How to use an external hard drive on a MacBook Air?

Hi there.
Recently I bought a portable USB external hard drive for my MacBook Air due to my full startup disk. I also bought multiple disks for the hard drive. I inserted the disk, hooked up the USB, and did everything properly. When I first hooked it up, I lost all internet files that I had saved. All images, videos and downloads (such as Minecraft and other gaming downloads) from the internet were gone and unable to find.
Now, I don't want to make the wrong move and lose all of my internet files again, so I am asking how to transfer files SAFELY to the USB without any files being deleted. I tranfered files before, but they were just short cuts to the original file, so I am also asking how to fix that as well. My Dad was a computer technician, although he didn't work for Apple, so he doesn't know how to use the USB.
I've tried everything to find my internet files, but nothing. If there is a way to get them back, I'd be glad if you shared that with me. My dock files aren't working due to this insanely full startup disk, so I'd appreciate it if you could tell me ASAP how to use the USB, how to SAFELY transfer files without them turning into shortcuts, and how to get my internet files back.
Thank you very much.
P.s My OS X version is 10.8.3 (Not with Mountain Lion)

You cannot format a drive so that files will be automatically put on that drive when you run out of room on another drive. Transferring the files must be done specifically by you. You will need to learn how to manage free space on the SSD because 64 GBs is a bit small for much more than OS X.
Drive Partition and Format
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. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

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Advice on how to format an external hard drive for a MacBook Air

I have an external USB hard drive plugged into a 64GB MacBook Air. How should I format the hard drive so that when I run out of room on the small 64 GB SSD drive on the MacBook Air, it will start putting some iTunes or other files onto the external hard drive? I only put iTunes and other small music files on the MacBook Air in order to save room. I do have iTunes set for iCloud.

You cannot format a drive so that files will be automatically put on that drive when you run out of room on another drive. Transferring the files must be done specifically by you. You will need to learn how to manage free space on the SSD because 64 GBs is a bit small for much more than OS X.
Drive Partition and Format
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. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

Can someone indicate step by step how to connect my external hard drive to my Macbook Air as additional storage and memory?

I have a WD My Passport for Mac. I have it into two partitions one formatted into Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and the other one formatted into exFat. I don't really know where to go from there. I would love it if somebody could help me with a step by step process.

Have you connected the WD external HDD to your MBA with the USB cable? It should be displayed on your desktop. If not, check the settings in Finder Preferences.
Once it is connected, click on the icon and a window will open showing what ever data you have on it. The same procedures apply as with the internal storage of the MBA.
Some WD HDDs come with their own software which may create unnecessary problems with your OSX. You may have to get rid of that.
Ciao.

I need to buy an external hard drive for my MacBook Air as it is almost full. Which one should I buy?

Do I need to buy an Apple external Hard Drive for my MacBook Air?

There is no such thing as an Apple hard drive, ...Apples doesnt make same.
avoid western digital if possible.
Yes, having an external HD is necessary for data backups and keeping large media files for packing around etc.
you need data redundancy.
best options for the price, and high quality HD:
Quality 1TB drives are $50 per TB on 3.5" or $65 per TB on 2.5"
Perfect 1TB for $68
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-Hard-Drive/dp/B005J7YA3W/ref=sr_1_ 1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379452568&sr=8-1&keywords=1tb+toshiba
Nice 500gig for $50. ultraslim perfect for use with a notebook
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B009F1CXI2/ref=s r_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1377642728&sr=1-1&keywords=toshiba+slim+500gb
Best small HD for the money:
2.5" USB portable High quality BEST FOR THE COST, Toshiba "tiny giant" 2TB drive (have several of them, LOT of storage in a SMALL package) $117
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Connect-Portable-HDTC720XK3C1/dp/B00CGUMS48 /ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1379182740&sr=1-4&keywords=2tb+toshiba
*This one is the BEST portable external HD available that money can buy:
HGST Touro Mobile 1TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive $88
http://www.amazon.com/HGST-Mobile-Portable-External-0S03559/dp/B009GE6JI8/ref=sr _1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383238934&sr=8-1&keywords=HGST+Touro+Mobile+Pro+1TB+USB+3.0+7 2 00+RPM
Most storage experts agree on the Hitachi 2.5"
Hitachi is the winner in hard drive reliability survey:
Hitachi manufacturers the safest and most reliable hard drives, according to the Storelab study. Of the hundreds of Hitachi hard drives received, not a single one had failed due to manufacturing or design errors. Adding the highest average lifespans and the best relationship between failures and market share, Hitachi can be regarded as the winner.

Is there a way to access my iTunes Library, which is stored on a (PC) External Hard Drive, on a MacBook Air (through an Apricorn Universal Hard Drive Adapter), without transferring the music files off of the external hard drive?

Is there a way to access my iTunes Library, which is stored on a (PC) External Hard Drive, on a MacBook Air (through an Apricorn Universal Hard Drive Adapter), without transferring the music files off of the external hard drive?
In other words, because the MacBook Air only has 120 gbs of hard drive space & my old hard drive, from a Lenovo, has 500 gbs of hard drive space (and I have over 120 gbs of music), I’m looking to manage my iTunes music from the external hard drive permanently. Upon attempting to access the iTunes library held on the external hard drive the following message comes up: “The iTunes Library.itl file is locked, on a locked disk, or you do not have write permission for this file”. Is there a way to get around this?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks so much!

You will have to engage a split library which means you will have to start answering questions on this forum because you will need to learn a lot about how iTunes works in order not that have a big mess at the end of it all. It also won't be easy when the time comes to relocate it all to different drives.
You can go to advanced preferences and turn off organize media and copy to items to media folder when adding items to library. Next read about how to selectively consolidate items to the external drive.
Sept. 2010, Consolidate selected content - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2589812 and April 2014, https://discussions.apple.com/message/25414357
"...selected the new tracks directly in iTunes, Control-clicked on the selection, and saw that now you can consolidate selected items." - http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090919000326840
Remember that when you start iTunes without the external drive turned on iTunes will present you with a bunch of broken links. If you have automatic downloads enabled with iCloud you may have to turn that off to prevent iTunes from repopulating your drive trying to deal with those "missing" tracks.
If you add tracks in bunches to iTunes and want them to go to different media folders you will need to either add them by holding down the option key while dragging if the desired media folder is not the one set in preferences, or by changing the media folder in preferences. Changing media folder preferences only applies to new files added, not old ones.
Okay, I am going to stop typing because you might just reply to me, "Oh, okay, forget it," and I don't need the exercise.
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391

How to use an external hard drive for your music storage

How do I use my external hard drive as my storage for music? I have already saved my music on my external and I have my iTunes program on the computer just wondering what is the next step is? Also I want to make sure I do not use my computer's hard drive for any sizable storage.

sorry to butt in, but this appears to be the best thread to pose my question/problem.
i have successfully migrated my iTunes Library to my external hard drive. the last part of the instructions tell me to delete the iTunes music folder from my hard drive to free up space.
however, i've not done this because i would like to keep a reduced number of music files on my MacBook so that i can listen to music when i'm away from my external hard drive.
i've managed to delete the files i don't want stored on my hard drive, and when i open iTunes without the external hard drive, it defaults to the original location. i'm sure this is not good practise, because whilst i can now play music, the information in iTunes is not right.
what is the best way of storing and playing some of my iTunes library on my hard drive, whilst using the external drive as a 'master'? can it be done?
MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.7) 2GB RAM, 120GB HD, 2GHZ

How do i transfer external hard drive content to macbook pro?

How do i transfer external hard drive content back to my macbook pro?
I do not see the hard drive icon or a back up icon, where should it be?

What kind of drive is it - a large drive with a power cord, or a portable drive? Can you tell if the drive itself is actually on? (Is there a light, or a power switch, etc, can you hear it?)
How is it attached to the Mac?
On your Mac, click on the desktop, then go to the Finder menu (top left), click Preferences, then under the General tab, make sure that everything is ticked.
If that works, you should then get the external HD icon appearing on your desktop.
Hope that helps.
Matt

Best External hard drive for 2011 macbook air

i recently recieved a 2011 macbook air and heard that it is easier on the computer to use an external hard drive
if this is true what would be the best reasonably priced one to buy?
thanks

http://www.hgst.com/external-drives/mobile/touro-mobile-pro
This I have found is a very good "bang for the buck" drive. 7200 RPM drive, and USB 3.0, if later you can advantage of it. If you want anything faster, you will have to raise your budget quite a bit going with a Thunderbolt drive, in which case I would recommend the Seagate GoFlex.
You may also want to consider a LaCie's Rugged Triple in 500 GB 7200 RPM configuration, and use the $29.00 Thunderbolt-Firewire adapter.
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10553

I need help on how to properly use my external hard drive on the macbook pro

Whenever I try to store some files (e.g. images)
The image I've copied and pasted into the external hard drive disappears or gets deleted as well when I delete the original image from the internal hard drive, why is that?
Is it because it was just a copy of the original image that if you delete the original image the copied image in the external hard drive will get deleted as well?
So does that mean I have to put the original image in the drive or will that get lost too?
Sorry for the multiple questions,
I'm just struggling with my new external hard drive.
Model of the external hard drive: Seagate Backup plus slim portable drive 1 tb

What are you trying to accomplish here? Time Machine is used for backing up files on a regular basis but you don't have to use it. You're getting ahead of things. Have you managed to drag a file from your main drive to the new one successfully?

How to use my external hard drive?

this is most likely a pretty simple question. I just want to be sure I still have my pictures.. i've loaded almost all my library onto my external hard drive, yet i'm still seeing the pictures in my library.. is it safe for me to just erase them?? i want to be absolutely sure of this.. any suggestions would be nice!!
meg

Hi Meg, It really doesn't matter the size or if its USB or Firwire. If you can plug it into your iBook and the Drive icon
appears on the desktop your half way there. To check and see if you transfered the data correctly you could double click on the External Drive icon and search the folders for the files you copied. Just remember to check for the "Alias" arrow in the bottom...Right? corner...well the little "Alias" arrow.
If they are there you did not transfer them correctly.
Now, the other post was correct...If you have a Firewire External Drive and its large enough Clone your whole system.
I use SuperDuper
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
It's free.
If your external is not partitioned and there are other things that you do not want erased or you have a USB drive
you can make a copy of your system using Disk Utility and have it saved to you external...Again everything will be copied. Then delete Away....

How can i run an application from an external hard drive on my macbook air, since I've got less space on my SSD

Ive got a 128GB SSD on my macbook Air and i know as time goes on ill eventually run out of space so i want to know if their suggestions on how to run applications like google chrome, Skype etc on an external hard drive with out installing int on my SSD.

Double click on them.
You could create Aliases and store them in a convenient place.
Drag the folder with the apps to your Dock and launch them from the folder on your Dock.
Make sure Spotlight indexes your external disk, then use Command-Space -> name of app -> return

How do I mount the hard drive of one Macbook Air onto another Macbook Air?

I did something funny to my Macbook Air (late 2009). However I have a brand new Macbook Air that I just took out of the box today.
I want to check the hard drive of the old MBA and remove some files as I filled up the hard drive by mistake while I was backing it up.
Whenever I start the old Macbook Air, it shows a blue screen. I can see Yahoo Widgets but the dock is off the screen.
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Can I simply connect them up via the USB ports? Will that mount the old MBA onto the new MBA?
I am in serious trouble because I don't have a backup. I wrecked the hard drive while I was doing a backup. I am trying to salvage whatever I have on the hard drive of the old MBA.
I think I can salvage a lot. I just can't see the Desktop of the old MBA when I start that computer up.
As my new MBA has 256GB I am going to try and mount the old MBA onto the new MBA and remove some files from there.
Can it be done like this?

Thanks for the reply. I was able to save the data on the Macbook Air whose HD got corrupted by using File Sharing (ethernet connecting two Macbook Airs).
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It is simplest to have the HDD formatted to noe common to both Mac an PC. ExFAT is one. But to do that will erase all data on the HDD.
If the HDD id formatted NTFS, Mac can read but not write to it. The solution then is to use a third party application such as Paragon or Tuxera which will overcome that obstacle. These applications do have mixed reviews.
Ciao.

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Clone it using Carbon Copy Cloner. Here's the link:
http://www.bombich.com/
Then to move it to the MBair and boot the Air holding down the Option key between the startup tone and the Logo / pinwheel.
The boot manager will start and then select the external drive as the boot device.
First some qualifying questions:
1. What OSx release is on your other Mac.
2. What MBair do you have.
I want to make sure the OS you're going to clone is more recent then the OSx that your MBair originally shipped with.

How to use an external hard drive on a MacBook Air?

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