How do you transfer all your files to an external hard drive?

I have an external hard drive and tried to move all my files and documents onto it. The guy at the apple store told me to just drag my user into the hard drive (the icon with the house next to it when you go into Macintosh HD) but it said it could not do that. So i tried to drag just one word document into it and it still had the error. I tried from a PC and it worked fine. Could it be that this external hard drive only works with a PC and Microsoft Operating Systems? Do I need to buy an external hard drive that is only for a Mac??
Please help!!!!

This is not unusual
Quick question, have you formatted the drive using the mac disk utilities?
If you need it to be accessed from both windows and mac, then make sure it's formatted as FAT32 or FAT Extended.
If you uses osx journaled, then the windows computer cannot read it.
When you've done this, then try and drag your files across.
Two words of warning though.
1 when you format a drive, you erase all data on it, so make sure you have copies.
2 FAT32 has a max file size of 4GB, so if you have files larger than that, format as FAT Extended.

Similar Messages

  • How do you transfer movies from macbook to a external hard drive it won't recognise

    how do i transfer movies from macbook to a external hard drive? it just wont recognize

    So your MacBook Pro is a 2012 model (I'm assuming since you only bought it a week ago!)?
    There are some known issues with the USB 3.0 ports on the 2012 models where they do not recognize USB external drives. This tech note may be of some help - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5172#12.
    Some people that are using pre-release versions of Mountain Lion, to be released in the next couple of weeks, have written here that their USB 3.0 port problems are 'fixed' with the new version of OS X 10.8.
    Try the Apple FAQ first and if that doesn't solve your problem, you may have to wait a couple of weeks to see if 10.8 does.
    Sorry,
    Clinton

  • How do you move itunes movie files only to external hard drive to free up space on imac

    need to free up space on my hard drive wanted to move just my movie files to my external hard drive and leave my music on computer

    Sept. 2010, Consolidate selected content - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2589812 and April 2014, https://discussions.apple.com/message/25414357

  • How do I transfer all data from my old internal hard drive to a new internal hard drive

    How do I transfer all data from my old internal hard drive to a new internal hard drive? I have an iMac with a 320gb internal HD that is full and I am replacing it with a 2tb internal drive. I have several external drives; 1 tb, 2tb and 3 tb. The 2 tb is being used for Time Machine. Do I have to buy an enclosure? If so, where would I get an inexpensive one?
    I also want to partition the new internal drive for Windows, and I'm not sure how much space to use for that. I plan to use Windows to check my work in PowerPoint created on my Mac for clients on PCs.

    Do you already have Time Machine making backups onto the 2TB drive? If so, after you get the internal drive replaced, boot up into the recovery partition (hold down ⌘R) and restore the latest Time Machine backup that you have onto the new internal drive.
    I recommend always having two backups. I'd use SuperDuper to make a complete clone of your internal drive onto an external drive in addition to having the Time Machine backup.
    Boot Camp is what is used to make partitions for Windows. How much space to allocate depends on how much space you expect Windows to use up based on how you plan to use it.

  • How do I download all my photos onto an external hard drive intact without loosing iPhoto's features, important info and details? I need to delete pictures and files to make room in My mac's memory which is currently full.

    Hi
    How do I download all my photos onto an external hard drive intact without loosing iPhoto's features, important info and details? I need to delete pictures and files to make room in My mac's memory which is currently full.
    Maro

    So you want to move the iPhoto Library?
    Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
    1. Quit iPhoto
    2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
    3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
    4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
    Regards
    TD

  • I am running out of memory on my hard drive and need to delete files. How can I see all the files/applications on my hard drive so I can see what is taking up a lot of room?

    I am running out of memory on my hard drive and need to delete files. How can I see all the files/applications on my hard drive so I can see what is taking up a lot of room?
    Thanks!
    David

    Either of these should help.
    http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
    http://www.whatsizemac.com/
    Or search 'disk size' in the App Store.
    Be carefull with what you delete & have a backup BEFORE you start, you may also want to reboot to try to free any memory that may have been written to disk.

  • How do i transfer my iphoto events to an external hard drive and have the pictures remain within their original events?

    How do i transfer my iphoto events to an external hard drive and have the pictures remain within their original events? Every time i try it splits up all of my pictures one by one. You'd think you'd be able to just drag and drop the event, but no such luck. Help!!

    What version of iPhtoo do you have?
    To export the photos in an event use the file menu == export command - see the user tip on exporting for the available options
    TO use your iPhoto library on an external drive
    Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)
    And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
    And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive
    LN

  • How do I transfer a specific backup from my external hard drive to my mac book air?

    How do I transfer a specific backup from my external hard drive to my mac book air? I downgraded my mac's software from Mavericks to Mountain Lion because of the computer's limations so I need to transfer all the info I had when Mavericks  and down to Mountain Lion. I already went to the Apple Genius Bar and they helped me downgrade, but I want to transfer information from a specific backup on my external hard drive?

    time machine backup?   Go into the backups.backupdb (time machine) and extract out the specific files, drag them to your desktop etc.
    consider in the future additional backup methods than time machine for easy file extraction.
    Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection

  • How can I store my music files on an external hard drive and listen to them through iTunes that way?

    How can I store my music files on an external hard drive and listen to them through iTunes that way? At the moment they're both on the external hard drive and also stored on the computer but I'm quickly running out of memory on my iBook G4 so I'd like to only keep them on the external hard drive and, if possible, delete them from my computer's hard drive. At the moment, when the hard drive isn't plugged in a lot of the files won't play and I get the exclamation mark next to the particular song in iTunes, but everything plays fine when the hard drive is plugged in.
    Thank you.

    Sounds like your files are playing from the external drive already.  To check go to iTunes - Preferences - Advanced and check the Media Folder Location.  Change it to the external drive if you need to.

  • HT1329 How do I transfer my iTunes Library to an external hard drive?

    How do I transfer my iTunes Library to an external hard drive?

    See this support article:
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305451

  • HT1296 How do I transfer my music library from my external hard drive to my new PC?

    I saved all my music to an external hard drive so that it could be moved to my new PC.  All my song titles are showing up on the new PC, but whenever I try to play something, it says the file cannot be found.  If I plug the HD in, it will play the music.  As soon as I unplug the HD, I can no longer play anything.  My music library includes both items purchased from iTunes and music I added from CDs I own.  Please advise.  Thanks!

    you moved your music to an E-HD and connect it to a new computer
    ahdn when you play something it will only play when the e-hd is connected ?
    if so yeah sure thats the whole point
    if you want it on the new computer first copy the music to the new computers hd
    and then add it to itunes
    some of us wish to move our media to NAS's to save storage on our computers
    so if itunes would force the media added to the local hd of the computer we would become very upset
    though itunes does have settings to auto move added media to the local hd

  • IMac 10.5.8 is stuck on Apple logo loading screen , how can I back up my files with an external hard drive ?

    so my iMac (10.5.8 its pretty old ) got stuck on the apple logo loading screen (as I call it lol) and it will not go beyond that .I've already made and appointment for the genius bar but now would I back up my files with an external hard drive ? No unfortunately I don't have any other laptop or computer just the external hard drive. how would I back it up? Does it have something to do with "target disc mode"?

    Hi,
    Thank you for great advice re SuperDuper.
    You wasnt to know we didnt live in  USA.  We will try to get the full retail version of Leopard off the net.  We will also phone round the apple resellers.
    In the meantime, we are happy running Tiger with the knowledge that SuperDuper has cloned our hard drive in case of a disaster.
    SuperDuper recommended backing up the hard drive with a new user account if we were using filevault on the master account.  We backed up our hard drive without creating a new user with filevault as we could not read the pdf `Instuctions as preview was not responding.
    Is this copy safe to use as a bootable drive or should we copy our entire HD again using a new user account without filevault?
    Keith & Shem  

  • How can i copy specific music files to an external hard drive?

    I'm trying to copy selected artists from my itunes music library to an external hard drive.  I don't want to relocate any of my files to the external hard drive for regular use with itunes, I simply want to back up my files.

    Open Finder. Go to Music>iTunes>iTunes Music. The folders are organised by artists. You can copy and paste them to your external hard drive.

  • How do i transfer music from itunes to an external hard drive

    I'm Trying to transfer music from my iTunes library to an external hard drive. how do I go about it.

    If you have set iTunes to organize your library (under Edit > Preferences > Advanced) then all you need to do is:
    with iTunes not running, copy your entire iTunes library (by default, C:\Users\user_name\Music\iTunes) to your external hard drive - if the latter is drive X, you end up with X:\iTunes containing:
    Album Artwork (folder)
    iTunes Media (folder) containing (the exact list of folders varies with the types of content in your library):
    Audiobooks (folder)
    Automatically Add to iTunes (folder)
    Music (folder - this will contain one subfolder per artist, each containing one subfolder per album)
    Podcasts (folder)
    TV Shows (folder)
    iTunes Preferences.plist (file)
    Previous iTunes Libraries (folder)
    iTunes Library Extras.itdb (file)
    iTunes Library Genius.itdb (file)
    iTunes Library.itl (file - this is the iTunes database)
    iTunes Library.xml (file)
    sentinel (hidden file)
    When everything has been copied, hold down SHIFT while starting iTunes.  You'll see this prompt:
    Select Choose Library ... and browse to the iTunes folder on your external drive.  Select the iTunes Library.itl file and click Open.
    iTunes is now running with the complete library (database, media and supporting files) on the external drive.
    If you haven't been allowing iTunes to organize your library (which means that some media may be stored in other locations, i.e., not all under C:\Users\user_name\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media) then you need to do the following prior to the steps described above.
    In iTunes, go to Edit > Preferences > Advanced and check the Keep iTunes Media folder organized and Copy files to iTunes Media folder ...
    Then select File > Library > Organize Library ...  In the next dialog check the Consolidate files option and (if not grayed-out) Reorganize files ..., then click OK.
    iTunes will then reorganize your media so that you can follow the procedure to copy the complete library to your external HDD.
    Last point: once you've done this I strongly recommend that you get a second external drive and use this to take a regular backup of your library,

  • How Do I transfer my iTunes library to an External Hard Drive?

    Im new here so Im not sure where to post this. I have a 5G 60GB Ipod video and Im trying to get my iTunes onto this external hard drive I bought, that way, all my files are backed up and I can transfer them to my laptop. I have about 2000 songs, 15 videos, and 4 games. How do I transfer all that onto my hard drive without losing anything? And is there anyway to keep my playlists, song information, date added, ratings, and that stuff?

    See this support article:
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305451

Maybe you are looking for