How do I get my computer to recognize my external hard drive

How do I get my computer to recognize my external hard drive?

Turning the power on definitely helps!

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How do I get other computers to recognize my external hard drive? Steps?

So I have a 500 gb iomega portable HD and it works fine when I plug it into my MacBook Pro and recognizes it right away on the desktop but when I went to plug it into my friends PowerBook or another's PC it never showed up as being recognized. It's not in the macs HD or the pcs "my comp". The blue light on the HD always came on.
I have a feeling I have to do something like formatting it or whatever, but I need like step-by-step instructions of what I need to do.
Thanks for any help!

No, sorry I don't know what OS she's using, though, I know she never updates, so I'm sure it's pretty old.
Also, um. Well it has a USB plug, but it also has 2 other plugs I can use (not USB, but for the other ports on the comp). What is firewire?

How can I get my MacBook to recognize my external hard drive again?

Hi,
I own a 500GB Toshiba external hard drive, and I've been using it for months now, and up until today it's worked flawlessly. I never formatted it, I just used it as a mass storage device so that I wouldn't have compatibility issues with PC's because of the formatting. For some unknown reason, today the hard drive decided it didn't want to work; I can't see it in the Finder. However, I tried it on a PC today and it's just fine there. I've never disconnected it without ejecting it first or anything else that I can think of that might damage the drive. I'm at a total loss, though admittedly I'm a novice, so maybe there's something I'm overlooking here. What can I do to fix this problem?
Another thing: I just upgraded from 10.5.7 to 10.5.8... could that cause issues?
Thanks! If this is a topic that's already been discussed, please link me to the thread or article.

Does it appear in Disk Utility? (located in utilities folder of applications)
If so is it mountable from there?
And just to check- you are using the same connection (USB or firewire) to connect the PCs and the Mac?

Bought new Mac Retina; how do I get CS 5 on it; bought external hard drive but get error msg 15?

Bought new Mac Retina; how do I get CS 5 on it; bought external hard drive but get error msg 15?

Hi there,
I was able to format the Toshiba hard drive on my old Mac and copy the Adobe Suite onto it. I followed instructions to format the hard drive to the Retina Mac through Disk Utility, but I still can see the external drive on the new Mac.
Any suggestions…?
Susan Babin

How do I get itunes library to move to external hard drive automatically?

I have a 250 GB Verbatim external hard drive. This hard drive has an existing itunes library from my PC. I figured out how to combine the two itunes libraries, (1 from PC and 1 from Macbook). I cannot figure out how to set up itunes to automatically save to external hard drive. In other words, I've gotten everything onto my Mac, but not onto the external, which is what I want. When I try to move the itunes folders to my Verbatim in Finder, it gives me the circle with the line through it. It will not let me move anything over to the Verbatim. Please help!

On the copying issue, if the drive was used with a PC initially it is quite possible it is formatted to NTFS. Macs can read NTFS drives but not write to them You could try to use a utility such as NTFS-3G to enable read-write, or you could use Disk Utility to reformat the drive to FAT (probably FAT32) which can be read by both PCs and Macs. FAT has certain disadvantages too, such as not being repairable by Macs, and there is a limit on single file sizes (2GB or 4GB depending upon the FAT version).
Once you get your whole iTunes folder (not just media) onto the external drive, start iTunes with the option key held down and show it the new location.
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
do not confuse moving your whole folder and library with just storing media on another drive:
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449

How do I get the directory to recognize my external hard drve...it used to

I have my Itunes library on an external hard drive. I would go to Edit, Preferences, Advanced, Browse, My Computer, find the hard drive, and it would appear as F:\My Music\Itunes and it worked great.
Now I have a new PC and it only shows F:\My Music and I am thinking because it is missing the slash and Itunes that is causing the issue.
Any ideas...........?
Thanks.

No, sorry I don't know what OS she's using, though, I know she never updates, so I'm sure it's pretty old.
Also, um. Well it has a USB plug, but it also has 2 other plugs I can use (not USB, but for the other ports on the comp). What is firewire?

HT2477 how do i get photos from camera transfered to external hard drive

im new to mac. im trying to learn how to get all images from my camera to an external hard drive. im a photographer and i use my comouters primarily for editing. but when i plug my camera into the usb port i can not find it on the computer ir under the finder-devices? please help me

From the Finder, go into the drive to the folder where you want to create the new folder and select New Folder from the File menu (cmd-shift-N).
From Image Capture, select Other… from the Import To popup menu.
In the File Save dialog, navigate to where you want the new folder, then click "New Folder" button.

How do I get my iTunes to reference an external hard drive folder?

I don't want to put all of my music on my laptop. I would like iTunes to reference my external hard drive iTunes folder for my music rather than the default folder on my computer. I have tried to change the iTunes Media folder to my "iTunes - External," but when I then re-open my iTunes, there is no music there. Help?

The only work around I have ever figured out for this problem is to create a new library with a different name and then add the music folder on your external HD to iTunes, Depending on the size this may take a while but it has worked for me. Good luck!

I can't get Time Machine to recognize my external hard drive.

I bought a new hard drive when we moved last September and it backed up my files once or twice. Now I cannot get Time Machine to recognize it at all.
I have tried to format it with Disc Utility and only get an error message: Error: Unable to unmount volume for repair. Is there anything I can do with this?

Is the drive showing up in finder?
Did you have it working then upgraded to Yosemite??
Amongst the many many bug in yosemite is a bug/s to do with no longer being able to use USB drive.
Did you try the fixes here.
OS X Yosemite: If a USB device isn’t working
Personally I would plug it into a computer running anything except Yosemite and you might find it works perfectly.. the issue then is not the drive.

How do I get all my music from new external hard drive into itunes????

Just loaded all my music on my new external and need to put into itunes, how do I do that??

There may be other ways but I think the easiest is to just reinstall iTunes. when you reinstall it gives you the option to search for all music, just make sure the external is pluged to the PC and on when u do it. An other thing is with your music on a external, anytime u turn it off or unplug it you will get abunch of ! beside all the songs in iTunes until u turn it on and plug it back in

How to I get Time Machine backups OFF my external hard drive?!?!?

I'm not asking how I restore a backup.
I plugged in my 250GB external to try out TM. Before TM did it's first backup I have 160GB free. After TM did its backup I have 1GB free. I no longer want to use TM and have told it to "Stop Backing Up" in Sys Prefs. The problem is that I still only have 1GB of space left. When I view the external in the finder I only see my 90GB of drag and drop backups, but it says the disk only has 1GB of free space. Are the Time Machine backups invisible? How do I reclaim my space back?
Thanks!

pvonk wrote:
Looking at info, I found the folder was owned by root. Even with my admin privileges, I couldn't delete. I then found that root wasn't activated on that machine, so I had to do more dancing around.
In cases like this, you should be able to delete it from the command line by using sudo: sudo rm -rf directory (be careful with this command)
After deleting the TM backup folder, the drive still indicated that the former lost space was still lost. I eventually reformatted.
How did you delete it? Could it be that the folder was still in the Trash of the external disk?

How do I get Time Machine to backup an external Hard Drive to Time Capsule?

Just purchased 3TB Time Capsule. I have a 250GB ext hard drive where iTunes library and iMovie files are stored. The external HD is connected to my iMac The iMac's 250GB is at 50% capacity with iPhotos so i cannot move iTunes/iMovie library back to the iMac. I would like Time Machine to back up both the iMac HD and the contents of the 250GB external HD. Thank you.

To reformat the drive, move the data on it to another location, including a second partition of the drive or the Time Capsule manually, open the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder to erase it, and move the files back.
(64562)

How do I get my computers to see my external hard drive on airport extreme?

I jus purchased and airport extreme as although he directions say plug and play - it doesn't work. None of my computers see my external hard drive when it is plugged into the airport. Cannot locate directions with step by step support. thank you. Nettie

The external harddrive is NTFS format and someone from apple told me that it would have to be reformatted to be seen by the Extreme -- Needless to say with 33% of the hard drive filled, I do NOT want to reformat.
Unfortunately, HDDs attached to the USB port of the AirPort Extreme, cannot be recognized by the AirPort if formatted in NTFS. If you do not wish to reformat this drive, you will either have to use a different drive or connect this drive to a Windows PC for sharing on the network.
The AirPort can only share drives formatted in HFS+ or FAT32.

How do I get my iMac to read my external hard drive?

I just got a new iMac for Christmas, my first Mac. I love it so far but I'm having trouble transferring my pc files over. I'm trying to use a Maxtor external hard drive, but my Mac isn't reading it.
Am I doing something wrong or is there a problem somewhere? Any help is greatly appreciated.

If your external drive is formatted in NTFS the iMac may not be able to read it. If that's the case, connect it to your PC and set it up as a network share by enabling file sharing in the iMac and the PC and turning on SMB in the iMac (in the Sharing section of the System Preferences). Then your PC should show up as a shared device in the iMac finder where you can mount it and transfer files.

After I reset my Ipod (deleted all data and settings) windows 7 doesn't recognize by ipod touch, and it doesn't appear in the itunes library or in the device menu, but it does charge. How can I get my computer to recognize it again?

After I reset my Ipod (deleted all data and settings) windows 7 doesn't recognize by ipod touch, and it doesn't appear in the itunes library or in the device menu, but it does charge. How can I get my computer to recognize it again?

Refer to this article:
iOS: Device not recognized in iTunes for Windows
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1538

How do I get my computer to recognize my external hard drive

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