I need to purchase an external disk drive...
Mine inside my Macbook died like everyone else's, and I'm looking for a new one.
I found several, but most of the time they say Windows for the operating system. I'm not sure if that means they won't work at all with a Mac, or if that is just talking about the Lightscribe program, or what.
I've seen other threads that say most all of them should work, but so far every single one I've looked at only supports Windows, what's the deal?
Well, seems we've misunderstood you then!
Here's an old article about a Mac user who picked up a Sony external drive which didn't claim compatibility with OS X, yet worked just fine:
http://lowendmac.com/ed/bgray/bg07/1010.html
slightly more recent thread here, again discussing Sony external drives:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=425915
review on amazon.com about a Sony external drive. Review is dated Aug 21, 2008
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B000SKWE9W?pageNumber=2f
Every google search I ran pulled up Sony external drives right away. If I was in your position, I'd check out the Sony options, find the ones you like best and read reviews by Mac users about them.
Regarding the "Windows OS only" issue, I'd say you probably wouldn't get support from the company, since they haven't claimed any compatibility with OS X. That doesn't necessarily mean the device won't work though.
~Lyssa
Similar Messages
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I just purchased an external disk drive to store my growing number of pictures. I want to keep the last 12 months of pictures on my iMac and move the remaining pictures to the new external drive. As I take more pictures I want them to be put on the iMac internal drive. Every 3 to 6 months I would then move some additional pictures to the external drive. I am nuervous about losing any of the pictures and want to make sure I follow the proper procedure. What is the right way to handle this?
Thanks.Here's one way to do what you want:
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.
Now you have two full versions of the Library.
3. On the Internal library, trash the Events you don't want there
Now you have a full copy of the Library on the External and a smaller subset on the Internal
Some Notes:
As a general rule: when deleting photos do them in batches of about 100 at a time. iPhoto can baulk at trashing large numbers at one go.
You can choose which Library to open: Hold down the option (or alt) key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library'
You can keep the Library on the external updated with new imports using iPhoto Library Manager -
I have a mid 2010 iMac, version 10.8.2, memory 4GB, 1TB sata disk.
Apple sent me an e-mail last year stating that my imac maybe affected to a recall. They said I have to back up my computer before sending it in to them. So its a great excuse to purchase an external hard drive.
But I am clueless. I would like to know what brand and size of memory is recommened for my imac and my needs. I will be mostly be backing up homevideos and alot of pictures, music, and some documents.
If someone could also explain about time machine? I guess its a whole separte thing from your media. I also would like to keep it affordable. I just purchased an external hard drive from www.macmall.com Seagate Backup Plus 1TB USB 3.0 Portable Drive - Black (STBU1000100).
But I don't know if that was a really great choice because for it to work with time machine I have to reformat certain things, and Im not sure if I would like to have that hassle.
I also wanted to know whats the difference between usb 3.0 and firewire. I read some forums saying that if you are to transfer videos you need to use firewire, and some agreed disagreed. Is that true?
Please help!?
I definitely would like to know what brands of external hard drives are highly recommended and good at price. The one I purchased is it any good?
Thank you!
-wjrlelidepaulahttp://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10554
http://www.newertech.com/storage/ -
I need to back up my imac running Tiger (no time machine) so that we can upgrade OS. It is set up for multiple accounts. How do I capture all files in each account using newly purchased USB external hard drive? Thanks!
Backup Software Recommendations
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
SuperDuper!
Synk Pro
Tri-Backup
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Or you can simply use the Restore option of Disk Utility to clone the drive to the backup:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive. -
My macbook pro's memory is full and I purchased an external hard drive. I am using timemachine, but need to earse/free up some memory on my laptop. How do I do this?
Christinag1317 wrote:
My macbook pro's memory is full and I purchased an external hard drive. I am using timemachine, but need to earse/free up some memory on my laptop. How do I do this?
Ok when you refer to "memory" that is the Random Access Memory which is temporary memory the processor (worker) uses to store stuff while it's using it. Power goes off whats in the memory is gone.
Your storage drive is where data is pernamnetly stored if the power is on/off.
So what you really mean to say is your storage drive is filled up and you need to make some room.
You have a TimeMachine drive, what this does is makes a image of your internal storage drive as a backup method, it also allows some "back in time" restoration of your previous deleted files depending how much space is on that drive. The more space, the less data you have, the more days you can go back in time to retrieve something.
Unfortunatly the TimeMachine drive is not a extra space storage drive, it automatically rotates what appears on your internal storage drive. So if you delete something from the internal drive, it eventually gets deleted from the TimeMachine drive.
So you need to make some more room on your internal drive, this is rather easy, all you need is ANOTHER external drive and connect it to the Mac. Give it a name like ExtraStorage#1 and thenyou will have to decide which of your User files you really don't need on the internal drive.
For instance the best choice would be to move some movies out of your Movies folder to another MoviesExtra folder on the ExtraStorage#1 drive.
Movies take a LOT of drive space and you can always copy them on or off, or watch them from the ExtraStorage#1 drive as well. But if your going to do this a lot, you should consider getting a Firewire 800/400, USB 3,2,1 combination drive as Firewire 800 is fastest and decently priced (Thunderbolt is very high priced and overkill at this time)
The other things like Documents are quite small, Pictures can take a lot of space if you have a lot, but if you need them on the internal drive then that's better. Music one tends to use a lot or manage playlists and such, but perhaps some music you may which to move off or "prune", I suggest always burning data DVD's of music especially for extra backups.
Once you have freed some room on the internal drive, this liitle neat program will show you what is taking the largest amount of space on your internal drive.
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
After a scan, right click on the big squares to "revel in Finder" to show you what's taking the largest amount of space, be warned it also opens up hidden system files and folders, which you won't be able to move. So concentrate on what's inthe Users folder.
Likely if you have a lot of Movies this is the biggest culprit on most standard internal hard drives. Also if you have something in iTunes that's auto-downloading something like PodCasts and not deleting the older ones and you forget. So go there and fix things and that can free up drive space.
If you bought a small SSD with your new Mac, then the price of that SSD has come back to haunt you with low storage space, you will have to think carefully what you can live without on the internal drive.
Once you have slimmed things down, TimeMachine will update to reflect your slimmer internal drive. What this means is there is only one copy of your data on the ExtraStorage#1 drive.
You need to maintain two copies of your data at all times on seperate hardware, so now you need ANOTHER storage drive (ExtraStorage#2) to copy everythinng of ExtraStorage#1, or else if you drop or have a mechanical problem with ES#1 all that data will be gone!
If you wish to learn more then I suggest reading these two links
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html -
How-to: desperate need of help in partitioning an external disk drive
Some time ago, after installing PARALLELS, my external disk drive lost one of the two HFS+ partitions it had (465 GB total, 50% one and 50% the other).
Now, after having sent it to assistance, the technicians have recovered all possible data, with one issue: they have created a NTFS partition with all recovered data.
The external disk drive is now as shown on:
http://www.tyrexionibus.com/pictures/partition-diskutility.png
** WHAT'S THE MATTER ? **
I want to save the data contained in the first partition and partition the disk with two HFS+ partitions (60% and 40% of the disk space, particularly). In other words, I need to CONVERT (from NTFS to HFS+) and RESIZE (from 50% to 60%) the first partition and MAKE (40% of disk space) another HFS+ partition WITHOUT losing data.
Please note that I _DO NOT_ have sufficient disk space in my MacBook Pro's HDD to move all data from the external disk drive to it, create a new partition and then move all data to the new partition again.
How can I solve this issue?I don't read Italian, but from the screen shot it appears that the first partition is not formated as NTFS. Am I missing something?
The safest thing to do would be to use a second external drive to back up everything while you are changing formats and partitions. I guess you create a new partition on half the disc, more all the data to the new partition, then modify the first partition; but that seems risky. -
I am an amateur photographer and have lightroom. My photos are stored on an external disk drive with a backup disk. With iCloud, will all of my photos go to the cloud? Will I still need the external drives? Is the $9.99 per month for just one year or for always?
If the iTunes database files are on that drive, launch iTunes with the Shift key(Windows) or Option key(Mac OS X) held down, select Choose Library, and navigate to it. The computer may need to be authorized to play protected content, and if the library contains rented movies, those won't play.
If not, import the content to an iTunes library.
(100371) -
Need advice on purchasing an external hard drive
Greetings, oh wise Apple users. It has been suggested that I purchase an external hard drive to store my iDVD projects on. Can anyone give me a checklist of what to look for? My Mac is a G4 flat panel with 800 MHz and 512 MB. I'm currently using OS X (10.2.8) but am upgrading to 10.4 soon. Many thanks in advance for your help.
Firewire and an 'Oxford' chipset are a must for Macs with USB1.1 like yours. Here's some examples:http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/
Personally I'd go for one with a built in USB and Firewire hub as I'm always running out of ports (like the mini stack V2).
If you think an new Intel iMac or MacBook Pro could feature in your computer line up in the next year so, go for one with FW800.
mrtotes -
I purchased a macbook air about 5 months ago and lately i keep recieving a warning that the hard drive or disk is full and that I will need to move items to trash in order to free up space on it. I purchased a external hard drive 1 TB but I'm very new to mac and ios and unsure as to how I'm suppose to transfer my files (video, pics, music etc.) from my mac over to the external hard drive in the correct way so I won't end up deleting them permenately or screwing anything up with my mac as far as the applications and programs being able to run. Am I supposed to just copy to the external hard drive and then move to and empty the trash? That's pretty much all I could come up with, but then what if i need or want to access that file again at a later time. Also, I have an i Phone and i pad so with i cloud it automatically syncs all my purcheses and if i delete something from itunes on my mac it deletes from my ipad.
I'd appreciate any kind of input i think im just a little lost here. I have to say i love my Mac and wouldn't trade it for anything (except maybe a macbook pro w/more memory)... Is there something I'm missing???To free up hard drive space the best bet is to move data files that you don't need access to all the time. Likely candidates are music, video, and photos. Things like word processing and spreadsheet files can also be moved but they tend not to be very large and so don't free up much space. The problem with moving the above mentioned files is that iTunes and iPhoto need to know where the files are stored.
Here's an article explaining how to move the iTunes folder. You can move the iPhoto library using the Finder but there is a slight complication. Start iPhoto, open the Preferences and click on the Advanced tab. The first option is "Copy items to the iPhoto Library". If this option is checked, copy the iPhoto library to your external folder (drag it from the Pictures folder to your external drive) and then delete it from your Picture folder. If this option is not checked, it is a bit more complicated and we'll need to talk a bit. -
I purchased an external CD drive for my MacBook,the internaldrive had died. When I tried using the new drive I got the following msg "The attempt to burn a disc failed. The device is not accessable, probably because it was removed" I contacted OWC and tried to work the issue with them, we gave up and OWC sent me a replacement. I connected the replacement and am getting the same message. Any thoughts?
Try resetting the SMC and PRAM first, if that doesn't help try a cleaning disc.....and then buy an inexpensive external burner. Slimline super drive failures are all too common.
To reset the SMC
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord.
Wait fifteen seconds.
Attach the computer's power cord.
Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.
Resetting NVRAM / PRAM
Shut down your Mac.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys. -
I had to format my internal disk drive on my MacBook Pro, and reload Mountain Lion 10.8.3. The startup assistant could not see my external disk drive with the Time Machine backup files. After many tries I told it to skip restoring the files and let it boot up. I was able to see my 1 TByte external drive and could see the Time Machine files using Finder.
I started the Migration Assistant and told it to migrate from Time Machine Files on an external drive. It also did not see the backup drive. The only drive icon it showed was the Macintosh HD (my internal drive).
Isn't it supposed to show you the drive you are moving the files from? I tried starting it and it looked like it was going to try to migrate the files from the internal drive (to where I don't know, back to itselfl?) Or do I just not understand. Is it seeing the external drive, without identifying it (in the Migration Asst,)?
Really looks like it is going to back up the internal HD with files that are on the internal HD and not from Time Machine.
I need to restore my files and have been told I need to do so using Migration Assistant and not Time Machine.
Help pleae and soon, need to get my taxes finished!
Thanks!I'm surprised that no one replied to this. But I learned a few things that may be helpful to some of you with this same question.
When you restore data from an external disk drive with Time Machine files on it. As you move through the dialog (in either System Startup or in the Migration Assistant) it will ask if you want to restore from an external disk with Time Machine files. If you select this option, it will show you only one Icon. You will expect to see your external disk drive listed as the source of the restore. The icon that is shown will look like your ilnternal drive and will be labeled something like Macintosh HD. That is not your internal drive, but is your backup drive. It is labeled the same as your internal disk drive and it is telling you that you have found the backup for your internal disk drive.
Would be nice if Apple would put a note of explanation about this as part of that dialog. I wasted several hours trying to make it work Finally I took a chance and selected the drive shown and it did restore my system. I ended up with two users since I did it from Migration Assistant. Had I done it from the System Startup, there would only be the one user. -
My laptop has no disk drive, so how do I install Photoshop CS5 without using a external disk drive?
I've recently bought a laptop that does not have a disk drive. Is there any way to install Adobe Design Premium CS5 that I bought as a Disk last time without buying an external Disk drive?
You can copy the content of the DVD on your computer through pen drive then install the software, to copy the content on pen drive you need the computer which can read you DVD.
Or else , You can driectly download the setup on your computer from this link and use the serial number to serialize it;-
http://prodesigntools.com/tag/ddl -
Can i get an external disk drive for my MacBook 5,1
My disk drive on my MacBook 5,1 (model #A1278) is bust. It will not accept a dvd/cd at all, it won't let it in...not an inch! seems like it's stuck in eject? as if there is a disk inside but as far as i know there is not. Nothing i have tried makes any difference. So i am wondering if i can buy an external disk drive, but this info is not obvious to me on the Apple Store website!
Probably pretty much any one would as long as it can be connected to your Macbook with USB or Firewire or what it has. Read the fine print when it refers to system requirements. In most cases that refers to bundled software which you probably don't need. Usually if there's OS limits for Macs it's something like you must be running OSX 10.2 or newer.
I would start looking on a site such as www.mac-sales.com which caters for Mac users so you can be assured their stuff is compatible. You can get something pre-assembled or you can buy an enclosure and a drive separately and assemble them yourself. My preference would be for one where the drive is powered independently, though that does tie you down to an outlet. On the other hand with an external drive you're not going to be walking around the room.
I guess one Mac compatibiltiy issue would be if the drive is bootable. Not all third party drives can boot your Mac should the need arise. I'm not so familiar with Macbooks that I am up to date on this and this might be one thing you could ask the vendor (and a reason for going with a vendor who knows Macs). -
I recently purchased an external hard drive to back up my iMovies. When I try to open the movies on the backup I get a message "you may not have permission to modify that folder" How do I change permissions on the backup?
Hi
One Must NEVER move or alter any folders named
• iMovie Event's - or -
• iMovie Projects - or - alike
on DESKTOP/FINDER - Ever ! - ONLY Within the iMovie Program ! else all connections are broken and hard to impossibly to mend !
but rather do as described here under
Moving Event's and Project's
Connection - Either connect one Mac in Target mode to the other via FireWire. Or use an external hard disk !
(Target-Mode - Start one Mac e.g. laptop - BUT keep T-key down during full up-start - Now a FW-symbol is jumping around the screen and it will work as an external hard disk when connected to the other Mac)
A. The External Hard Disk - MUST BE - Mac OS Extended (hfs) formatted to work for Video. UNIX/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange works for most other things but not for Video whatever program is used (iMovie or FinalCut)
B. Should be a FireWire one as USB/USB2 performs badly to me and especially when filling up
C. Do never Move or Alter any folder named
• iMovie Event's - or -
• iMovie Project's
on DeskTop/Finder - as this will result in iMovie losing connections to them and repair can be anything from hard to impossibly
D. Moving and Copying must be done within iMovie application and Events to Events - and - Project's to Project's.
E. Moving Project's to Event's - Do not work for me - I have to export project as a QuickTime movie then Import this into Events.
Event's window can show two faces
Like this
or like this
from one hard disk Event - You can move it to the other hard disk
You can not (at least not me) move Event to Project or other way around only
Event to Event and Project to Project
Yours Bengt W -
Can I install Snow Leopard with an external disk drive?
I have been trying to update my software to Snow Leopard but I am using an external disk drive and when I try to install the software I get the message "The application 'Install Mac OS X' cannot be used from this volume". Is there any way to fix this problem?
Are you booting your computer from an external drive? If so please say why? How are you trying to upgrade to Snow Leopard? Do you have the 10.6.3 retail Snow Leopard DVD? On what drive are you trying to install Snow Leopard? Are you doing this?
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Install Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with installing OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1. Then use Software Update to download and install any other needed updates for Snow Leopard.
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