Hi i have a macbook air and want to use an external hard drive but it wont let me drop and drag a folder in to iy

Hi i have a macbook air that we have some photos on and i have an external hardrive that we used to use on our laptop, i have tried to drag and drop folders on to the external hardrdive and it wont let me or copy and paste???
it just shows a circle with a diagonal line through it
any help please?

I suspect that the external HDD is not formatted that will allow the MBA write to it. You will have to open Disk Utility>Erase and format it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Note that this will delete all data on the external HDD.
Ciao.

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I want to search an external hard drive but when I click on it and do a command F the darn highlight jumps right back to 'home computer'. How can I search the actual external drive?

This is extremely irritating and frustrating. I think someone said to click on the external drive's name and do a command F but that doesn't work.
I also need to know why Apple Mail rules aren't working. I have them set to 'any' the email of the spammer, and 'move to junk on my mac'. It will work on that specific email, but not on others from the same email address as they come in.
But mostly I need to find something in one of two external drives and I need it yesterday.
Thanks.

YAY! That did it.
Thank you so much.
And a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year to you!
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Want to use an external hard drive for my photos, iMovie, music and documents for use on my MacBookPro and iMac, can I do it and how?

I want to use an external hard drive to store my photos, imovie, music and documents, how can i do....Thanks

There are very good external drives available...I bought one when I got this MBP in September from OWC, http://www.macsales.com they are Mac specialists. Bought their 2 TB Mercury Elite Pro since it was eSATA, Firewire 800/400, and USB interface...use the Firewire 800 now. Partitioned into a 1.5 TB partition for Time Machine backups and 500 GB for extra storage. Both show up on the desktop, you just set the destination for you application to be the external drive volume you want to use.
If you want to discuss further, just ask what you want to know.

I connected my external hard drive to my new imac to put all of the information from my macbook onto it. i have been working on the macbook now and want to reconnect the external hard drive so my imac is updated with the work. How is that done?

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As I said, I don't use Time Machine, so it'd be best to wait for an "expert" answer, but, with my very limited knowledge, I'd say: probably not - so, for now, I'd suggest you read up on Time Machine:
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Home.html
http://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=search&src=support_site.home.search&local e=en_US&q=time%20machine
And, you might be attracting more knowledgeable answers if you were to post this question in the Time Machine Forum (part of the Snow Leopard forums).

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can i connect my macbook pro to my macbook air as if it were an external hard drive?
i tried using migration assistant, which will work, but i want to look through my stuff as if it were an available external harddrive, then click and drag stuff onto my new computer.

If you are using Ethernet to connect the two computers, then enable File Sharing on the MBP. Select the MBP's Desktop drive icon. Press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window, check the box labeled "Shared Folder." You should then be able to mount the MBP's shared drive on the MBA's Desktop and browse to your heart's content.

Is there anyway to export the iPod metadata from my iPhone 4? I don't need the music, I have that on an external hard drive, but my backup got wiped out and I need the metadata.

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Okay, so I had to re-install iTunes. My iTunes library is currently empty. I can make a new back up and the location of the songs not having changed, these will be available in my library?

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Hi Clarkett99,
To use an external hard drive for your iTunes library, see the steps in this article -
iTunes: Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
iPhoto can be used in a similar way, follow the steps in this previous discussion -
how do I save photos and their albums...: Apple Support Communities
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3744259
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Brett L

Old laptop died, got latest itunes on new laptop and recovered all music from external hard drive but ipad not recognised as device when plugged in? Do i reset my ipad2!!!

Old laptop died, got latest itunes on new laptop and recovered all music from external hard drive but ipad2 not being recognised as a device when plugged in so can't sync? Do i reset my ipad2?!!!! Its only taken 7 months to get to this point.
My ipad is set to sync via wifi but it is still trying to look for my old laptop which has been trashed..but i have deauthorised it and removed it from my account and still not recognised.
Please help (an extreme novice to Apple products)

Sync Your iOS Device with a New Computer Without Losing Data
http://www.howtogeek.com/104298/sync-your-ios-device-with-a-new-computer-without -losing-data/
iPad not appearing in iTunes
http://www.apple.com/support/ipad/assistant/itunes/
iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Mac OS X
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1591
iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Windows
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1538
IOS: Syncing with iTunes
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1386
Apple - Support - iPad - Syncing
http://www.apple.com/support/ipad/syncing/
 Cheers, Tom

Is there a way for my macbook air (running Lion) to access an external hard drive on my Imac (running snow leopard) specifically for Iphoto and itunes?

Is there a way for my macbook air (running Lion 10.7.2) to access an external hard drive on my Imac (running snow leopard 10.6.8) specifically for Iphoto and itunes?

Yes. For those two applications specifically there is sharing. This presumes both computers are on and connected to the same network.
In iPhoto, enable sharing by (on the iMac) going to the iPhoto menu > Preferences > Sharing > check Share my photos. You can either share the entire library or only selected albums. Now on your MacBook Air, in iPhoto, go to the same preference pane and select Look for shared photos.
iTunes has something similar. In the iTunes menu > Preferences > Sharing > check Share my library on my local network. On the other computer, look in the left column for SHARED and select the iMac. You can now play that music on the MacBook Air.
There are other ways to share files but for those two applications this is the simplest way.
Best of luck.

Since installing Maverick my MacBook Air is no longer showing my external Hard drive, which I connect via USB.

I know the external hard drive is working and the USB port works also.
I have seen lots of complicated answers on here but nothing I can understand.
Any help appriciated.
Lesley

The WD hard drive itself is probably fine, the enclosure has likely failed. WD externals are notorius for cheap enclosures failing. Try a different cable first. You can take the drive out and install it in a better enclosure, like one from OWC.
http://eshop.macsales.com/

Should I use an external hard drive to store the files while editing and how should I do this?

Getting used to FCPX and want help learning how to store my Canon D60 Video files on either my internal Mac book pro or on an external hard drive while editing projects?   Do the files need to be transcoded on the computer drive or can that happen on an external HD?
Thanks,
Greg

Well, in my opinion, it all comes down to speed. There are a lot of editors that swear that working with footage on your system drive will do all sorts of horrible things, cause crashes, etc. Really its a bunch a malarkey. The most it will do is slow you down when your system needs access to the drive. Bandwidth is bandwidth is bandwidth - its all the same. If working with video on your system drive caused crashes, so would doing thousands of other things and we would all have dumped apple long ago for Microsoft or linux.
Here's what I tend to get for sustained read speed on various drives (ie reading a few large files like video files):
USB 2.0: 25 - 30 MB/sec. Drive RPM doesn't matter much since USB is limiting factor, unless you're running a system.
Firewire 400: 28 - 34 MB/sec. Drive RPM doesn't matter much since FW is limiting factor
Firewire 800: 55 - 60 MB/sec. Drive RPM doesn't matter much since FW is limiting factor
internal drive on SATA II or III connection, or USB 3.0 external drive:
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    5400 RPM (most laptop drives): probably ~70-80 MB/sec
SSD: 250-500 MB/sec if installed internally or over USB 3. USB 2 or firewire connection for an SSD is a waste of SSD speed *except* that they have fantasticly fast random access for reading many small files, so I got a really fast launching system in an experiment installing a system on an SSD and connecting it via FW 800 - but that's not relevant here
so - to make a short story long - do whatever works for you. avoid using USB 2.0 or firewire 400 drives if you're editing HD - you can't play transcoded ProRes 1080p footage from them reliably. And once you have more than one clip overlapping, like at cross dissolves, you're sunk. You're internal drive is likely much faster, even with the overhead of the system using it too.
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test on the app store is a good HD speed tester. Ignore all the video specific stuff at the bottom - its mostly for uncompressed video, which I doubt you're working with.
Since i have a recent macbook pro (late 2011) and my edits are usually not more dense than 3 layers of video at a time (mostly concert video rather than narrative film), I actually almost never transcode, or even render - and this is for 1080p HD video - because FCP X is so good at playing the imported original h.264 files. I store my media I'm working with on my internal laptop drive (which i upgraded to a 7200 RPM) or a FW 800 7200 RPM external drive.
h.264 files from the camera are much smaller than transcoded ProRes files, so they will play back from USB 2 or firewire 400 drives, but I would only do it in a pinch.
enjoy your editing.

Do i want to use my external hard drive as a backup drive?

i just got a 1TB external hard drive and as i installed it, i was asked if i want to use it or bootcamp as a backup drive. i bought the hard drive to put all my extra video files onto and i don't want to waste any space, but should i use it as a backup drive or should i use bootcamp, which i haven't setup yet (but plan to in the next week or so).

nikkib197 wrote:
200GB should be plenty, i am only backing up my word documents, and some applications. everything else i have can easily be re-added if i do happen to lose it.
Please reconsider. You're missing one of the major features of Time Machine, not available elsewhere.
Here's what you'll have to do when (not if) your internal HD fails, or some other catastrophe occurs, without a full backup of your entire system:
Install OSX from your Leopard or Snow Leopard Install disc.
Go through the set-up procedure: setup your Internet connection(s), email accounts, etc., including account info, passwords, server names, etc.
Download and install the "combo" update, to get back to your current version of OSX.
If you didn't purchase your Mac with the latest iLife apps, find the disc they're on and restore them.
Find all the discs for 3rd-party apps and install them. Re-enter any purchase keys.
Find the websites for all downloaded 3rd-party apps, download and install them. Re-enter any purchase keys.
Restore whatever data you saved.
Re-enter all your preferences and settings.
Wonder what you missed, and find out the hard way . . . for months or longer.
However, if you let TM back up your entire system, there's one simple procedure to recover it to the exact state it was in at the time of any backup, even if that's a previous version of OSX. For example, any open Finder windows will reappear in exactly the same locations, with exactly the same contents. See #14 in the FAQ for details.

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Open Disk Utility
Select the external drive
Then read the parameters for that drive
Allan

I recently restored my laptop and also iTunes from an external hard drive, but when I play songs, it says the original file could not be found. How do I locate and fix this?

I recently restored my laptop with Windows 7 and imported my iTunes library from my external hard drive. When I try to play songs, it says it cannot and that the original file could not be located. How do I fix this?

Put the files back where iTunes expects them to be.

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Hi i have a macbook air and want to use an external hard drive but it wont let me drop and drag a folder in to iy

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