How long to format external hard drive?

I'm planing to use a 750GB Western Digital myBook external drive as my backup drive for Time Machine. I am using Disk Utility to format the drive as a Mac OS External (Journaled) volume. The drive has been formating for nearly 10 hours now, which seems to be way too long. There is a message next to the progress bar which reads "newfs_hfs: /dev/rdisk2s1: partition size not a multiple of 4K." I thought I would close Disk Utility and retry, but I got a warning not to interrupt an operation in progress.
Should I force quit the Disk Utility, or should I wait it out a little longer? And, in layman's terms, what does the message mean?

Ok, I did a little research and discovered that WD drives have problems being formatted with Disk Utility. I downloaded and installed a program called MacDrive 7 (it has a 5 day free trial). It's a Windows program, so I booted into Windows and was able to format the WD myBook as a Mac OS volume. Took 40 seconds! Time Machine is backing up my system on the WD drive as I am typing this. Don't know if I'm allowed to post links, but a search of MacDrive will easily get you to the program. Hope this helps anyone else who has problems with the WD drives.

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How can I format external hard drive for both Mac

Hi, I want to use my Seagate external Hard Drive 1 TB on both Mac & Windows. I go to know that FAT 32 supports both but it can not transfer more than 4 GB data at a time. Is there some better alternative? Please suggest.

As said above Use exFAT but do the formatting on a Windows PC as I have had problems of Windows seeing the drive when done on a Mac. Once done on a PC it was seen by both platforms.
Also if you are running XP on the PC you may need an update for XP to see and use exFAT drives. It may be included with XP SP3, i'm not sure, but Microsoft has an update for both XP SP2 and SP3 so that exFAT drives are usable.

Since I upgraded to 10.9.5, my macbook no longer recognizes my external hard drive. How do I fix this? External hard drive is a 1TB Toshiba formatted for mac. Worked fine until latest upgrade.

Since I upgraded to 10.9.5, my macbook no longer recognizes my external hard drive. How do I fix this? External hard drive is a 1TB Toshiba formatted for mac. Worked fine until latest upgrade.

Solved the problem by dumping my external HD onto another computer. Re-formatting and re-installing the data. Not what I wanted to do but it solved the problem.

I recently updated the software on my MacBook Pro. Now, my computer no longer recognizes my external hard drive. Could this be related to the software update and, if so, how do I correct the problem?

I Recently updated the software on my MacBook Pro. Now, my computer no longer recognizes my external hard drive. Could this be related to the software update and, if so, how do I correct the problem?

Ari343 wrote:
No, the external hard drive does not show up on Disk Utility. I don't have another computer to try it on.
Perform a PRAM reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
Have you tried all the ports?
Have you tried with a different cable?
Have you tested all the ports with other devices to see that they are functioning?
Ciao.

How to access a PC formatted external hard drive

I am trying to access a PC formatted external hard drive, however when I attempt to mount it I get a message saying the drive is not recongnized and if I want ti initialize, which i believe if I execute will remove the files I am trying access..Is there a way to access the files on the external hard drive...it is a avi file i need to edit..

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/26288/ntfs-for-mac-os-x
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/
Paragon also has a program (suite) that will convert NTFS <=> HFS+ without data loss (but have backup never use something wo one!)
And Pargon has kept up with Lion while others have not or have stopped development and works best with PC drive cases with low overhead and fast reliable copy operation.
The demo is also fully functional for 30 days.

Can no longer access NTFS external hard drive

Have been using the new Mac-Book Pro for about 4 weeks now. Until last week, when I attached by Seagate NTFS formatted external hard drive to my USB port, it showed up in Finder right away and I could access files ( read ) on it without any problems.
But since last week, if I attach the same drive to my USB port, it no longer shows up in Finder. I cannot see it at all !!
Any ideas ? All i need is to read files from it, I don't need to write anything to it.
Thanks.

BTW, after talking to a Apple-Support personnel and doing a bunch of hard-ware tests they recommended that I format the external drive to a FAT32 partition.
Not a good solution, as XP cannot format a drive using FAT32 for drives more than 32 GB, the drive in question is a 100 GB capacity.
I just want to read the NTFS partition on the Mac. Don't need write access. I thought Leopard supported "read-only" access to NTFS drives. What drives me crazy..is that Leopard could see and read this drive fine until last week.... What happened !!
Thanks for your inputs.

How do I access external hard drive connected to AirPort Extreme via iPad

Hello,
How do I access external hard drive connected to AirPort Extreme via iPad / windows laptop.
I donot have a Mac and I use windows laptop.

For your iPad, you will need an app, like FileBrowser, to access the external drive.
For your Windows laptop, you would access the drive like any other network share. The basic format is: \\<servername>\<sharename>, where, in this case, the servername is the base station name and the sharename is the name of the external drive.

How do I use external hard drive

how do I use external hard drive and Photos? I keep getting a msg that there is not enough free space on your photo library volume - i even bought 500Gb of space on iCloud.... that didn't even work please help

1. Drag the library to a volume formatted as Mac OS Extended, launch Photos with the Option key held down, select Other Library, and choose it. Alternatively, drag it to the Photos icon in the Dock.
2. iCloud storage space is separate from that on the computer.
(126243)

How to convert NTFS external hard drive to FAT32 without loosing data?

New mac user. How to convert NTFS external hard drive to FAT32 without loosing data?

You have to off load and backup then.
don't have backup drive ?
Get one.
Want another option? Paragon NTFS for OS X will provide write function to your drive, works with the most PC cases and drives (not all NTFS drivers for OS X do) and does so with fast I/O and low overhead.
Not sure about using Seagate GoFlex as I seem to recall a number of threads reporting problems.
Windows can do a convert -fs to NTFS just never tried the reverse from NTFS to FAT32 but I would not use FAT. I'd either erase and reload and use as Mac HFS Extended; or if you actually do need to use it with a PC user running Windows, the driver would be handy and better.
Or your PC w/ Windows there are HFS drivers for Windows to mount and WRITE to a Mac formatted drive under Windows. There MacDrive has more and better support feature set.

How big should my external hard drive be for me to use Time Machine?

i am a student and dont have a significant amount of files and that on my computer so how big shuld my external hard drive be?
I will be using a normal external hard drive so will i be getting the full and the important features out of time machine if i do this?

There are two questions you should ask yourself:
1. How long will it take me to fill up my internal HDD?
2. How far back chronologically do I realistically expect to have go to retrieve data?
I submit that in the vast majority of cases, a HDD of the same size as you have in your MBP will be ample. If things change, adjustments can be made well in advance. Its the very rare user that will generate multi GBs of data and file changes every session.
As an example, I have a 750GB HDD in my MBP and a 750 HDD dedicated to Time Machine. The oldest backup goes back 7 months. At the rate that I update Time Machine, I expect the Disk to be filled and start deleting old data in about 3 months. For me, that is more than sufficient.
There is another aspect of backup strategy you should consider. I would highly reccomend that you have a second external drive to store your most important files that may be duplicates of those in Time Machine. All HDD will fail. You just never know when that will happen. If your Time machine disk expires, this way you are not left in a calamitious situation.
Though some of my views may be in the minority, the final decision is always yours.
Ciao.

HT3764 How to reformat an external hard drive using Snow Lepard to use for Time Machine

How to reformat an external hard drive using Snow Lepard to use for Time Machine

Use the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder to erase it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with GUID as the partition map format(or APM if you're using a PowerPC Mac running 10.5).
(73291)

Formatting external hard drive for mac

Hi I am having trouble reformatting an external Hard drive from my Windows computer to my new Mac any guidance would be appriciated thx.

http://www.cultofmac.com/92845/formatting-external-hard-drives-in-os-x-video-how -to/

After I installed Lion, my MacBook Pro can no longer detect my external hard drives or my USB flash drives. What should I do?

After I installed Lion, my MacBook Pro can no longer detect my external hard drives or my USB flash drives. What should I do?

And me -- My Mac at work running Snow Leopard reads the drive normally. My home Mac (on Lion) can't even find it....
Yet another Leo let-down.....

New MacBook pro how do I add external hard drive which has my entire iTunes library on it. Do I just drag external drive icon into iTunes preference box that shows where new itunes library is now located ie. On the MacBook pro.

how do I add external hard drive which contains my entire iTunes library to new MacBook Pro. i want to keep iTunes library on external hard drive. But I want all my iTunes information: artist, songs, albums, playlists on my new MacBook Pro. I know about going to iTunes preferences- advanced-itunes media folder location. At this point I don't know what to do Do I drag external icon into iTunes media folder location box. I want to keep music files on external hard drive. I don't want to use macbook pro memory for my very large music files.

I will request that your query be relocated to the iPhoto forum where knowledgeable iPhoto users will be able to assist you.
Ciao.

HT201250 how do i add external hard drive to my time machine back up

how do i add external hard drive to my time machine back up so that I may view the files independently on apple tv please?

To elaborate on above. I am looking to add about 300gig of photos on an external hard drive to TC.
Once I do this I believe I can then have itunes source its photos from TC without having them stored directly on my iMac?
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How long to format external hard drive?

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