Internal vs External hard drive question???

I have a very basic question about OSX and its treatment of drives...
If I have an external drive (either firewire or SATA using an Express34 card) and I select it, at boot time, as the boot drive, does OSX really treat this drive as if it were the internal drive or is there some underlying difference?
Is there a difference between an external firewire and an external SATA drive (other than the I/O speed)?
What I'm getting at is this. I want the ability, using the 'opt+cmd' (or whatever the key seq is) option, at boot time, to select either the internal drive or an external drive to be "THE" drive, as far as OSX is concerned.
Asuming that both drives have at least a bootable OSX partition, I'd like for the external drive to have OSX AND maybe another partition for maybe Windows or Linux.
At boot time if I select the external drive as the boot drive will it act like the internal drive and allow me to install a BootCamp partition? Can I manuly repartition it (while its a secondary drive usng iPartition perhaps)? Can I install a boot loader that will allow me to select an OS after initially selecting the external drive with the 'opt+cmd' option?
I'm looking for the ability to basicaly select different drives as the "internal" drive, much like you would using the jumper and/or cable selects in a Mac Pro or even a PC based system.
Is this even possible? id it is, is it possible with firewire or express34 card driven SATA drives?
Sorry if this is confusing, I'm having a hard time articulating exactly what i want to do...
Thanks in dvance,
Peter

Yes. One cool thing to do is create a bootable backup on an external drive, and use it for OS/upgrade testing - think Leopard. To me this is one huge advantage over Windows systems. You can back up the hard drive and prove it works. Also allows for faster recovery of not only data, but installed applications and settings. I always create a fresh backup to my external FW drive before going on trips.
MacBook Pro 17" 2.16GHz / 2GB / 120GB Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Similar Messages

Internal to external hard drive questions (G4 iBook 10.3.9)

Hello All,
I have a G4 iBook that the internal hard drive has crashed. At the Apple store, they cannot get the drive to mount.... I have a friend that thinks he can get it to spin, and therefore thinks he can get any info that is not corrupted off the drive. That would be way cool!! He only wants me to bring him the drive, and is going to use a device that plugs into the drive just like it would in any computer, and at the other and it is USB on the end he will plug into his PC to make the transfer. Here comes where I need help. He is a PC guy, and knows nothing of Mac. If I buy an external hard drive will it need to be formatted HFS+ first in order to transfer any data that might still be good? I herd that most external drives come formatted in Fat32. Another thing is I would like to use this external hard drive for both my Mac at home, and a PC at work. i have herd that fat32 will work for both, but have herd some people having trouble with backing up a mac on a fat 32 partition.
If anyone has any other ideas of how to get what ever is left on my drive so that I can recover it, and also how I can use an external HD for mac and pc (although not simaltaniously)that would be cool.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Thanks,
Sean

I have encountered no problems with fat32 formatted drives. I format my flash drives the same way too. For backing up files or using the drives for file transfer between a Mac and a PC it's very convenient. You can't use a fat32 formatted drive for cloning PPC Mac hard drives. Your friend may also find he can't access the hard drive through a Windoze computer.

Backup internal and external hard drives-TC and offsite

I now have Mavericks 10.9.3 on my iMac with a 2TB (1.25 TB used) internal hard drive.
I also have some external drives attached to my iMac with older iPhoto libraries and other files (total file sizes 940 GB and 505 GB). I primarily use Aperture now on my internal hard drive, but still access those iPhoto libraries on my external drives on occasion. I have Time Machine backup my iMac internal hard drive on my 2TB Time Capsule regularly.
My primary question is in regards to getting another copy onto a larger external drive that covers my internal and external drives so I can have a backup off-site. Online backup services seem to always exclude external drives. So a physical drive I can have offsite seems to be the best option.
A year ago I changed the destination of my Time Machine backup to be on a 3TB external drive (backed up iMac internal hard drive and the two externals). However, when I changed the destination of the backup back to the Time Capsule, the TM initiated a brand new backup (it did not recall that I had backed up prior to that on my Time Capsule).
I want to backup monthly, if not quarterly for my off-site storage. But, if every time I change the destination drive for TM, a new backup profile is created, it will overwork my drives unnecessarily.
Is there a backup program or a process on "disk utility" I could run parallel to TM that I just use quarterly capturing only the changes/additions in those few months for both the internal and external hard drives? Also, is there a way to add an external drive to my Time Capsule that is solely used to wirelessly backup the two externals on a regular basis (i.e. keep the internal 2TB drive backing up to the Time Capsule; and the external hard drive attached to Time Capsule via USB used as the backup drive for the external hard drives)?
Summary: I need to backup regularly to the local Time Capsule/additional external hard drive. The data will come from my internal hard drive and my two external hard drives. I also want to do quarterly backups of the additions/changes to all three drives to have on an offsite external drive that I manually backup to quarterly. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Carbon Copy Cloner is not on the App store.
Correct.. it is not approved because Apple do not like the fact that CCC (and most likely superduper) which are the most popular backup software for Mac because it makes a bootable clone. Apple will never approve of that. But let me assure you that is the genius of it. If the internal disk fails, you simply boot from the external. It is $40 but you can use on all the computers in your home.
CCC is a clone.. ie when it does the backup, any changes on the drive are changed on the clone. It does not work like Time Machine which simply piles up incrementals until the drive fills up. The idea of CCC is a backup of the drive as it exists at any point in time. TM btw is also not a reliable archive, ie it thins backups constantly.. so you should never rely on it to archive old versions.. but in the middle of a project it does a good job to keep various versions of your files. That is why I specifically said in my last post do not stop using it.
and you can keep using the TC just for the internal drive.
Keep TM running to the TC.. that will then keep a current hourly incremental of your drive. You can set CCC in a way which is a lot more flexible. ie backup just at the end of the day. There is no need for constant hourly backups. So to answer the second question.. you are still using your TC and TM.. but I suggest you only backup the internal drive.
Please read a bit from forum expert Pondini on the value of clones and TM.
http://pondini.org/TM/Clones.html
That's why many folks use both Time Machine and a bootable clone, to have two separate, independent backups, with the advantages of both. If one fails, the other remains.
Now the ports issue.
You can of course continue to use USB2. Just that moving large volumes around will be slow.. as doubtless you already know.
On your particular Mac since you missed out on USB3 which is a pain.. you can buy a Thunderbolt to USB3 adapter like the belkin.
http://www.belkin.com/au/p/P-F4U055/
I suggested the Thunderbolt to Esata (it is an older interface and the adapter is rather cheaper but I hear more reliable.. check reviews for both).
http://store.apple.com/au/product/H8875ZM/A/lacie-esata-hub-thunderbolt-series
Sata is the interface of the hard disk.. Esata just means external sata.. so it is native and without conversion.
I was merely suggesting ways to speed things up. But as long as you don't run CCC on more than daily basis then I think you will be fine just with USB 2. It will take a while on the day you do the swap over for the archive volume, but if you turn off the power saving in the Mac and leave it run overnight it should be able to do most of it.. you need to realise it will have to deep scan both the disks.. to compare files.. but CCC is based on Rsync and it is extremely fast and efficient. I am just not sure I know how long it will take to do. Anyway.. there is a plan.. tweak and adapt as you see fits your needs.

ILife with both internal and external hard drives?

I've been considering switching from a homebrew, multi-boot desktop to a MacBook for my primary computer, in part so I can hang out with my family in the living room rather than be exiled to the home office when I want to compute.
But here's my concern: I have media. We have about 50 GB of iTunes; maybe 30 GB of iPhoto; and tons and tons of digital video that would be stored in iMovie. Obviously the libraries are all interlinked. And it's all growing. I also like to rip DVDs and re-encode them for my iPod and AppleTV. Right now, my desktop has 480 GB of internal storage and that's just about enough.
I have discovered that the MacBook only comes with an option up to 250 GB. I absolutely need AppleCare, so I can't get an aftermarket hard drive. (All my Macs break - this one from the office that I'm on right now has a bum DVD drive, and my wife's has needed both fan and logic board replacements.)
While I'm aware of the existence of external hard drives, I'm concerned about Apple's non-external-hard-drive-friendly way of storing iLife data. If I wanted to keep more recent or useful music and photos on the internal drive but older stuff on an external, and still be able to use iLife seamlessly, would that be possible? (I see myself editing recent video in the living room, but then hooking back into the external HD in the office if I need older stuff.)
What solutions are out there for integrating data stores on both internal and external hard drives into an iLifestyle?
Thanks!

Sascha Segan1 wrote:
.. What solutions are out there for integrating data stores on both internal and external hard drives into an iLifestyle?
all iApps (iPhoto, iTunes, iM08) support usage of external drives as 'mass storage' devices.. you can tell all apps which drive to use for the Libraries.. there some tools out there, which even allow the usage of 2/many different Libraries in iTunes/iPhoto..
for iM in detail: the Projects are small files, and should stay internal (allthough I'm discribing a 'hack' on my site: http://karsten.schluter.googlepages.com/im08tricks Project Library (and Events) on External Harddrive); the Events (=GBs) could be located on as much ext. HDDs as you want..
but ...
all iApps are single-user .. you can NOT 'share' Libraries to 2/many different users; the idea of a 'media server' which hosts/shares all kind of data to all kind of users is not 'on concept' of iLife ..

Suggestions.. HELP.. for editting.. Internal or External Hard Drives?

Im using FCP 5 for editting.. and I want to know what I need for my edittings.
Internal or External Hard Drives? and why? FireWire800...
Thanks...

My suggestion is to keep the internal drive for your OS system and applications and get Raided external drives (like 0 or5) to edit on the fly.
To learn more about RAID system read the link below or just google it as there's a lot to read on the web.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
Also google eSATA and Fibre-channel drives to compare speeds, specs, system requirement etc.

Brand New iMac 24" internal or external hard drive upgrade to 1TB?

I just purchased a brand new iMac 24" MB325LL with a 320GB hard drive. I currently have 432GB of data on my PC and I would like to upgrade the hard drive to 1TB. I have 2 options and I need your advice:
Option #1 » Cost:CDN*$255*
Buy a Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB from DirectCanada.com for CDN$155 (tax+shipping included). Get it installed by a certified Apple technician for CDN$100 in Toronto. I doubt I can get it installed for a lower fee.
Option #2 » Cost:CDN*$317*
Buy a LaCie D2 1TB external hard drive with Firewire 800 for CDN$317 (tax+shipping included) either from a U.S. retailer (e.g. iUnitek) or a Canadian one. Prices at Canadian online retailers start from CDN$266 + CDN$37 (13% tax) + CDN$18 (shipping) = CDN$321, which is just CDN$4 more than in the States, taking into account the exchange rate.
So, there you. From the financial point of view, the incentive is to get an internal hard drive, which I don't mind at all. I'd like to install Vista on a 30-40GB partition, if that makes a difference. If I were to get an external hard drive, I would keep all of my data (e.g. music, movies, documents, music, etc) on it and reserve the internal 320GB hard drive for system files and OS.
What would justify paying a premium for an external hard drive other than portability? If I were to get one, I would need to be able to access it not only from my iMac's Vista partition, but also from my HP Vista laptop. Same applies to the internal hard drive. If I were to get a Samsung F1, I would still need to access my mac files from Vista's partition (when I boot into Vista) as well as from my HP Vista laptop (over wi-fi). FYI: I have no use for Time Machine, since I've never deleted a file which I needed to recover..well, maybe once or twice. What I DO need is a utility to synchronize files across machines. Hence, I will need some kind of program to automatically sync my iMac files with my HP laptop files. Currently, I utilize SyncBackSE to sync files between my HP laptop and my PC over Wi-Fi every morning at 6am. Works like a charm.
That's my dilemma in a nutshell. Any comments, suggestions and words of wisdom are welcome.
P.S. I'm also planning on upgrading RAM to 4GB. Newegg.ca is running a promotion (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227251): $72 CDN minus $20 USD mail-in rebate. It's not related to my question in any way, but some Canadians might find this info relevant.

Well, I don't have the budget for both and as I've already pointed out, Time Machine does not address my needs. It's a great backup solution, but what I need is a synchronization solution. I need to have the same versions of basic files, such as music, photos, documents, and other miscellaneous stuff on my iMac and my HP Vista laptop. Even if I were to get a MacBook in the future, I would still need the same set-up. That way, if something happens to either my iMac or my MacBook, I would always be able to simply copy-paste files from one machine to another. That's, sort of, my version of a perfect backup solution...unless, there's an option to load up files from a Time Machine backup onto a separate one (e.g. MacBook). In the end, Time Machine only partially addresses my need in keeping 2 machines backed up in a sense that it only backs up one of them. My solution kills 2 birds with one stone. I would have 2 syncronized computers (e.g. iMac + HP Laptop, iMac + MacBook) AND both computers would serve as mutual backup sources, since whatever happens to one of them, I would always be able to copy data from the other.
The problem arises when I factor in the sheer number of gigabytes required on the portable computer to mirror everything from the iMac, whether be it a Windows laptop or a MacBook. I would always have more data on my iMac than the available space on a smaller hard drive. I now have 432GB of stuff and I can presume that this number will only grow. Hence, at any given time I would be able to synchronize only the most essential files to the laptop. Ideally, I would need a NAS which would collect = synchronize data from both machines. That way, whenever files get modified, changes would automatically be transferred to the NAS and routed further down the chain to the iMac. It would work both ways, obviously. In that scenario, I don't need to worry about any of the computers, since whichever one fails on me, I would always have a copy of the entire collection of files. Now, that I doubt Time Machine can accomplish.

External Hard Drive Questions

This is more of an opinion question.
I have a MBP with an 80GB hard drive which always seems to be full up. I also have a 250GB hard drive which is nearly full up. The 250GB is not used for backup, i have all my photos and big files on there and none of my files are actually backed up
I was thinking about getting another 500GBish hard drive and using it for more space and also time machine - can it be used for both? Can anyone recommend a good cheap hard drive?
How well does time machine work with laptops? would i have to plug it in every night? does it have a sort of separate trash kept on my computer which is only deleted when i plug in the Mac to the External hard drive. Or is anything i delete without the external hard drive attached deleted forever?
Or, is it worth the hastle and cost to upgrade my MBP internal hard drive?
Thanks very much
Message was edited by: pumpkin person

okay so what would a cheap hard drive from PC World be like - like this Western Digital Elements Desktop 500GB 3.5" - although i imagine that link will probably time out.
http://www.pcworld.co.uk:80/martprd/store/pcwpage.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@2000027328.1216206856@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccjadeejdfdkigc flgceggdhhmdgml.0&page=Product&fm=null&sm=null&tm=null&sku=638717&categoryoid=-32889
I think i want to stick with Time Machine just because it looks so flash and easy to use really, plus i would have to pay for Super Duper
I dont really feel confident switching the hard drive myself, i tried doing the RAM once which is alot easier and i competly messed it up and had to take it to an apple store. How much would an apple store charge if i asked them to do it?
Would it be okay to have time machine running at the same time as also having separate media on the same hard drive? How much space would time machine take up?
Thanks very much for your replies

External Hard Drive Question...

I am looking to purchase an external hard drive to use with my Macbook and my PS3 in order to store my music and movies and share my media between the two. I am also purchasing a larger internal hard drive for my PS3 and it is the exact same 160GB SATA 5400rpm HDD that is in my Macbook so I am assuming since the internal hard drives for the two are compatible that an external hard drive that is compatible with my Macbook will also work with my PS3.
My question is what type of external hard drive will work with my Macbook? I was looking at a Hitachi 500GB SATA 7200rpm external hard drive but when reading a customer review it read something about not being compatible with a particular PC because it is 3.0GBs and the PC would only recognize an externall hard drive that is 1.5GBs.
I am unsure what the GBs feature is or what it means and which is compatible with the Macbook. Does anyone have any insight on this or even better does anyone have an external hard drive that is around 500GB that they know works with the Macbook?
Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
1.83GHz Macbook C2D 1GB RAM 160GB HD Mac OS X (10.4.8) 5.5G 80GB White iPod/60 GB Playstation 3 w/ 32" LCD HDTV 720p-1080i

I am not sure I understand what you are asking. If you want to use a HD as an external drive, you have to buy an enclosure as the enclosure has the chipsets to convert the HD connections to USB or FireWire.
You need it.
I would suggest that you get an enclosure that uses both USB and FW as your PS3 has USB and your MB has both USB and FW. FW is faster so that would be nice to use on your MB.

New Mac user-External Hard Drive question...

Just purchased my 1st Mac/the new Mac mini. Arrived today & am very impressed.
Set-up, right out of the box, was incredibly SIMPLE and I cant believe what a little dynamo this thing is! I've thought about 'switching' to a Mac from PC for quite a while, but was always a little nervous, so I've patiently watched & waited from the sidelines- until now - and it was well worth the wait.
My 'question' is, can anyone recommend a good external hard drive I can use interchangeably between my PC & my new Mini? Still using the PC until I get completely acclimated with Mac platform/etc - I'd like something with at least
1TB storage. Thanks!

derosky wrote:
I'm a new Mac user. My question is: Do I need a external hard drive to create a back up? Can I create abackup on a DVD or Hard Drive in MB. Please explain this to me. When I want to configure Time Machine it displays me no Drives to create a back up.
Time Machine requires an external hard drive
You can back up by other means to CDs or DVDs
If you are a .MAC customer you get a decent backup program that backs up to your iDisk and/or to CD-DVD
You would NOT want to back up to your internal drive since that would accomplish nothing - a dead or messed up HD is no good for either the beginning part of the other part where the backup is
LN

A different laptop to external hard drive question

hey folks - I am hoping someone can help me (or clarify things for me)
My question is about shootig remotely, downloading files onto lightroom in the field, then transferring the whole lot to my external hard drive when I get home (so there is NOTHING left on my laptop except the lightroom application and an empty catalog when I am done)
I see people asking a similar question all the time on blogs and FAQs, but the answers do not actually answer my problem/question. The answers I see all the time are about exporting and importing catalogs... maybe this is the solution, but I can't see how it answers my parameters above.
Here is the equipment I am using:
- MacBook Pro
- Lightroom 2.1
- External Western Digital hard drive/firewire
- Nikon DSLRs
- Card reader
Here is the situation:
I have the lightroom application loaded onto my laptop. I have a massive repository of my "negatives" on my external drive. I have one big "catalog" on the external drive in the same folders with my "negatives". (so, to view those photos, I open that external drive catalog and view/edit the massive group of photos).
However, when I am on the road, I shoot and download the nagatives onto my laptop hard drive and add the files to a catalog that I have on my laptop -- so, based on my understanding of how lightroom works, these new imports (on the road) have 1) the actual negatives, 2) the metadata/lightroom files thumbnails and details of my edits, and 3) these are included in the "catalog" on my laptop hard drive. So, then, while still on the road, I edit the new photos, crop, color correct etc.
Then, when I get home, I would like to completely transfer/migrate EVERYTHING I just wrote above (except the actual lightroom application and the "catalog" that sits on my laptop) into the existing catalog and negative folders on my external drive... I would like it all to blend into my main system run off my external drive as if I had originally imported the files into my main catalog on my external drive... and I would like my laptop to be like it never had anything to do with the import/edits on the road (no files whatsoever in terms of originals, lightroom files, etc.)
All of the instructions/answers I can find on line tell me how to "export" my catalog to my external hard drive (essentially creating a duplicate version on my external hard drive - showing how you can do this to take images to clients, etc.).
Can anyone point me to an explanation of the process to completely TRANSFER (not copy) all related files from my laptop to my exiting catalog and negative file folders on my external when I come back from the field?
sorry if this is confusing - I may not be interpreting the instructions I am seeing correctly.
any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks
steve
www.holleyimage.com

I ended up creating a folder within LR on the ext drive-then moved my folders from the internal and another ext drive. I intend to delete those exported (fr LR) files I mentioned in my last post. each one of them had an additional file under it (X something) that said it contained metadata. I fear that by exporting those files, I've now lost the metadata in the files in the catalog. If that's the case, obviously, I'd like to get it back if I can. also, is there a way to make sure I have everything in my new external drive that was on the other two drives? (they were pretty disorganized and I'm not sure all the image files were imported to this catalog. can I import the files I'm not sure I have to the top level folder on my new drive and tell it not to import suspected duplicates and then move any imported files (within LR) to the proper folders?
and one final question: when I exported all the image files into the new drive, LR said it couldn't export about 1000. they are in a separate folder and when I look inside, I see question marks on them. I suspect I already have them in the catalog and these are duplicates because when I didn't know what I was doing, I ended up with a lot of duplicate previews. do you think I should remove that folder with the previews in it and will that take them out of the catalog as well?
thanks in advance for your help
debby (virginiaDeb)

Can I split my itunes music library between and internal and external hard drive?

Is it possible to have music on the two different drives and still be able to make playlists from both drives to put on my ipod? Here's my situation: I'm using a Dell 32 bit computer running Vista Home Premium SP2 which I share with other users. I have a large itunes library (40g+ of music only) that's starting to hog the hard disk space from other users. If possible, I would like to split off part of my itunes library to an external hard drive while still having access to the entire library for my ipod. Ideally I would like to have all my downloaded songs on both the internal and external drives so I'll have backups in case a drive fails, while putting all the music I have hard copies of solely on the external drive. Any help on how this can be done would be appreciated.

If you manually manage your itues library, you can store parts of it on an external drive, or on an internal drive. Just keep in mind that in iTunes that you must set a default location for iTunes to manage it's files, and that will be the default location for iTunes to store anything it downloads. You would need to manuay manage moving things from there if tht is not where you want them stored.
Perhaps a "better" solution would be for you to invest a little mone into 2 external drives. One to hold your entire iTunes library, and the second to be your off-line backup of the first. This is the method I have gone with and I like how it works for me. My entire iTunes library is on an external (portable) 320GB drive. Then, when iTunes is not running, I will clone my external drive onto a second drive I happen to have, this way if I have any failure of my primary drive, I lose at most about a weeks worth of content. For me, I purchase little content during a week, but I do move a fairly large volume of podcasts. With the entire library being on the external drive, if I ever have to swap to using my backup drive iTunes wil just think that it hasn't run and downloaded anything for a week, and all the "lost" content will be re-downloaded automatically. This won't work for apps or purchased content, but for subscribed podcasts, it is great.

Using an External Hard Drive Question

Sorry if this is such a green question but.....
Can you play back music and movies from an external hard drive through Apple TV or do they have to be physically need to be on the Apple TV HD?
Also, Is there a way to play what is "steaming" on a MBP to the TV through Apple TV?
Thanks in advance guys.

JayMacApple wrote:
Can you play back music and movies from an external hard drive through Apple TV or do they have to be physically need to be on the Apple TV HD?
Compatible content from itunes can either be synced to the AppleTV's drive across your network, or if itunes is running you can stream content from iTunes to the AppleTV if it's not on the AppleTV disk.
The AppleTV cannot connect to external drives, but iTunes itself can handle media on external drives connected to your computer.
Also, Is there a way to play what is "steaming" on a MBP to the TV through Apple TV?
If you mean can AppleTV relay a computer's video output (eg a streaming video in a web browser, or whatever is on screen) then the answer is no.
Thanks in advance guys.

New to Macbook Pro, External hard drive question.

I've just made the swirch to an Apple Macbook Pro from a PC. I've used the PC since the early 90's and all I know is Windows. However I'm finding myself more at home in Lion. My question is probably a simple one so I'll get to it. I have a 1TB Seagate Mac/PC external usb powered hard drive that I've used on my PC for all my iTunes media, 95% of which was purchased from Apple (who the **** knows if that matters but information could be crucial and besides I saw someone else say that in a post, only he found his music, whatever that means, anyway....). Now I have added all files to the library of my iTunes on the Mac while still running them from the external hard drive and everything transferd smothly (see not a complete idiot) but for some reason I can not write to the hard drive. If I try to update an app, delete a fie, rename or otherwis change the file in itunes I get an error claiming I don't have permission to do so. When I look at the drive itself, sure enough it says I may read only. Now the drive was formatted and used on a Windows PC prior to today. What do I need to do on the Mac end to make it read and writable (is that the right word?) so I can enjoy updating my apps or plain getting rid of some old things? Thanks in advance for any help.
New Mac User

Your external harddisk uses the NTFS file system which is common for Windows PCs.
Mac OSX can read from NTFS harddisks but cannot write to them.
For full access you need a third-party helper tool like the free NTFS-3G or Fuse4X or the commercial ones from Paragon or Tuxera NTFS for Mac.
In the long run and when you don't need a "Windows-PC-compatibility" of the external harddisk anymore you should consider reformating/repartioning the external harddisk using the Mac OSX native partition and file system formats. (GUID and MacOS Extended (Journaled)).
But such an action would delete everything that is on that external harddisk so it is not that easy.
Stefan

WRT610N router & external hard drive questions

I just purchased a 610N router and I want to connect an external hard drive (Seagate 160GB) to it in order to view photos and other media primarily on my PS3, but also on my laptops. By stumbling through the process, I seem to have the drive mapped to my primary computer but I am not happy with the results.
The external hard drive already has tons of folders on it, and the photos are categorized into their own folders and sub-folders. I can access them from the computer after lots of clicking.
Question #1) The PS3: can it see only one media server at a time? The WRT610N is the media server it sees right now, but none of my files and directories that are on the external hard drive are viewable on the PS3.
Question #2) Do the files need to be in a particular folder located on the drive? The PS3 is looking for the "mp_root" on the router/external hard drive.
Question #3) Do all the media files, photos, movies, music, all have to be on the root drive or in the same directory? I was told that they had to be in one place, not scattered among sub-directories?
Question #3) The network shows a "default" folder, a "config" folder and two others (I'm writing this from memory as I'm not in front of the computer right now). What are those folders? Did the router or network create them?
Question #4) What can I do to improve the experience of using the drive on the network?
Thanks for any advice or guidance you can provide.

It might be a firmware issue. After upgrading the firmware did you reset the device without connecting the drives?
Try the reset and check if problem still persists try degrading the firmware.

Itunes & external hard drive questions "original file could not be found"

I recently got my first apple, a Powerbook G4, and I am trying to figure out how to store and access my music files that are on my external hard drive. I have some music stored on my laptop and the majority of it on the hard drive. I can play the files on my computer's hard drive(itunes finds them), but the files on the external hard drive will not play, unless i seek it out manually. The message says "the song could not be played because the original file couldn't be found. Would u like to locate it" My question is how to get the files in my library to play when they are stored on my external hard drive. Any advice would be appreciated.

There's something missing in your explanation. If you're getting the "original file..." message, that would indicate that you may have had all your music files on your laptop drive at one point and them moved some of them to the external drive without using the proper procedure.
If you don't have a lot of playlists, star ratings, and that sort of information that you're trying to preserve, then Mike's suggestion is an easy way out. If you do have a lot of that kind of information, then you may need to see if you can restore your setup to its former condition, when it was all working, and then use proper procedures to move files to the external drive or whatever it was that you were trying to do.

Internal vs External hard drive question???

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