I am not able to use my external hard drive with my Mac.

I am not able to use my external hard drive with my Mac. It was initially used with my Windows 7 laptop. Now when I insert my Hard drive in the Mac, it doesn't allow me to delete, format, make folders or copy new files on to my hard drive. I no longer have a Windows PC and am stuck. I tried going to Disc utilities,selected my HD, clicked on Erase and then changed the Format type to MS-DOS (FAT) but no luck .. Any other steps or advice?

It was likely formatted in NTFS which is readable by the Mac, but not writeable.
You should be able to reformat the disk in Disk Utility.
After having copied all the data off of it, you can try re-partitioning it.
Select the hard drive in the disk list in Disk Utility. Hard drives are the device itself, are left-aligned in the list, and are usually named with the manufacturer, size, and model number.
Click on the Partition tab.
Select 1-partition from the partition menu.
Click the Options button and set to GUID
Set the format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Give the Volume a name and click Apply.

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Using an external hard drive with a Mac and a PC?

I have an external hard drive that I've used with my Windows PC/ itunes / music that I've copied to the PC. Can I use the external hard drive that I use with my Windows PC on my Mac/ itunes / music I've downloaded to my Mac?

wendybird wrote:
I also have a lot of pictures stored on the external hard drive that I can't lose.
(1) Any hard drive may fail at any moment. If you don't have a backup for this external hard drive, your pictures are half-gone already.
(2) If you're trying to make this drive a repository for your music and pics, then its best to format it as FAT32. That's the file system with the widest compatibility, and you'll be able to use the drive with Mac, Win, media players, even TVs with built-in media players. For practicality, it's probably best to keep it attached to a desktop machine and share it on your home LAN for all other devices.

Using same external hard drive with two Macs

I use two Lacie external hard drives and Time Machine to back-up my iMac, swapping over the drives each week to have one off-site.
I am soon to buy a MacBook. Can I use the same external hard drives for the MacBook's Time Machine back-ups, whilst continuing to use them with the iMac, or will that cause problems?
Thank you.

As Kappy says, Time Machine will put both sets of backups in the same Backups.backupdb folder. That may not be a good idea for the future; your best bet may be to partition the drive.
See #4 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

Using my external hard drive with my Mac?

I have a Maxtor external hard drive I used with my Dell. Can I use it with my Mac? Any worries about simply connecting it and seeing what will happen?

My best guess is it's formatted as NTFS, if that is the case OS X can read NTFS files but cannot write to a NTFS formatted drive. You can fix that by downloading NTFS-3G
OR
you can reformat the drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) in Disk Utility. If you are sharing this drive with a PC then I'd recommend the NTFS-3G option
if it's only to be used by the Mac then reformat it.
You can download NTFS-3G at: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24481/ntfs-3g
To reformat here are instructions: http://www.ehow.com/how_2063795_format-hard-drive-mac-os.html

Using an external hard drive with my mac

My PC crashed last night (THANK GOD NOW I CAN GET A NEW DESKTOP MAC!!!) but I need to get some pictures off of my external hard drive. Can I just plug it up with my macbook and get them off? It is compatible with MAC. It's a Lacie. Thanks for any help.
Adrienne

What's the format of the drive? If it's FAT32 you should have no problem. If it's NTFS you probably can read it to get data off the drive (although I can't get my iBook G4 1.42 to mount them - MacBook does read-only with NTFS). The particular model and interface type of your LaCie drive could be helpful.
I had a LaCie d2 FireWire drive that crashed a few months after I got it. I then reformatted in FAT32 on my iBook and had ScanDisk quarantine bad sectors on a PC. It finally bit the dust and the PC would no longer mount the drive. My iBook was able to read it but took minutes to mount. I got the data to another drive and make sure to back up my important stuff to three different external drives.
Message was edited by: ypw

Does anyone use a LaCie external hard drive with their Mac using imovie '09? I have some questions.

Does anyone use a LaCie external hard drive with their Mac using imovie '09? I have some questions.

Are you actually having a problem with the new Lacie drive, or are you just asking is the Lacie drive somehow different from your old G-Drive?
From a connection standpoint, most Lacie desktop drives have both USB and FireWire connections, just like the G-Drives do. You would connect and use it the same as a G-Drive.
Regarding capturing to the external HD, if you are using a camcorder that has FireWire (iLink) connection, it is not advisable to have an external FireWire HD connected to your Mac at the same time as your camcorder; there are often communication conflicts between the camcorder and the hard drive if they are connected at the same time. The conflicts usually appear as either dropped frames or a complete freeze. This is more common with Canon miniDV camcorders but I have also seen this behavior with Sony miniDV camcorders. (The problem is the camcorder's FW implementation, not the hard drive.) The workaround is to capture to your Mac's internal HD and later copy the captured video to your external HD.

I can not save any data to external hard drive from my mac pro. Is there anyone can help me in this regard?( note, when i first plug my ext. drive to mac i chose option to backup later)

I can not save any data to external hard drive from my mac pro. Is there anyone can help me in this regard?( note, when i first plug my ext. drive to mac i chose option to backup later)

The device may be formatted for Windows, as NTFS. The format is readable, but not natively writable on a Mac. To write to the device, you must either reformat it (erasing all the contents) or install third-party software to enable write access to NTFS.

Can I use an external hard drive with my ipad 2

can I use an external hard drive with my ipad 2

There are WiFi enabled portable hard drives available that can stream media, such as music or video, to your iPad, but no external hard drive in the sense of how you would use one with a computer.

Cannot access shared external hard drive with other mac accounts

I cannot access a shared external hard drive with other mac accounts (all accounts are on the same macbook Pro). The shared external drive is shared via time capsule and is connected (of course) in USB. I see well this external hard drive as a shared disk with my main account. Yes shared option has been activated with the Airport Utility .. but when I open other account these othe accounts can see the external drive but cannot access to its content that is flagged with a no way sign. Strangely enough when I close my main account and start opening a new session with one of the other account then fine I can access the external hard drive and its content .. BUT then it is from my main account than I cannot access its content the no way sign showing ..
Looks like only one account at a time can access the content of this SHARED external hard drive .. any one as an idea on how to really make it a shared hard drive so that all accounts on the same mac can also access it ? I am at my wit ends on this case. THANKS ..

Results of my enquiries at Apple Genius Bar .. the guys found the problem interesting. They've been unable to provide a fix neither to give any explanation as to the reason why. To be fair I was not much impressed by the technical level demonstrated ..
In the mean time I have found that if account no.1 can see the shared external drive content and in such case account no.2 (same Mac computer) cannot see its content (only the external HD with a no way sign) this account no.2 can UNMOUNT (by ejecting) this external HD from account 1 and then remount it (just clicking on the TC shared part in a finder window) and .. see and access its content ; whilst account no.1 cannot see its content anylonger. Unless it unmounts the shared external HD and remount it .. then account no.2 can see its content anylonger. This can goes on an on.
So eventually YES the TC can allow to share a USB external drive between several accounts and a same Mac .. BUT this require to unmount and remount EACH time the external drive is accessed from a "no.2 account". So OK to share files with seldom access but not practical in case of frequent access needed.
I just I have now to figure how iTunes can automatically unmount and remount a shared external HD when it needs to access one of this shared HD content from on time account no.1 and then next time from account no.2. May be I am asking too much ..

Using an external hard drive with Airport Extreme

I'd like to use an external hard drive to store movies and music through my Airport Extreme. The drive is connected to a powered usb hub which is connected to the Extreme. I can see the drive in Airport Utility but I can't figure out how to use it.

Hi,
I have just tried to set up an Airport Extreme with an external hard drive at home. I have 4 computers connected to the "network" - an iMac, a MacBookPro and 2 x windows machines. A printer is connected wirelessly to the two Macs.
I cannot find the hard drive - I have tried the steps mentioned by Bob Timmons Mar 17 2010, but the only things I see under "Shared" in Finder are the iMac and the printer - not the Airport Extreme (seems odd??), not the windows machines, and most importantly, not the hard drive connected to the USB port on the Airport Extreme.
I therefore expect that the iMac and printer are connected wirelessly and directly, rather than through my network (& I'm happy for the printer to be connected this way, but I do need the PCs and the hard drive all networked).
According to my network connection, (in top bar on the screen) I am definitely connected to the network - yet nothing else shows in finder??
I do, however, see the USB hard Drive when I go into Finder>Applications>Utilities>AirportUtility.app, under my Airport Extreme >Disks. I've also gone through all the set up procedures for "File Sharing."
I have read other posts about formatting the hard drive ether FAT32 or NFTS - is this something I now need to do?? If so, which one should I use, and once I do it, will I then see it?
Presumably, in order to format the Hard Drive, I will need to disconnect it from the Airport Extreme, and connect it directly to one of the Macs too?
My apologies for so many questions, but this is all very technical stuff for the non-techie layperson.
Many thanks for any help anyone can provide on one or more of the questions / issues.
Martin

Can I use an NTFS external hard drive with my mac?

I am running version 10.6.8 and the operating software is Snow Leapord. I want to upgrade to Lion but firstly I want to back-up my files just incase s*** happens. I've bought a used 500gb external hard drive and I understand it's in the NTFS (Windows NT File System) format. Although I am able to view what's on the hard drive as well as use it, for example, open photos, watch movies, I cannot delete anything on it. I could get a mac compatible hard drive but that's going to be at an extra cost! Any help much appreciated.

You can format it for Mac compatibility with Disk Utility. However, you will likely lose your files. Here's the options you have:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3003

How can I use my external hard drive on my mac and a windows computer?

Hello,
Can anyone help...I have recently purchased a new external hard drive for my macbook pro, it is a 1TB hard drive. I use it for time machine back ups which only takes up about 250gb of space so obviously I have a lot more to use. I'm at University and the computers there are Windows so I'm hoping to be able to drag my uni work to my external HD and connect it to the windows computers at my university so that I have my work there as well - however I'm not sure how I should format my HD???
Thanks

You will eventually use all of that 1TB external for the Time Machine backups, that is if you do regular Time Machine backups (It is NOT a One Time thing). So using that same external for anything else is not a good idea.
You would be much better off buying a large USB thumb drive, like 64GBs in size, and format that to one of the Windows formates that both Mac OS X and Windows can read from and write to. Those would be FAT32 and exFAT. If you are moving file less than 4GBs in size then format it FAT32. You can then copy files to it from your Mac and Read those files on the Windows PCs the school has and just stick that Thumb drive in your pocket.

How can i use an external hard drive with my ipad

I just got a new ipad 2 I am trying to see it is possible to connect a external hard drive to take my picture and documents with me.

Basically you can't, though there are a few (fairly expensive) drives coming onto the market which are said to be compatible. There is no USB port on the iPad, and the optional camera connection kit is only for the transfer of photos/videos, so wouldn't recognise other file types - if you were able to connect a drive via it then the drive would need it's own power source, the photos would have to be in a specific format, and there is still no guarantee that it would work.
There are apps available for the iPad which can use/access cloud services such as Dropbox.

Can I use any external hard drive with Time Machine?

I have a 1TB external hard drive and also a 16GB flash drive. Is it possible to use either of these with Time Machine?

IMO Time Machine should be on its own Dedicated External Drive... one that is twice the size of the drive that it is backing up... the 16 GB Flash Drive is not appropiate for the task.
See Here
TM 101
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
You may also find this Link of Interest...
Time Machine vs. Clones and Archives

Using an external hard drive with Mac & PC

Hello. I am still using a 2005 PPC iMac running Tiger. My photos are stored in Aperture and Lightroom 2, however they are all stored on my computer's hard drive. I want to remove them from my computer and store them on an external hard drive instead.
My flat mate has a Windows based PC laptop and also has stuff he wants to store on an external hard drive. We were thinking about going halves and getting a Western Digital 2TB hard drive and sharing it.
I understand that the hard drives can be shared for both formats using FAT32, how would this format affect my Lightroom/Aperture Libraries? Or would it just be better to get an individual hard drive each? If so can you recommend any good ones for use with the mac that are not too costly?

Fat32 will limit File sixes to 4 GB & have some naming restrictions.
A few options...
You could format that HDD as Fat32/MS-DOS, but you'd be limited to 4 GB Filesizes.
NTFS-3G Stable Read/Write Driver...
http://www.ntfs-3g.org/
MacFUSE: Full Read-Write NTFS for Mac OS X, Among Others...
http://www.osnews.com/story/16930
MacDrive for the PCs... allows them to Read/Write HFS+...
http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/

I am not able to use my external hard drive with my Mac.

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