Installing external hard drive

I've recently begun working a new PBG4, after years on a Pismo/FW w/OS9.2.
I've yet to use my LaCie D2 hard drives on the new PB. Do I need to install the drivers from the LaCie disks, or does OS 10.4.2 have the drivers, like it does for printers?
I know this is a pretty basic question, but would rather ask than interrupt my work flow with the wrong move.
Thank you very much.
adp

Firewire HD's do not require special drives. All versions of OS 10 have what you need.
The only way you would need a custom driver would be if the drive has any special extras. Some drives have buttons on them or special backup software, and these would need vendor drivers. But as just a standard HD, just plug it in and you should be good.
Cheers,
Josh

Similar Messages

What is the best pre-installed external hard drive for my macbook pro?

I need advise on what kind of pre-enstalled external hard drive which supports both usb and firewire to get for my new macbook pro? I would like to stay in the $100. range but am willing to go higher .

giftshopgurl wrote:
pre-enstalled external hard drive
Pre-installed with what?
Your best bet is to always format a new hard drive, so there are no surprises.
If you buy an external HD specifying ready for Mac ( or some such) it will cost you more for nothing.

Problem installing external hard drive

I'm trying to install a Acomdata external hard drive on my new Macbook (Mac OS X version 10.5.1).
Despite following the directions and completing the installation accordingly, and after restarting the computer, when I click on the desktop icon, "SecureHD Login", a "No Device Found" message appears.
Any assistance you could give me would be much appreciated.

Same questions apply. I tried looking up your drive based on what you said, but there are about 9 models of the ACOMData 500GB external drive (USB, F/W, 'Hybrid', etc). Not knowing which you have makes it a little tougher.
That said, here's some basics to know (some are BASIC, but I have to say them):
If the drive can take an external power source/has a power switch it needs the external power. There are bus-powered drives out there (e.g. WD Passport drives).
If you're still uncertain, the size usually gives it away. Small (2.5" drives) are bus-powered. Big (3.5" drives) are not.
Bottom-line, no power, no drive.
Two, Leopard came with a bunch of new drivers. Some supercede the versions shipped with Tiger+ driver packages shipped with devices/available on manu. website. Here's a good rule of thumb:
Try your device before installing ANY software from the manufacturer. You may be surprised to see it work just fine.
What if you installed first? well, if the device is working, who cares? If it's not, you'll need to revert back to the old drivers. You can do this through Time Machine, or reinstalling driver packs from 10.5.1 or the Leopard install disk.
If you're still stumped, drive stuff like this is solved WAY faster in-person. We're talking hours, not days. Be it Genius bar or some local geek you know, give in-person a shot. Offer your geek friend food/beer and let them at least diagnose what's going on. They may tell you a better way to phrase questions to the forum/Apple support/ACOM support.
Finally, don't be afraid to try support from ACOM. You paid for it in the cost of the drive. Might as well.
None of those are silver bullets, but I hope they help.

How to properly install External Hard Drive

I'm trying to install my external eSATA hard drive on my 7216 HD DVR and it doesn't seem to be working. I get the notice to reboot the box and then I get the warning about it detecting the drive and that everything else on it will be deleted. I then click ok to accept and after that i get nothing. I then check my DVR recorded status and it looks like it only has the internal drive, percentage used is the same. How to i make sure the external is installed and what type of indication will i recieve? Does the DVR format the hard drive and if so does it let you know when it's completed?

I have the same issue. I think the drive needs to be formatted in a format compatible with the set-top box. I can't locate that ability in the menus for my Motorola box. Anyone know how to format using the box? Apparently reformatting via the computer is not acceptable???

10.4.10 will show external hard drive in Disk Utility (in turn, mount)

Here's the problem in a nutshell. When I'm running 10.4.10 my Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (installed in an external enclosure) will not show up in Disk Utility (in turn also unable to mount). My DVD-RW burner will work, the enclosure is fine. When I boot off of the Mac OS X Install CD and run Disk Utility the drive and its partitions display. I did an archive and install and they were back in Mac OS X (10.4.7). - Rather than using Software Update, I decided to download the 10.4.10 Combo update manually and install (with the drive ejected and unplugged of course). Same issue once booting in Mac OS X 10.4.10...
Before I do an archive and install again, and revert to 10.4.9 indefinitely, is there anything I can try. I did googling, deleted some preference/cache files with no success.

This bug popped up after 10.4.9 was released and many folks (myself included) have experienced the same problem - after the install external hard drives, both FireWire and USB, are no longer accessible or visible.
In fact, I'm searching the discussion boards now to see if the 10.4.10 update fixed this. Apparently it has not.
Here are some other threads about this and 10.4.9 that might be of use to you:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=897541
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=892387
I finally reverted to 10.4.8, which perfectly recognizes my external drives, and will not update until I know this bug has been fixed. As far as I know, reverting is unfortunately the only way to fix this issue.:(

I need to do a clean install of maverick on my 2010 mbp what disk do i use and how do i move certain files from an external hard drive

I want to do a clean install of maverick on my 2010 mbp. I need to know what disk to use and also how i take certain files off my external hard drive and put on my computer. When I was having problems with my airport they did a clean install and they pulled files of my time machine.   however they forgot to put the partition back in for a windows side. Originally I had Parellels on my computer. After my external hard drive got corrupted i called apple and they fixed the problem but didn't have me set up the time machine except for the external hard drive. Now my only back up is from the external not from the laptop.    I am not sure how to do any of this. I am not computer savvy...PLEASE I NEED HELP>

First, you need to make a backup of your MBP onto your external drive. I suggest you start by cloning your MBP drive to the external drive:
Clone Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
     1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
         button.
     2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
     3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
     4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
         to the Destination entry field.
     5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
         the Source entry field.
     6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
This clone is fully bootable and also contains a clone of your Recovery HD.
Second, you need to do a clean install of OS X onto your MBP as follows:
Install or Reinstall Mavericks or Mountain Lion from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
OS X Mavericks- Erase and reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Erase and reinstall OS X
OS X Lion- Erase and reinstall Mac OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
            because it is three times faster than wireless.
This should accomplish your goals. You will have a clean install of OS X on your MBP and a bootable clone of your old system and all your files on the external drive.

How can i save my individual playlist on itunes on my external hard drive because i want to buy a laptop and install itunes and move all my music and playlist thats on my desktop to my laptop and almost all my music is from a bunch of cd's i own

how can i save my individual playlist on itunes on my external hard drive because i want to buy a laptop and install itunes and move all my music and playlist thats on my desktop to my laptop and almost all of my music is from a bunch of cds i own

Hello ryane84
The easiest and most efficient way to copy your music is to follow the steps under the External drive section. Make sure that you have organized the iTunes library first before you copy it over. Then put the copied iTunes folder in the same Music folder on your computer.
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4527
Regards,
-Norm G.

I want to save important files/programs on an external hard drive, delete EVERYTHING on my computer, install snow leopard, and reload everything i saved on to a clean slate. Is this possible/practical?

I was just thinking that it would be better to wipe the entire hard drive clean and reinstall some programs rather than go through and move certain things to the trash. Basically rebuild my software and file collection from the ground up, omitting what is unnecessary. Then again, I have no idea what i'm doing.
My macbook was purchased in late 2008. 2gb RAM. OS X 10.5.6. It's been going very slow lately so i decided i would look up how to improve. Snow leopard was recommended as well as changing my RAM. And so here I am.
I don't have an external hard drive so i was going to just compress all my files and save them to my emac via ethernet. would they be harmed?
also, i have alot of projects in ableton (a music recording/writing program). Would saving and transferring them be just as simple as finding the song? or are other components of a certain song saved in other locations?
sorry this is so lengthy. i should probably stick with something simple but i just want things to run as smoothly as possible for as long as possible
thanks very much

Here's some info that may be helpful.
Installing Snow Leopard: What you need to know
http://www.macworld.com/article/1142454/install_snow_leopard.html.
You should get a Firewire connected hard drive and backup your MB's HD to it. That way, if something goes wrong during the installation, you can recover your current sytem, apps and files. After the SL install, you can use the external HD for frequent backups.
 Cheers, Tom

How do I install Lion on external hard drive? I have purchased and downloaded through App Store but do not know where the download is located so I can install.

I want to install Lion on an external hard drive. The OS was purchased and downloaded through the App Store but I do not know where the file is.

If you downloaded the installer it will be in your applications folder. Failing that use spotlight start typing Install and it should show up.
This is assuming you downloaded the installer from the app store, and didn't just install it onto your mac. If all you have done is install it on your mac. Go to your purchases Lion should show up. Then click download.
Here is the Support page for installing osx on an external drive.
OS X: Installing OS X on an external volume - Apple Support
Hope this helps.
PJRS

Can I install a program on an External Hard Drive?

I have an 500 GB external hard drive that I attach to my MBP to store movies and my aperture picture libraries. When I first got it, I created three Mac OS Extended (journaled) partitions, one for movies, one for pictures and the other one for “extras”. I’d like to install Adobe Photoshop on my external hard drive, so I’d like to know if there is a way to make any one of my three partitions operate as if they were a system partition. Can I install an application in an external hard drive? Can I run an application from an external hard drive? Which formatting solution could help me achieve what I want? Is this even possible? Any suggestions?

There are many applications that are happy to be installed on a partition other than the boot partition. However, if the Adobe Photoshop installer does no present you with that option I wouldn't. You could always copy it across post-installation to see if it will work. Updating my present issues.

K9A2 Platinum esata port and Install and Usage of esata External Hard Drive

I just bought a sata hard drive and an icy dock enclosure for backup purposes. Having never used one before can someone explain how this works?
I have the hard drive in the enclosure, no problem there. I plugged it into the esata port on the back of my motherboard, but vista won't recognize it and when I reboot and go into the BIOS, I don't see it there either. I have purchased Acronis True Image 11 Home for backup and mirroring purposes. I wish to mirror my existing internal drive to this new external drive.
Questions:
1. Can I use the esata ports on the motherboard for this drive, or should I use the PCI bracket and plug it into one of the existing sata ports on the motherboard? If esata port, exactly how do they work? Are there BIOS settings for the esata ports or do they operate more like a usb connection?
2. Do I need to do anything with this drive before using it; format, install operating system...??
3. Are the esata external drive considered plug and play or do I need to plug it in before I boot my computer.
TIA.

Everything seems to be working as I would have expected at this point, with the exception of the size of the mirrored drives.
I decided to make another mirror onto the 3rd drive making all 3 drives identical. So now I would expect all three drives to show the same "GB free" while viewing with Vista explorer. The odd thing is, is that which ever drive I make bootable - SATA5 port and becomes the C: drive, shows 226GB free. The other drives, either as E: or J: will show as 268GB free. Most be an Acronis or Acronis user (me) issue/oddity?
But bottom line, the sata and esata ports seem to be working as I would expect. Though plugging the external hard drive in before booting (power on or off, needs to be unplugged from the esata port) seems to hang at the FasTrack screen as described above.
My only guess to why this all seems to be working currently is that I don't think I ever had my bios set correctly. After enabling the onboard controller, having the drive actually plugged into SATA5, then rebooting, selecting boot sequence and selecting the raid drive as the first boot device. At least this is my recollection, I made so many bios changes previously that I thought I had it all covered.
Any thoughts? I think I will try to get an answer on the Acronis size difference before I try to setup my RIAD 1, since that would require erasing two drives, per your instructions here: https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=113738.0
Thanks for help once again.

I have a 2007 Macbook Pro that is running 10.7.5 and I am trying to use a 10.6.3 DVD to install Snow Leopard to an external hard drive.

I have a 2007 Macbook Pro that is running 10.7.5 and I am trying to use a 10.6.3 DVD to install Snow Leopard to an external hard drive. I've followed every possible instruction on every which website. The problem is when I boot to Install disc, I am unable to choose which hard drive I'd like to install the OS on. It says that it is unable to Install and automatically takes me to Restore and suggests that I restore to Time Machine backups. Any and all help is appreciated.

lovinlife5959,
have you tried booting from the grey Mac OS X Install DVD that originally came in the box with your MacBook Pro? See if you can install its version of Mac OS X (either 10.4.9, 10.4.10, or 10.5.0, depending upon when it shipped from the factory) onto your external hard drive. If that works, boot from your external hard drive, run Software Update on it, and then try updating your external drive to 10.6.3 via the white Snow Leopard DVD.

Can not fine external hard drive for time machine sence lion was installed

I can not fine external hard drive for time machine sence lion was installed, it don't reconise it at all.

I have a Mac Mini (late 2009) and I have an iomega 1TB external hard drive connected to my mini via firewire and usb (usb allows me to use the usb ports on the external 1TB drive to daisy chain other devices). Since I installed Lion, my Time Machine and this 1TB drive (and its partitions) is finicky. Sometimes it is mounted and sometimes it is not. This issue has only surfaced post Snow Leopard and in the Lion era. I am not the first to say this but the whole reason I went Mac was b/c of Vista. I am beginning to think that Lion is the new Vista. Sorry for the latter, just venting... b/c this ain't the first issue with Lion.

I have Mountain Lion OS Install CD downloaded onto my external hard drive, how do I use this to upgrade from Leopard

Current computer that I just bought used is operating on Leopard 10.5.8
I have Mountain Lion OS X CD installation files downloaded on my external hard drive from another Mac that I have owned.
How do I use my external HD to download and Install Mountain OS X wizard.
Is the only way to do this to buy a copy of snow leopard and then once upgrading to that, plug in my external HD and then access the Mtn install file as I would if I had the installation CD?
When I try to access the install file from my external HD, i get to the installation window and then when I am to select a hard drive to install it on I receuve a red exclamation mark error that says it can not be written to the HD. Why is this? Because I'm not on snow leopard but rather leopard?

As you have the installer on a DVD, you can do a trick that consists in formatting the hard drive, and then, install Mountain Lion.
First, make a backup of your files with Time Machine > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427 I recommend Time Machine because it will be easier to restore your files later.
Then, insert the DVD with Mountain Lion and hold the C key while your Mac is starting, so you will see a window with different options. Open Disk Utility, choose Macintosh HD in the sidebar, go to Erase tab and erase the drive.
After erasing the drive, you can install Mountain Lion. Close Disk Utility and install it. During the initial setup, it will ask you to restore your files, so plug the external drive with the backup and follow its steps. Note that PowerPC apps aren't compatible

Can I partition my external hard drive so that one partition is for Time Machine and the other is to install Windows with Boot Camp?

I have a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1TB USB 3.0 external hard drive that I currently use just for Time Machine backups. Is it possible for me to go into Disk Utility and create a new partition on the drive so that I may install Windows 7 via Boot Camp? Or since I am already using it for Time Machine do I have to keep it only for Time Machine?

You must install Boot Camp in your internal drive because Windows can't be installed in an external disk and Boot Camp can't do that

Installing external hard drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for