Help Reading NTFS Drive

Hello,
My fiancee recently got a MacBook Pro to replace her aging PC. She has an external Maxtor 300GB hard drive formatted in NTFS with ALL her photos, music and files on it. None of the Macs in our household (all running 10.4.9) can recognize the disk. According to Apple, Tiger should at least be able to read this disk, but it cannot.
I even took the Maxtor to the Apple Store and they had no idea why it wouldn't work.
I know other people have had similar problems with NTFS drives. I've searched the forums, but I haven't found any answers.
Any advice?
-Dustin

What you can do is put the hard drive inside another
hard drive case known to be Mac compatible.
http://www.macsales.com/ sells such hard drive
cases for notebook drives. Just verify whether the
drive is Parallel ATA/IDE or SATA before getting the
case. It may just be that the drive case it
currently is in does not have the correct firmware
that is industry spec, and thus why the Mac can't
read it.
Ohhh, that makes sense. What about a firmware update to the drive? I'll check Maxtor's site.
Thanks!
-Dustin

Similar Messages

Mac book pro dont read ntfs drive

I have mac and Pc. to read my external drive I formated it with ntfs. it worked perfect. Today I cant read it anymore with my Mac Book Pro, but it works with the Mac Book Pro of my wife! I tried it 10 times.
NTFS-3G could not mount /dev/disk3s1
at /Volumes/Untitled because the following problem occurred:
dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/lib/libfuse.2.dylib
Referenced from: /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g
Reason: image not foun
Regards
Mercury

The MacBook Pro with Retina display has got the flash storage soldered onto the logic board. However, some manufacturers, as OWC, have released flash storage for that Mac > http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Aura_Pro_Retina_2012
It's so expensive, so I recommend you to buy an external disk and move the files you don't want on the computer here. It will be cheaper and you will be able to make backups of the files

Macbook won't recognize external NTFS drive

I've mounted a NTFS-formatted 3.5" drive into an external case. But, when I plug it into my mac, it can't read it. Disk utility reads it as disk2s1, but I can't see my glorious collection that it holds.
I've done the exact same process with another disk, and it worked perfectly. Any ideas?
Thanks, as always, for any help.

What worries me about the Fuse options is this. MacOS X (10.4.11) is supposed to be able to read NTFS drives, but not write to them. I don't want to write to mine, just get the data off of it. It's a 250GB Western Digital Internal Drive, being connected to my MacBook Pro via an enclosure that lets me connect via USB. Disk Utility sees the external drive but will not mount it.
I'm concerned about installing something when the native OS is not doing something it is supposed to be able to do.

NTFS drive compatibility with 10.5 or before

Here's my question: Is there full compatibility in terms of the mac operating system being able to use NTFS formatted drives?
I have windows installed with bootcamp, and find it annoying that I can't access my mac-formatted external hard drive (I know about the program macdrive, but it has limited function as I tried to use one program with my mac drive and it kept telling me that the drive was "already in use" and couldn't be used, aka macdrive doesn't completely resolve usage issues). So I tried plugging in my friend's external hard drive (NTFS formatted) and of course that worked fine. I also accessed a few files on the drive when I was booted in Leopard and there didn't seem to be any problems. So I thought about formatting my existing mac drive into NTFS format since apparently mac can read and write to it fine but Windows can't deal with mac-formatted drives.
Is there any reason I shouldn't do this? Are there any compatibility issues at all between mac and NTFS-formatted drives?

OSX can read but not write to NTFS partitions. Windows can't read Mac formatted partitions at all (without the use of third party software).
Your question was about the mac operating system being able to use NTFS. But if you're booted into Windows via bootcamp, you've got it backwards. You're wanting to know if Windows is compatible with Mac formats, not if the mac can use NTFS.
Yes there's a reason - they're two different operating systems, and neither manufacturer has built-in full compatibility with the other. At least with OSX, you can read NTFS drives.
Personally, I like that separation. The last thing I want to expose my Mac data to is all the bad stuff that can happen when booted into Windows.
If you want something akin to full compatibility, you can't beat Parallels. With the intel chips, the only thing that doesn't run super-fast are games. You can drag and drop between the two operating systems, create shares, and set a security level for your Mac to protect it against Windows dangers to it. There are TONS of reasons why I prefer Parallels - easy to back up an entire Windows "installation" by simply copying the virtual hard disk file to another disk; you can save your last windows state so you don't have to go through a whole Windows boot process, you can create 'snapshots' that are better than Microsoft's own Restore Point technology, etc. It's fantastic.

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.

Why does my MacBook Pro recognize an NTFS drive?

I might be overlooking something here, but I was under the impression that my Mac was not supposed to recognize an NTFS drive without some sort of third party software. However, today I purchased a WD My Passport Elite drive (not a drive specifically for a Mac) as a backup drive, plugged it in, and immediately it was recognized and asked me if I would like to use Time Machine for my backups. I wondered why it worked (I assumed I would have to format it as HFS+J first) so I went in to Disk Utility to check the format and sure enough the format reads 'Windows NT File System (NTFS)'. Did I miss something? Was support for NTFS added in the 10.6.5 update?

OSX has the built-in ability to read NTFS drives but it can't write to NTFS drives. I don't remember when it was added but it's been there for a while now. To write to NTFS, you need a third party app such as NTFS-3G.

Just bought a mac air with OS X v.10.7 Lion, for work I need to read and write NTFS drives, I install MacFuse and NTFS-3G, but it can not mount (recognize?) External HDD, in my MBP with Snow Lepard it work just perfectly... help please.

Just bought a mac air with OS X v.10.7 Lion, for work I need to read and write NTFS drives, I install MacFuse and NTFS-3G, but it can not mount (recognize?) External HDD, in my MBP with Snow lepard it work just perfectly... help please.

Reinstall MacFuse with the one from http://www.tuxera.com/mac/macfuse-core-10.5-2.1.9.dmg. If that doesn't work, you can use Paragon NTFS for Mac 9.0 which has been designed to work with Lion.

Just bought a mac air with OS X v.10.7 Lion, for work I need to read and write NTFS drives, I install MacFuse and NTFS-3G, but it can not mount (recognize?) External HDD, in my MBP with Lion it work just perfectly... help please.

Just bought a mac air with OS X v.10.7 Lion, for work I need to read and write NTFS drives, I install MacFuse and NTFS-3G, but it can not mount (recognize?) External HDD, in my MBP with Lion it work just perfectly... help please.

Sorry in my MBP Snow lepard it work.. don't have Lion In MBP

Some NTFS drives will not mount - PLEASE HELP

For years I have heard "Apple fan-boys" preaching about how MAC is much better than PC. I am one of the idiots that bought into the hype, and I am regretting it tremendously. I spent over $4000 this month converting my family's computers from PC to Mac, and I am finding it to be one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I have had nothing but problems.
My latest and greatest problem is getting my Mac(s) to mount and read some NTFS drives. I know NTFS does write on MAC without external software, but I am not trying to write NTFS with my Macs. I bought a Glyph 8TB external hard drive that is formatted for Mac. I am simply trying to take five different NTFS external hard drives, and drag their data onto my new 8TB Glyph drive that is formatted to Mac. Here is where it gets weird. I have 2 Samsung 500GB drives (NTFS) that mounted automatically, read and data transferred to my new Mac formatted drive (HTP+) without any problems. But I have 2 Glyph 6TB (NTFS) drives, and a Toshiba 2TB (NTFS) drive - none of which will mount. They didn't mount automatically, like the Samsung drives. They do all show up in disk utility, but when you click "mount" is gives you the "mount failed" error (with the "repair" option grayed out, and unavailable). When plugged back into a PC, all three of the drives function perfectly - so clearly the drives are fine. I would greatly appreciate it if anyone can help. I have spent an entire day of my life searching forums for resolutions on this one simple issue. I see a ton of people are having similar issues. Unlike PC forums that have always been easily able to resolve my major issues with a quick search, it seems that these NTFS mounting issues have Apple, and the entire Apple community, stumped.
To anyone considering the Mac vs. PC conversion, think long and hard before you convert to Mac. The Macs are more fun for video, music and photo editing. But for every other practical application I find that PC was much better. I am regretting giving Apple over $4000 of business. I wish that I could return all 4 Macs that I purchased.
My relevant system info:
Macbook Pro 13"
Intel i7, 8GB memory, 750GB HD
OS X 10.9.4

I can't seem to find a way to edit my initial post (stupidly, it only shows the edit tab on replies). I just want to correct the 6th sentence of my original post. It was meant to read:
"I know NTFS does NOT write on MAC without external software, but I am not trying to write NTFS with my Macs."

Options for reading dynamic NTFS drive in OS 10.5

Hi,
Long story short, I have a dynamic NTFS formatted drive which I need to read with a Macbook. I am studying abroad and have no access to the computer which I pulled the drive from.
I am open to any option which would allow me to access the contents of this drive. The drive has my main iTunes library as well as other media on it which I would like to have access to while I am abroad. If I could access the MP3s and MKV files on the drive without having to reformat it, that would be excellent. If this is not possible I would be willing to buy a second external hard drive and format it under OS X to which I could move my files.
My initial thoughts are to try accessing this drive from a linux distro or Win XP in parallels.
If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions they would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks a bunch!

Leopard can read NTFS. If that isn't working, I don't know that MacFUSE or Paragon Software's NTFS for OS X will either (both support ability to write to NTFS).
Forget Parallels VM, I'd put Windows 7 beta in.
Definitely invest in backups for OS X and room for an NTFS backup or "safe zone" to work with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFSfilesystem
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/2c4910c6-1b83-40e5-810a-023993aa8b94
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307889
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc781134.aspx

My MacBook w/ OSX 10.6.8 cannot access my external Time Machine Backup USB Drive. It says it is a Read Only drive. When I went to change permissions I found all pernissions were listed as "Custom" and I could not reset them to "Read Write". Any help!

My MacBook w/ OSX 10.6.8 cannot access my external Time Machine Backup USB Drive. It says it is a Read Only drive. When I went to change permissions I found all pernissions were listed as "Custom" and I could not reset them to "Read Write". Any help would be appreciated.

This can be done easily with ethernet.
Please follow the instructions strictly.
To make it easier I want you to do this overnight so you can turn off all your current connection to the internet.
Just go to the airport fan in to the top right and turn airport off.
Get ethernet cable and connect the laptop to the TC lan port.. ie <-> ones.
Press and hold the reset on the TC for about 10sec. until the front led flashes rapidly.
Open the airport utility.. go to manual setup and change the wireless to off. (so other people around you cannot join your network of one).
Ignore all the errors.. they won't stop the backup working.
Go to the TM and reselect the backup target disk as the TC.
It should start after 2min and run through to completion.
That is it.. for a backup of many GB it might take a few hours.. so make sure the laptop has power plugged in and the sleep is off.. (on early ones I think this is needed but I am a late arrival to the scene).. sleep doesn't affect later OS.

Does the Ipad2 have an app (DISK UTILITY) similar to a macbook that would allow me to reformat an extrenal ntfs drive and be read by the Ipad?

Does the Ipad2 have an app (DISK UTILITY) similar to a macbook that would allow me to reformat an extrenal ntfs drive and be read by the Ipad?

Nope

Windows 7 64-bit Corrupting (Altering) Large Files Copied to External NTFS Drives

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproperf/thread/13a7426e-1a5d-41b0-9e16-19437697f62b/
continue to this thread, I have the same problems, the corrupted files only archives, zip or 7z ... and exe, there are no problems copying larg files like movies for example, no problem when copying via linux in the same laptop, it is a windows issue, I
have all updates installed, nothing missing

Ok, lets be brief.
This problem is annoying me for years. It is totally reproducible although random. It happens when copying to external drives (mainly USB) when they are configured for "safe removal". I have had issues copying to NTFS and FAT32 partitions. I have had issues
using 4 different computers, from 7 years old to brand new ones, using AMD or intel chipsets and totally different USB controllers, and using many different USB sticks, hard disks, etc. The only common thing in those computers is Windows 7 x64 and the external
drives optimization for "safe removal". Installing Teracopy reduces the chances of data corrpution, but does not eliminate them completely. The only real workaround (tested for 2 years) is activating the write cache in the device manager properties of the
drive. In that way, windows uses the same transfer mechanisms as for the internal drives, and everything is OK.
MICROSOFT guys, there is a BIG BUG in windows 7 x64 external drives data transfer mechanism. There is a bug in the cache handling mechanism of the safe removal function. Nobody hears, I've been years talking about this in forums. It is a very dangerous bug
because it is silent, and many non professional people is experiencing random errors in their backup data. PLEASE, INVESTIGATE THIS. YOU NEED TO FIX SUCH IMPORTANT BUG. IT IS UNBELIEVABLE THAT IT IS STILL THERE SINCE 2009!!!
Hope this helps.

Windows 8.0 pro needs an NTFS drive but boot camp didn't make one

Just got a new macbook pro and went through the steps to get windows 8 pro on the machine as well. all seemed to go well until windows asked which drive to install windows on. I selected the one i had partitioned to 50gb.
Error. windows needs an NTFS drive to install to.
Any ideas?
I've read some ways of "turning on" NTFS support on the mac book but as Apple doesn't "support" it, will I be putting my machine at risk for technical help from Apple if I do the command line stuff?
It seems pretty silly to go through all these steps and then find that the drive that has been partitioned isn't the correct version.
Any help gratefully received.
Shaun

You are not following the Boot Camp Installation instructions located here: http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/. You do not format the Boot Camp partition, you follow the instructions about formatting, especially the part about selecting the advance option and selecting format.

Mount USB NTFS drive at boot

I'm trying to get my NTFS formatted USB disk to mount at boot. I'm using FSTAB, but it fails with an error when it tries to mount- only problem is, arch boots so quickly I can't see it. It works fine mounting manually afterwards (using mount -a or explicitly telling it to). It also works fine within XFCE4, using thunar/volman.
I suspect the probem is that the drive hasn't been properly initalised when it's being booted.
The best solution, would be to have some kind of process that doesn't just mount drives when they're plugged in, like happens now, but that also just mounts all drives it finds that aren't already mounted. Is there anything that does this?
The second best solution would be to make arch run a mount command at the very end of boot- possibly and addendum to on of the rc files? I don't really want to do this, since it just seems a bit messy.
Cheers for any help!

Looks like ntfs module doesn't load immediately on the boot, just a little bit later so system cannot mount ntfs drive in the boot time. I see simple solution. Just add mount string into /etc/rc.local. rc.local starts at the end of boot process so usb device initialized and ntsf module loaded:
mount /mnt/Terra
or
mount -o remount /mnt/Terra
Last edited by knedlyk (2009-09-29 20:15:37)

Help Reading NTFS Drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for