How come a USB will work with both Mac and Windows (as in that there are already files from Windows and Mac can still read and write onto it) but a external Hard Drive won't (as in there are files from Windows on there but Mac can read but not write)?

I have a Seagate Drive that I'm hoping to copy some movies from my Mac onto (because it only has a 512 SSD and I'd rather keep that empty and handy for more readily needed files) but it won't work. It shows up as a drive when connected (with the orange USB drive icon popping up) and is appropirately labeled "FreeAgent Drive", but when I try to copy files onto it it won't work. There are already windows files on there, such as some windows backups and lot's and lot's of pictures and videos. However, I have several USBs which already have windows files on them (namely movies, music, and other stuff) and copying and stuff works fine. Why won't it work with this hard drive and would work with USBs? Please help me out here guys, I am not experienced with Hard disks and formatting and stuff like that. 10 points for whoever helps me out the most. Thanks.

We will need to reformat your EXT, but it will then work on both Mac and Win
Connect the drive to your Mac, open disk utility
Go to the partiton tab and select '1' ... format should be ExFAT ... in options select MBR
Format the drive
It should now work on both OSs; report back

Similar Messages

  • External Hard Drive Won't Mount- Need to recover files

    Hello Everyone,
    I am hoping that one of you fine mac experts may be able to assist ~
    Problem: External Seagate FreeAgent Desktop USB external hard drive
    won't mount on desktop=ie: no access to my important files.. Please Help!
    Details:
    External seagate freeagent 500 GB Desktop USB HD ( only 2 months old)
    (using for document / file backup-not as a startup disc)
    on my Mac G3 350 MZ Blue & White Tower /768 ram/ running OSX 10.1.5 & OS9.2~
    ~
    Problem: Started using the external 500 GB HD 2 months ago -with no problems-until this morning. Tried to double click to open it to access files
    and got the "beach ball of death" and needed to restart.
    My trusty G3 started up fine, however, the external HD was now
    not showing up on the desktop as normal. I troubleshooted -by restarting,
    trying different a/c plugs/ different USB ports , ran disk utility..called
    seagate -not much help . Seagate said to try the HD on another mac-which I did-
    a G5 tower- same problem.
    ~
    The External hard drive will show up in disk utility, but is grayed out.
    and when click "mount" same two messages keep showing:
    message 1: "a disk attempting to mount as unknown has failed verification or has failed to
    mount.please use disk utility to check the disk"
    ~
    message 2- when unplugging and repluggin the usb in-and upon
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    can read to use unreadable volumes,click initialize to continue with the disk inserted ,click continue"
    ~
    ( I really need access to these files- and do not want to re-initialize the HD!!)
    I ran Disk Utility /first aid "verify & repair , the following info came up:
    Repairing disk "main backup 2007 ".
    Checking HFS Plus volume.
    Checking Extents Overflow file.
    Checking Catalog file.
    Invalid key length ( <<<IN RED )
    Repair completed. "
    ~~
    Though it said the repair was completed, the "invalid key length" issue
    still comes up when re-running disk utility...Hard drive would still not
    mount on desktop-even after restarting .
    ~~~~~
    If there is a mac genius out there that can help?- it would be greatly
    appreciated. I have tried to call seagate several times in the last several hours-
    1st time-they disconnected me after being on hold 10 minutes-2nd call
    I was put on hold for 40 minutes ..Finally spoke to someone ( they are not mac users or mac experts!)and he said I would need to send it to Seagate's Data Recovery-... for a fee of course!
    ~~~
    At this point, I am hoping to just get the files and photos off
    the hard drive- I heard about Disk Warrior-should I use that and if so
    what version?
    Thank you very much!
    L

    Will zapping the PRAM be of any use in getting the external to mount on the desktop?
    Your external Hard drive is already recognized. But it cannot be mounted on the desktop due to its directory damage. You can certainly Zap the PRAM, and it will not hurt anything, but I am skeptical that it will change the situation.
    Do you think the Disk Warrior 4.0 cd will even work on my G3 350MHZ running Mac OS 10.1.5?
    If you boot from the CD and run it from the CD, absolutely yes. If you attempt to INSTALL it from a download or a CD, probably not.
    Have you ever used Disc Warrior and is using it complicated?
    I own and use Disk Warrior. You select the drive to be rebuilt, it builds a proposed new directory from the information and file fragments available.
    When complete, it will provide a list of problems encountered, tell you what files have been placed in the "Rescued Items" folder, and allow you too look at your drive using the proposed new directory. Your only decision is whether the new directory seems to be an improvement over the old \[in your case, hopelessly corrupted] directory. You then tell it whether to replace the old directory with the proposed new directory, or to abandon its work and leave your Hard Drive unchanged.
    Is there a good chance that the ext HD will still have my files on it- or do you think from what I've described that they are gone ?
    From what you have described, your files are very likely to still be there. Sometimes in a situation like this, a handful of files cannot be recovered.
    My other thought was to take the external HD there and have them try to recover the files.
    Make sure you completely understand the costs involved. File recovery using a service like DriveSavers can run into many hundreds of dollars. They are prepared to disassemble your drive in a clean room and replace controller boards and read/write heads to achieve success. Your drive has serious, but not fatal, Directory damage. The Hardware, and most of your files, are likely just fine.

  • My Iomega External Hard drive won't let me delete/copy files...

    I haven't used my external hard drive since buying my Macbook Pro.
    I have just tried to delete some files from it and then copy some Uni work from my Documents onto my hard drive.. but it won't work.
    Is there anything I need to download?

    Install software such as the NTFS-3G drivers.
    (61239)

  • How can I get Time Machine to back up an external hard drive (iPhotos) that is attached to airport extreme base station. Note: Time machine is usb to macbook pro and external drive with iphotos is usb to airport extreme base station. Help please. Thanks!

    How can I get Time Machine to back up an external hard drive (iPhotos) that is attached to airport extreme base station. Note: Time machine is usb to macbook pro and external drive with iphotos is usb to airport extreme base station. Help please. Thanks!

    Once you have the drive connected to your Mac, click System Preferences (gear icon) on the dock
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    The drive will be backed up on the next Time Machine pass
    Everything above assumes that the hard drive has been formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as Time Machine will only backup drives in that format.

  • When I'm travelling I import photos onto my laptop's external hard drive and work on the images using virtual copies to develop them. When I get home, I want to import all the photos together with the developed virtual copies fromt the laptop's external H

    When I'm travelling I import photos onto my laptop's external hard drive and work on the images using virtual copies to develop them. When I get home, I want to import all the photos together with the developed virtual copies fromt the laptop's external HD into LR5 on my PC desktop. But if I use the import button in LR I only get the original photo, not the developed copies. What am I doing wrong?

    Since your current editing workflow is based around Virtual Copies there are no actual files containing the edit data. Therefore, you'll need to use the 'Import from another catalog' option ( see File menu).

  • External Hard Drive won't load, Disk Utility and System Profiler crashes,

    I've had the WD 1TB Passport for Mac for about a year now and as of this afternoon, my MacBook Pro stopped recognizing it. It's encrypted so when I plugged it in, my computer asked me for my password, but then it said there was an error and wouldn't mount. After restarting the computer, the password prompt for my external drive didn't even pop up. I can hear the hard drive spinning and the light flashes for a good 30 seconds before going solid. I have tested my USB ports with flash drives and they are reading them just fine. I tried to run  Disk Utility but it goes into the never-ending loading mode. So then I go to the "About my Mac" page and clicked on storage, and the profiler crashed (never-ending loading). Can anyone help me? It was working just fine up until today. I even tried different Micro USB chords on it. This drive is incredibly important to me and I would appreciate not having to erase anything from it (kinda defeats the purpose of backing up a computer if the external hard drive is the one needing the backup).
    I have a
    Mid 2010 13in MacBook Pro
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    Solution may be found if you search in the "More Like This" section over in the right column. 

  • External hard drives won't mount after upgrading to Tiger 10.4.9. Help!

    Hi, I've just got the latest iMac. Very excited! I did all the software updates, connected my Western Digital extended hard drive so that I could copy some files over onto my new Mac. It was fine at first. Then when I wanted to open up the external hard drive icon on my desktop again and double clicked on it, everything disappeared from the screen for a few seconds, then reappeared but my external hard drive simply opened the window to my personal hard drive on the Mac. The WD links to my computer via Firewire. I then connected my USB external hard drive stick and it was the same story.
    I used Disk Utility to test everything and everything was fine.
    I then reinstalled Mac OSX 10.4.8 and plugged in my external hard drives. Everything worked perfectly. After copying over documents and a couple of programs, and downloading a few more programs, I ran my software updates again, upgrading the operating system to Tiger 10.4.9. I attached my external hard drive and it was the same problem all over again.
    I the read up the online discussions and also chatted to an Apple dealer, and their advice was to download the Intel Combo and reinstall the operating system. I have just done this and my external hard drives will still not mount properly. Their icons appear on screen but double click them and everything disappears.
    Please help. This is really frustrating as I have a backlog of work to do and I seem to be wasting hours on this. Not only that, this is a brand new machine which I rightly expect to work straight away.
    I look forward to your response. Thank you in advance.

    Hi, try to put your HDD in other Mac and look if appear the same, also you can try to repair permission.

  • External hard drive won't mount, even after disk repair.

    My Toshiba external hard drive won't mount on my MacBook Pro 10.8.5. I can see it in my disk repair, and when I repair, "the partition map appears to be ok." But I can't access the icon to be able to open the hard drive contents on my desktop. Help!

    Hello maccynicwhoalwayshasmacs,
    Thanks for the question. After reviewing your post, it sounds like trouble with an external HD mounting. I would recommend that you read this article, it may be able to help you resolve or isolate the issue.
    USB and FireWire Quick Assist
    Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
    Have a nice day,
    Mario

  • Hey guys, how can i password protect my files in external hard drive? I want to access those files both from mac and windows PC!

    Hey guys, how can i password protect my files in external hard drive? I want to access those files both from mac and windows PC!

    If you want a cross-platform solution that doesn't require the use of third-party software, use an external drive with hardware encryption. The device will have either a physical key or a numeric keypad. I don't have a specific recommendation.

  • After installing snow leopard my external hard drive won't show up on screen or backup

    Afer installing leopard my external hard drive won't show up on my desk top.  It also won't backup my hard drive with time machine. I need help.

    Try going to finder preferences, general, make sure show these items on desktop external disks is clicked. You can also go to sidebar (same pane) and click it there so it will show when you open your HD.  Time Machine>system preferences>time machine>turn it off click select disk, make sure the correct disk is selected, the turn TM back on.  Hope this helps.

  • External hard drive won't shut down after switch from OS10.5 to OS10.4.11

    i recently chanded my OS from 10.5 to 10.4.11 (as a programme i want to use is not compatible with leopard), but since i have done this my external hard-drive won't shut down automatically when i shut down my mac. i have to switch it off at the plug instead.
    can anyone suggest how i can get it to do this again?
    i'm a little concerned that i'm damaging the external drive by turning it off manually all the time..
    thanks

    Some hard drives shut off with shutdown, some don't. Sometimes hard drives that did shut off with one system will not do the same with a different system. My hard drives which did shut off, prior to 10.5 now stay on.
    This is not really a problem as all hard drives spin down after 10- 20 minutes when not in use, whether your computer is on or off. Leaving the drive on is fine, shutting it off manually is fine.
    -mj
    [email protected]

  • External hard drive won't unmount for disk utility.

    Im not sure if this is the right topic area but I have a white macbook and my external hard drive won't unmount. I want to erase it via disk utility but it keeps telling me other programs are using it.

    Drive Preparation
    1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
    2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
    3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

  • I just installed OS X Yosemite and now my WD My Book Live external hard drive won't re-connect.  My Safari keeps kicking out and giving me error message after error message and my computer is really slow.   How do I resolve?   Can I uninstall this ?

    I just installed OS X Yosemite and now my WD My Book Live external hard drive won't re-connect.  My Safari keeps kicking out and giving me error message after error message and my computer is really slow.   How do I resolve?   Can I uninstall this ?   I had to re-connect my iMovie t

    USB2.0 PCI cards that use the NEC chipset seem to give the least amount of problems for Mac users.
    OWC have a few different ones for sale.
    http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Search.cfm?Ntk=Primary&Ns=P_Popularity%7c1&Ne=5 000&N=7057&Ntt=USB2**0**cards
    Do you also connect the external USB drive to the AC power as well while you use it ?
    Sometimes USB external drive problems are resolved simply by plugging them into the mains power and trying again.
    Stewie
    Message was edited by: stewiesno1

  • Is there a way we can change the path of the songs to an external hard drive when we move the songs over?   also, is there a way to delete multiple songs easily?

    is there a way we can change the path of the songs to an external hard drive when we move the songs over?   also, is there a way to delete multiple songs easily?
    I recently moved my songs over for hard drive space.  Really don't want to have to go back through each album, etc... to get that to work.
    Last time I tried making a "library" that didn't work either.
    On the topic of deleting multiple songs that are the same, is there an easier way then to select each one?
    Seems to me apple isn't user friendly

    Welcome to the world of digital media. Your can't really transfer it. I don't know what the rules are about transferring to your spouse but I do know that in some cases when you die, your heirs cannot inherit your digital media. This is why there is still an advantage to buying the CD since the usage rights belong to whomever holds the physical media.
    A possible workaround is to burn the songs to a music CD with yout account (tracks only without song titles) and then having your wife upload it as a regular music CD onto her account. It's been a while since i've done this so I'm not sure if it would work now.
    Please note that I'm not advocating copyright and/or TOS violations. I'm only suggesting ways to copy music for your own personal use which has traditonally been permitted. I only did this because I wanted to convert iTunes songs to mp3 files so I could burn them onto a data CD for use in my car. It would make sense that since married couples are a joint entity, this would be personal use.
    Also, I'm not a lawyer so don't take this as legal advice.

  • I have all my music on an external hard drive. I just transferred all my files to a new hard drive . How do I sync all my files with my itunes library without losing all my playlists etc and keep everything intact?

    I have all my music on an external hard drive. I just transferred all my files to a new hard drive . How do I sync all my files with my itunes library without losing all my playlists etc and keep everything intact?

    Launch iTunes with the Option key held down, click on Choose Library, and specify it. If the external drive doesn't contain the iTunes database files, create a new library there and import that music.
    If the library contains any rented movies, they won't play on a different computer.
    (109334)

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