Help With External Drive

I have a 300 GB Newer Technology drive i use as backup with Super Duper. Anyway I upgraded to Leopard and when I went to backup I didn't realize Time Machine was trying to backup on the same drive. I tried to erase the drive to start over but got an error and now the external is not recognized when I turn it on. Where do I start?

Hi Cactushead
Time Machine asked.... go to: System Preferences > Time Machine and turn if Off.
1. Connect the External HD and open Disk Utility.
+(if seen there highlight the drive and click the blue mount button)+ < added in for your case
2. Highlight the External HD in the list and select the Partition tab.
3. Under Volume Scheme select 1 Partition and click on the Options... button.
4. Select Apple Partition Map in the drop down window and then click the OK... button.
5. Set the Format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled), name the External HD and click the Apply button.
6. That should erase the External HD and give you the option to use it for either SuperDuper or Time Machine.
Dennis

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IMac won't boot with external drives attached

I am using iMac 27" Late 2013 model upgraded to mavericks 10.9.4. Two external drives are always attached with it, one is segate 3.5" 2TB USB 3.0 drive and another one is 2.5" usb 2.0 drive.
when i start my imac with external drives attached it won't boot up. Stuck at plain white screen after a startup chime, not even any apple logo or any progress circle appears. And i have to detach all of my drives to make it boot.
This problem arises after upgrading to mavericks. Already tried resetting PRAM, SMC and checked Startup disk and verify disk with disk utility.

Raja,
Do a SMC reset perhaps even a couple of times and see if that helps. Also in System Preferences + Startup Disk make sure the internal HD is selected.
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM RESET
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
Roger

Finder crashes with External Drive on Sleep Mode

I purchased my new iMac 21,5" less than a week ago, and I haven't had a problem with it except for one that it's been bugging me a lot.
I have a LaCie 1TB Quadra d2 external drive that I use to store footage (since it's HD, the filesize won't fit in my 500TB internal hard drive), but I noticed that sometimes when LaCie external drive enters in Sleep Mode, the Finder freezes and the only two ways around this, is to force reboot, because the Finder won't answer and won't open again, or unplugging the external drive without ejecting him first, which it's not safe for me to do, because I'm afraid of hurting the device, and the files in it are pretty important.
This happens almost everytime, especially after a long time on sleep mode. I usually leave Final Cut Pro transferring files all night (since it takes a long time) so I kinda need the sleep mode, but when I wake up, Finder and Final Cut Pro won't answer.
I updated to Snow Leopard 10.6.8 on day one. Is there a way to fix this? Is it normal? I read somewhere that some users were having trouble with external drives on Sleep Mode, but I can't seem to find any further information about this problem.
Thanks!

I've got a MacBook Pro 13.3" that's a little over a month old, with a LaCie 1TB LaCie d2 Quadra with USB 3.0, #301542U and I'm suffering the same problems and a few others with it. I've got a partition on it set up as my Time Machine backup drive. I've turned off the Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible in the Energy Saver preferences but I'm still having the sleep problem with it. According to the LaCie Manual:
By default, your drive will enter Eco Mode after 30 minutes of inactivity in order to conserve energy. To exit Eco Mode, simply access data on the drive and the disk will automatically restart. You can manage this feature using LaCie Desktop Manager. Click the Eco tab.
The LaCie Desktop Manager (in my case) only takes me to the Energy Saver Preferences in OS X to adjust the time there. Turning off Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible doesn't seem to make any difference, the drive still goes to sleep after 30 minutes. However, after 15 minutes the drive seems to wake back up, but then during the next 15 minutes goes comatose (no power light). Sometimes it will go through multiples of these sleep wake cycles without going into a coma, but eventually it does go into a coma. This happens in between hourly Time Machine backups.
After locking up Finder, Disk Utility and Time Machine multiple times trying to access the drive in this state I figured out that I could cycle the power switch to regain use of it (with a Finder warning of course) but this will only lead to file corruption eventually and I shouldn't have to resort to this. I've also dismounted it, expecting it to turn off and instead it goes into an extended spin down cycle (rapidly flashing light) and never turns off (or goes to sleep or what ever it's supposed to do) and once again requires turning the power switch off.
This is just too unpredictible and unrelable for me and as soon as I get the opportunity to do a 7 pass erase I'll be returning to the place of purchase. Based on the reviews of other external hard drives a drive from another company doesn't look to be much better of a prospect so I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

Serious problems after Mavericks installation with External Drive Lacie P9220.

Experiencing serious problems after Mavericks installation with External Drive Lacie P9220 1TB. Mac Finder totally locked!
I had to format the External hard drive with a Windows PC (fat32), then format again with my IMac (mac Journal.) and hopefully restored data from time machine backup.
So far so good but system looks unstable. Some software were not able to write on the hard drive.Some strange things happens. With Mountain Lion never had an even minor issue.
I read many discussion regarding problems with WD, just wondering if anyone had the same problems with Lacie and if there is any tip to solve the
problem.
Many thanks.
Marco

Thanks very much for your reply.
Unfortunately I couldn't find a solution because the article refers to whom have configured the drive with included software and drivers that came with the drive.
This is not my case, I never used any third party soft ...only OS X disk utility ...
best
marco

Need Help with External Hard drives and too much music

I am not terribly tech-savvy, and I need your help. I have a G5 PPC dual processor with an internal 250GB drive. I have two seagate firewire/USB2 external hard drives. One is 250GB and one is 350GB. I want to know how to use them to get my Mac to run faster and better.
My original hard drive is 7GB shy of being full. Almost half of this is my itunes library which is over 100GB. The older (250GB) hard drive has about 150GB of photos/videos.
My Mac is running slow as molasses and when I power up the external hard drives it slows down to what I recall my original Mac Plus ran like.
I use the G5 primarily to work with photos, illustrations and creating the occasional DVD with video and photos. the apps I use most often are Photoshop, Illustrator and Painter. I always listen to music while work.
I hope all of this information is helpful! Here is my question:
What is the best way for me to set up and use these external hard drives to return my G5 to its original blazing (to me) fast speed?
PPC G5 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

I think you should look at adding two 500GB internal drives. I'd say Maxtor MaxLine Pro for cost, but they also run much warmer (43ºC even when nearly doing zilch) so I'd go with WD RE2 500GB for $40 ea. more.
dump whatever you don't need, trash anything that is hogging space and is just temp file or useless cache. Web browsers can leave behind a ton of small files eating up tens of MBs.
Use SuperDuper to backup/clone your drive.
Disk Warrior 4 to repair (after it gets to 15% free, or just forget for now).
A 250GB drive formats to 240GB and you have ~3% free it looks like.
For every data drive plan to have two backup drives.
Keep your boot drive to 40% used.
And your data drive to 60%.
Backups can go a little higher.
Drives are cheap and inexpensive, especially for the space and performance. And they have improved SATA over the years it has been out.
By doing a backup followed by erasing your drive, and then restoring it, using SuperDuper, which optimizes the organization, skips copying temp files that aren't needed, it also defragments your files. I would do backup daily to different sets that you "rotate." And before any OS update. And do the erase and restore probably every 2 months.
Make sure you keep one drive partition somewhere that is just your disk utility emergency boot drive that is not a copy of working system, used for doing repairs like running Disk Warrior and Disk Utility.
You may need to repair; backup; even erase and restore your external drives. Rather than spend on vendor made case, just pick up a good FireWire case either with drive, or bare (and add your own). I think it'd add 500GB FW drive though.
Why?
To begin backup of your current drive. To leave your other FW drives "as is" for now.
Then install a new internal 500GB drive as well so you now have a good current backup, and you have moved your data off 250GB to 500GB. If anything happens, you have one off line FW backup.
Then begin to clean up, organize, and get your FW drives working. It sure sounds like they have had some directory or file problems.
You can find a lot of Firewire and SATA drive choices over at OWC:
http://www.macsales.com/firewire/

Need help with external hard drive!

Hi all,
I have been having trouble with my external hard drive.
My mac is reading the disk however all my files from the hard drive are missing?
In disk utility is seems to show that there are files on the disk but I cannot see them?
At the bottom is shows that there are files on the disk!
PLEASE HELP!!!!
Here is a screenshot of my disk utility

Ok just to clarify the format issue...
Just move the data from the external drive, format and then move it back if you want, as JiveMasterT explained.
If the external drive is FAT file system, then you don't need to format the drive unless you are planning on using the drive as an OSX backup.

ITunes library issues with external drive - HELP!

Hey guys,
I just got the Time Capsule and am using it to store my iTunes library. I went to preferences>Advanced and changed the location of the iTunes Library to my time capsule HD.
The problem I am having is that every time I disconnect from the network iTunes defaults back to user/me/music/itunes and I have to redirect it and then click yes for "organize my library" and then it updates the library, blah blah...
This is very annoying, does anyone have any suggestions?

Try this post;
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
Maybe the most useful hint for you is the last paragraph "If you move your library to an external drive, you'll need to power up and connect the drive before starting iTunes. If you don't, iTunes will prompt you to either locate the library or to create a new library (which will result in an empty library)."

Best practices with external drives connected to Time Capsule?

I'm enjoying my new MBP but the storage limitations are a challenge with twenty+ years of data. I know it's not technically sanctioned by Apple but in another forum I found a discussion about successfully connecting an external drive to the Time Capsule. I tried this for a few months and had some problems, so I wonder if anyone here might have some insight into which of my drives would be best to use in this way and what, if anything, I must do to bless it for the task.
The drive most highly recommended in the forums at the time is the WD My Book. After buying it I learned that is Windows users install a package and update the driver for use with Time Machine, which Mac users are not able to do. The driver is available on the web but it's said to cause problems with Mountain Lion, which I can confirm. It's USB 3.0 and powered, though, which my two alternatives are not. It's also 2 TB and presently in two partitions. I also have a Seagate Free Agent GoFlex 500 which gets extremely hot with any use and an Iomega eGo Helium 500 I've been using for backups. Both are USB 2.0.
My goal is to put my iTunes Library and Time Capsule on the net (running 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz, averages 50Mbs). When I did this for a few months with the WD both its shares frequently dropped off my Desktop, as if powered down or something. Also there were the issues with Time Machine many others are having. Right now our video collection sits on the Time Capsule. Would it make sense to move our video to the WD and run iTunes and Time Machine on it? If so, do you have any tips for formatting, petitioning, or drivers (or anything else) to help this run smoothly? The WD works fine when hard-wired and the TC, too is fine without the WD at the party.
With apologies for the tome.

kevlee64 wrote:
Thanks, but the drive is connected directly to the back of the Time Capsule by an ethernet cable.
Ah, that's a different colored horse.
You have a NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive, not a USB external drive connected to the USB port.
Many of those need software/firmware updates to work with Lion. Check with Iomega.

Windows XP Pro on MacBook Pro with 'external drive'!?

I don't want to load Windows XP Pro on the MBP ... it will take up too much space - I'm running Final Cut Studio and Logic Audio.
Can I put Windows XP Pro on a SEPARATE DRIVE, along with the few apps I want to use in Windows ... and then BOOT from that drive when I want to work in Windows?
And would there be something specific I have to watch out for?
Is there a good article somewhere about running Windows on the Mac Intel? That would help my technical guy create the bootable Windows\Mac Intel version external drive?
Thank you,
Ben

Thank you Blue,
I'm awaiting my new Final Cut Pro Studio Universal disks, and then my Logic Audio 'Universal' disk ... I don't think I'm going to have a lot of room to play with.
I'm already eyeing the 120 gig drive.
But, actually, I'm not sure I want to have Windows in any way connected to this computer. The idea makes me nervous.
All the best,
Ben

PC to Mac with external drive as main library

I recently switched from PC (Dell Inspiron) to Mac (MacBook) and am having some serious difficulties getting my iTunes to cooperate.
I used an external drive as my main iTunes library on my PC. I would like to continue doing this with my new Mac because my library is quite large. I know it is not as simple as pointing to the folder on the external HD from within the Mac. I have read all the posts out there and none of the address my issue specifically.
To reiterate, I currently am using an external HD with my PC that contains my iTunes library. I am now using my Macbook as my main computer and want to continue using the same external drive because my library is too large to import to the internal HD. How do I get the iTunes on my MacBook to read (point to?) the external drive where all of my media (music, podcasts, TV, Movies, Games, etc) reside without losing any information and/or files?
Please help...thanks!
Brian

I pretty much did the same thing (switched from PC to Mac) and had the same issue and this is how I set it:
go to preferences then click on the advanced tab, then on general
then for the folder just click 'change' and set it to be what your folder with all your music is on (on the external). I unchecked the 'copy files to itunes music folder...' as well (not sure this is needed, but didn't want to experiment it copying everything again)
then I went to File > Add to Library, selected the same folder and done. It will take a bit as it goes through the whole library. I guess after this you could go back to preferences and check that copy to itunes folder so any future additions get put on the external.
I hope that helps.

Change itunes from PC to Mac with external drive

Been using a Dell with itunes for my music system in mt home. I installed an additional 80G that i've maxed out with tunes. This is in addition to the 30G that came with the system. I have a Mini and just purchased a 500G Western digital external drive. I want to transfer all the music on the 80G (PC/Windows)to the 500G(which is not yet formatted)and set the Mini up as the music system. Could use some pointers on the best way to do this.
Many thanks

First, make sure that the hard drive is formatted for FAT32; then it can be used by either the PC or the Mac.
Then the easiest way will be to just drag the entire iTunes folder to the external hard drive (the one actually titled "iTunes", containing the iTunes Music folder and the iTunes library files). Then connect the drive to the Mac, hold down the Option key and launch iTunes. You'll get a dialog box offering to either create a new iTunes library or use an existing one. Choose the "use existing" option and select the iTunes folder on the external drive. Then just make sure the drive is connected and mounted on the Mac before you launch iTunes (otherwise it will reset back to the default location on the internal drive).
Hope this helps.

Time Machine running on Linksys WRT600n with external drive.

Hey Folks,
After searching the internet for the answer on how to setup OS X Time Machine on my Linksys WRT600n with storage link, and finding nothing or only parts of what I needed, I finally got it to work. Hopefully this will help you in your setup.(this should work for any linksys routers with storage link.)
1) First you will need to attach your external USB drive to the Linksys Router, and format it using the linksys utility. This will format the drive as fat32 so it can be access by the mac and the router.
2) You now need to create a share on the drive using the Linksys utility (I called mine "TimeMachine") and grant R&W permission to it. I found and article that said you have to create a group called "root" and a user called "root" within that group, then grant the group R&W access to you share. I did this but I am not sure if its required. you may be able to edit the default "admin" account.
3) Once you have the share created you should be able to access the share from your mac by logging into it using your (Linksys) "root" account and password. Make sure you can save a file here. You maybe able to create a folder but make sure you can save a file (.doc for example).
4) Apple has blocked the use of unsupported drives in Time machine so you will have to make a change for this to work. open a terminal window and type the following in one line:
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1
Hit enter, and close terminal.
5) For some reason Time Machine will have issues creating the .sparse bundle Disk required for the backup over the network. So you will have to create it yourself. Safely unplug the USB drive from the router and plug it into your mac. Open disk utility (applications > utilities > disk utility) and create one the same size as your external drive.
parameters:
- Volume name: "Time Machine" (has to be this to work)
- Mac OS Extended (Journaled);
- No partition map
- sparse bundle disk image
Make sure the sparse bundle is in the share folder. If Time Machine had created this sparse bundle it would named it after your machine. You will have to rename it accordingly. This is the required format 'computername'_'mac address without colons'.sparsebundle
(eg. "joe's MacBook Pro_000000000000.sparsebundle")
6) Once all the above is complete you can reattach the drive to the router, and attach to the share again from your mac. Open Time Machine and you should see your share. Setup Time Machine to use this drive. You may want to be connected using Ethernet for the first backup as it may take a while.
I have found the wireless backup to take a bit of time to prepare and run but it seams to work nonetheless. The slowness could be caused by the difference in mac addresses from wired to wireless. So you may want to change the sparse bundle file name depending on how you are accessing time machine.
Hopefully this will work for you as it did for me.

I am afraid I have to pour some cold water on your enthusiasm.
Yes, what you say can get TimeMachine working, but there is a nasty snag:
WRT600N uses FAT32 for its external harddrives and (regretably) understands nothing else. FAT32 has two restrictions:
1) Maximum file size is 4GB
2) (a lesser-known one) Maximum number of files in a directory of 65,535.
The first restriction isn't really a problem because Time Machine organizes its data in 8MB "bands", which are files within your sparsebundle directory.
The second restriction, however, will cause Time Machine to eventually hit a brick wall: The sparsebundle bands are given a sequence number in hexadecimal and there isn't really a limit to how many you can have. If you run Time Machine on a large harddrive attached to the WRT600N, you will eventually run into a situation where you are hitting the 65,535-files-in-a-directory limit. Time Machine will, therefore, run for a while and then suddenly fail for no apparent reason.
Given the parameters of Time Machine, you can't run Time Machine reliably on a WRT600N with an external harddrive larger than 8MB * 65535 = 512GB. If that's good enough for you, then great. If not, you can do one of two things:
1) Get something that doesn't format its harddrive in FAT32.
2) Install DD-WRT on your router (thus voiding its warranty), fight with it for a while in order to get SAMBA running on it, and gain the ability to format your harddrive in Ext2.
I hope this helps somebody.

I removed the original HD and want to use it as a backup with external drive.

HP laptop G71ous win. 7. This forum helped me remove and reinstall original drive. I am using it in an external drive unit. My question is : How can I remove data so i can clear space. It tells me i do not have admin rights, and cannot remove windows folders. I have tried entering properties and changing ownership.Thanks for your help.

Just to add to what mct007 said, I recommend formatting the drive though this will remove all files on the drive.
Another alternate option is to use the command prompt to take ownership of the said folders.
This site has some good information on the commands to do this. Be sure to use the folder commands for folders and the file commands for individual files. Also, don't forget to elevate the command prompt. This can be done by right-clicing the command prompt in the Start menu and selecting Run as Administrator.
Once ownership is achieved, you should be able to do anything you want with the files and folders.
There are many ways to accomplish the same task and I just wanted to add to mct007's statement.
↙-----------How do I give Kudos?| How do I mark a post as Solved? ----------------↓

10.5.7 update results in major problem with external drives

yesterday I did the 10.5.7 update and now I can't access any of my external hard drives. The message is "you do not have proper privileges". Have tried downloading/installing the combo update, running permissions repair with Disk Utility, even tried reinstalling my original 10.5.2 system with 'Archive and Install', still the problem persists.
In the privileges dialog, the setting is 'custom' and I can't switch anything back to "read/write".
I'm sure there are other problems but this is quite major as all my work files are located in external drives.
help!

Is it only Lacie drives you've had trouble with, or is it other brands as well?
This is probably a separate problem, but when I updated to OS X 10.5.7, my Buffalo hard drives disappeared. See these threads:
External Hard Drives not recognized now by 10.5.7
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2010075&tstart=0
Don't install 10.5.7
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2004304&tstart=60&start=15
Buffalo has since released a patch:
http://forums.buffalotech.com/buffalo/board/message?board.id=0101&thread.id=9986

Crashes with external drives (power management problem?)

Everything worked well in Tiger on my first gen MBP. Since i switched to Leopard and now Snow, and a new UNI MBP in december 08 I have so many external drive issues.
USB drives just disappear and power off (from the system not electrical) for no reason, mostly when connected to USB hubs. I've tried various hubs including the powered ones. But as soon as i go over two USB devices in the provided ports my problems start.. It feels like not enough juice is getting through those ports on my MBP. I never have a problem if i just connect 2 devices into the MBP, but it's not enough (i have 5x1tb external drives).
Also the same with the express34 slot.. Everything was fine under Tiger and my old MBP, But now i get the grey wall of death so many times when connecting 2x esata 1TB drives. The system is so unstable with multiple drives both USB and. I'm currently working as a pro Photographer on assignment in Asia and these stability are starting to become a big problem.
God forbid i'm even considering a switch back to windows for reliability, (yes, i did use the words windows and reliability in the same sentence)
Does anybody else experience problems with multiple drives through leopard/snow leopard via Apple notebooks? I would love to hear some users experiences and hopefully find a solution to my problem.. In every other way the system works like a charm.
I will post in 2 forums because i'm not sure if software or hardware related.
Thanks, any help is appreciated.

It can't be the drives because they get swapped monthly when i hand them in.. Varies brands and external boxes but always 1TB drives.. I have tried 2 different powered hubs and still experience the same problems, however those were generic ones i picked up in Asia (all made in Taiwan right? (rhetorical:))
Ok, maybe for a last try i will purchase a branded hub and see if that helps. I still can't get the thought out of my head that it's a power problem in the MBP logic board, is it possible? I say this because the esata drives behave in a similar fashion via the expresscard.

Help With External Drive

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