13" I want to know how to copy files from my mac to the external Toshiba Hard Drive. I can't even delete files from my external hard drive. please help me my macbook HD is almost full and I have to copy my images to the Toshiba HD

I have macbook pro 13" I want to know how to copy files from my mac to the external Toshiba Hard Drive. I can't even delete files from my external hard drive. please help me my macbook HD is almost full and I have to copy my images to the Toshiba HD

To delete files from your external HDD, attach it to your MBP and drag the unwanted files to trash and then empty trash.
Then you select the files that you want to transfer by 'drag and drop' to the external HDD and trash the files on your MBP.
Ciao.

Can PB boot from an External Firewire Hard Drive?

Can I set up an external firewire hard drive as an emergency boot drive, in case my internal drive goes south? Anyone have utility software recommendations for setting up boot drive or mirror drive, in addition to OS X's Disk Utility? Thanks.

Photon2:
Yes, you can set up your external firewire HDD as an emergency boot drive.
Here's what you need to do:
1. Your HDD must be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2. (Optional) I suggest you partition your HDD so that the first partition is roughly equivalent to the size of your internal HDD. The rest can be partitioned for other uses. (See Dr. Smoke's FAQ Backup and Recovery) For step-by-step for formatting and partitioning please post back).
3. Use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable clone of your internal HDD to the external firewire HDD/partition.
Please post back with further questions or comments.
Cheers
cornelius

Can You Now Install Windows 7 64-bit On an External Thunderbolt Hard Drive?

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Gbu.

Yep, it works great.
I bought the Thunderbolt adapter for my Seagate GoFlex. Use the Windows 7 install USB stick that Boot Camp makes. Each time Windows installer reboots, you need to hold the option key to reboot back to the new installation. If you miss it and the computer boots back to OS X, no problem, just reboot with option. Once Windows is finished, run Windows Support from your USB stick.
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Fromat External WD hard drive versus encrypting it

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