Invisible files (??) blocking space on external hard disc

After using a dos formatted external hard disc with my Mac I can no longer save anything onto the free space with my PC. The is supposed to be at least 80 GB in that partition and both the Mac and the PC say the space is free. The Mac can save files onto it but not the PC. I have tried cleaning it on both systems but apart from doing a reformatting (lots of work to move the other content) does anyone have any more ideas? What hat the Mac put there that is invisible? I already deleted the Mac trash file (.$something) which was invisible on the PC. Now no files are showing up anywhere.

I definitely lost the Photos that I synced - not sure if it's because I saw the ! next to the AppleTV device in iTunes and selected it to see why, resulting in a sync without the connected photos - thus deleting those that were on the AppleTV originally.
I think this may be the case.
I haven't actually tested the effects of removing the external HD, but I've rather suspected that if it should become unavailable that the content of the tv would be safe, although I have also suspected it might be quite easy to force a sync without realising what was happening and thereby delete the content from the tv.
Of note, there have been numerous occasions over the last few months where my drive has been disconnected and I haven't given my tv syncing a thought and as yet I haven't lost anything.
The position I suspect will be quite different if I wanted to sync something on my mac while my HD is unavailable, I'm fairly sure I would delete everything from the tv. I believe the answer to the OP's question depends entirely on what they will be doing while the drive is disconnected.

Similar Messages

I am not able to open few files from my external hard disc in snow lepord

i am not able to open few files from my external hard disc in snow lepord

Need more information. Is there a message when you try to open them?

Mac book air not reading files on external hard disc.

Whenever I connect my external hard disc ( Transcend 1 TB, Ms DOS) to my macbook air (OS X 10.9.3, 1.3 GHz intel core i5, 4GB 1600 MHz) its icon appears on the desktop but I can not open the files saved on it. When I try to open the music files lets say, this message appears: "You can’t open the application because Microsoft Windows applications are not supported on OS X." Also, it worked properly a while ago. What shall I do?

What file extension(s) do these music files have at the end of their names?

How to transfer iTunes files to external hard disc

how to transfer iTunes files to external hard disc

A forum search would indicate the question has been answered in previous posts such as:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/21054789#21054789
https://discussions.apple.com/message/8667031#8667031

HT4527 i just copied some music from my external hard disc to my macbook . how can i make all that music be shown in my iTunes without having double copies of the music??

i just copied some music from my external hard disc to my macbook . how can i make all that music be shown in my iTunes without having double copies of the music??

Hello Sudhanshu Mishra,
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities!
You can have iTunes reference the content where ever it is on your HDD without copying the content to the iTunes library, thus using twice the space.
If iTunes is set to "Copy files to the iTunes Music folder when adding to library," iTunes will copy all content that is added to the iTunes library to the iTunes Music folder. To adjust this setting or change the location of this folder, go to the Advanced tab in iTunes Preferences.
From: Adding music and other content to iTunes
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1473
Additionally if you want the content to then ALSO be located in your iTunes Library folder so everything is all kept together nice and tidy, use this:
Consolidate your files in the iTunes folder
Depending on how you imported items into iTunes, some items in your library might be stored in different locations (in another folder or on another hard disk, for example).
You can consolidate all the files in your library in the iTunes folder—for example, to make it easier to move your library to a new computer.
Choose File > Library > Organize Library.
Select “Consolidate files.”Files remain in their original locations, and copies are placed in the iTunes folder.
To create folders (Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, Audiobooks, and so on) inside your iTunes folder, and place all your imported media files in the appropriate folders, select “Reorganize files in the folder ‘iTunes Media.’”
From: help://bookmark='https://help.apple.com/itunes/mac/11.0/help/index.html?localePath=English.lproj# itns2999'
Cheers,
Sterling

User account on external hard disc frequently gets corrupted - reasons?

Dear all,
I have recently written a question regarding a problem with my user account; in this question I have described that I have my data for my user account on an external hard disc (USB2 hard disc), and that all data in this account seemed to be deleted one day (in fact, it was simply set to a wrong path, see below); user V.K. has helped me out of the problem - the problem could be solved by renaming the external hard disc and setting the path to my user data folder in the "user account" settings to my old folder on the renamed disc; You can find our discussions here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1513799&tstart=0 By the way, I use OS X 10.5 (newest version).
Now, several months later I find myself in the situation that the problem returns frequently, although I do not yet see regularities or the reason; each time the described renaming-procedure helps, but anyway it is annoying, and some programs who have data on my user account folder (such as Linotype FontExplorer X - latest version!) even fail to notice the change and have to be very reset with lot of effort.
Now, as I can not imagine that I am the only one who uses a user account on an external drive, I start wondering what am I doing wrong. Did anybody else ever experience problems like these? Does it also occur when the user account is stored in a network (on a server) - which must be a very common workplace setup? Is there anything known about the reasons?
I do not understand what causes this problem; and also, the problem seems to be very intricate - I do not know enough about the internals of Mac OS X, but (if You look into my old post cited above), if You simply try to reset the user path in the user account settings to the folder on the NOT renamed disc, the account stops to work completely, and the user cannot log into it at all; somehow, there seem to be different "stages" of corruption of the account on the external drive - I think that this may help somebody with detailled knowledge to understand the problem, but I am out of the game here... also, all the old names of the external drive keep to be mounted in the "Volumes"-folder on Macintosh HD - although they don't exist anymore.
I have formatted the external drive to "Mac OS Extended"; is this okay - or should it better be formatted to "Journaled"? The drive is a 500 GB external drive from LaCie - I think it should be okay (I have two of them - one for TimeMachine - the drives themselves work reliably, it appears).
Is there anybody who can help - or anybody with a similar setup and who could tell me whether or not he ever experienced a similar problem, and what he did against it (if necessary)? Thanks in advance!!!
With kind regards and greetings from Berlin,
Björn

Aside from starting over, losing whatever you've done on the new machine, see Pondini's Transferring files from one User Account to another. If you haven't done much and can afford to lose that data, I suggest starting over, following the steps in Pondini's Setup New Mac guide. That should result in just one user account.

Music stored on external hard disc not found after re-boot

I moved all my music onto an external hard disc becuase it was taking up too much space on my Mac. Now every time I reboot I get an error message saying music not found, please find. ie. I have to point itunes to all the folders on my hard drive again. How can I stop this happening?
Thanks for your help
imac g5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

I followed other comments on the forum and succeeded. Thanks! -Migs

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

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

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

Running iTunes from an external hard disc, deleting songs on local disc

I've moved my iTunes library to an external hard disc, so I could free up room on my Macbook Air. Everything seemed fine, so as a test, I deleted 1 song from the iTunes media file on my Air, and then tried to play it from the external disc.
I get the "original file could not be found" message. The preferences in iTunes point to the external drive, and the song is there. I get find the individual file, but that's clearly not going to be a good solution for ALL my music!
What should I do? The only advice I find online is to go to preferences, advanced, find the external hard drive and click OK, but that's all be done!

You have to move the library database too, or you have to use a method for just moving media. Unless you know the details of how iTunes works I would move it all otherwise you are more likely to encounter issues such as the one you are seeing and won't know how to resolve them.
iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527 - Basically what ChrisCA recommends
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449 - moving just media but leaving all else on your main drive.
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
iTunes 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847
Image of iTunes folder structure Dec. 2011 - https://discussions.apple.com/message/16923545
see also:
Image of folder structure and explanation of different iTunes versions (turingtest2 post) - https://discussions.apple.com/message/13025536 and https://discussions.apple.com/message/17457605

How to copy my iphoto from one external hard disc to another?

Hi, I am trying to copy my iphoto library that is on my external hard disc to another empty external hard disc, but i keep getting this message:
You can’t copy “iPhoto Library” because it has the same name as another item on the destination volume, and that volume doesn’t distinguish between upper- and lowercase letters in filenames.
What am I doing wrong? all I want to do is to beck up my iphoto library into another external hard disc.
Thanks a lot!

If the destination EHD is empty try reformatting it and try copying again. I don't use RAW files but there's no reason I can think of why you'd get that message when trying to copy.
Here's another approach:
1 - download iPhoto Library Manager and use it to rebuild your library.
2 - set the location of the rebuilt library to be on the second EHD.
Maybe iPLM will get around that obstical and let the library get recereated on that EHD. See the Note 1 at the end of the following:
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
Click on the Add Library button,
navigate to your Home/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the Library ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
In the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed.
Click on the Create button.
Note 1: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost.
Note 2: your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.

Can I transfer the photos from mac to external hard disc which is used for pc too

can I transfer the photos from mac to external hard disc which is used for pc too

A FAT32 drive can't store files which are 4GB or larger. You need to reformat or repartition the drive to include an exFAT, NTFS, or Mac OS Extended volume, or use a different drive, or use a way other than an external drive to transfer it.
(105483)

External Hard disc problem

I just bought a Samsung portable hard-disc (external) but I've run into some trouble.
I don't have a problem transferring files to the hard-disc from my old dell laptop (plug and play), and I can copy the files from the hard disc to my MBP. However, whenever I try to copy files from the MBP to the hard-disc, I get an error messag that goes: "xxx file may not be transferred because "New Volume" (title of hard-disc) cannot be modified.
I tried erasing the hard-disc using disc utility, and that allowed me to copy files from the MBP to the hard-disc. However, after doing so, my dell laptop couldn't detect the external hard-disc. I then formatted the hard-disc and gave it a disc-path on my dell, but when I did that, I got the aforementioned error message when I tried copying files over from my MBP to the external hard disc.
Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

The reason your Mac couldn't write to the disk initially is probably that your Dell formatted the disk as an NTFS volume (most Windows disk are formatted as NTFS these days). OS X can read an NFTS disk, but cannot write to it.
When you erased the disk with Disk Utility in OS X, it's likely that you reformatted the disk as an HFS+ volume (most OS X disks are formatted as HFS+ these days). Unfortunately, Windwos cannot read or write HFS+ without some third party software.
You have two solutions available.
First, you could use Disk Utility (or the Windows equivalent) to format the drive as a FAT32 partition. Both Windows and OS X can read and write to FAT32. However, FAT32 is a bit of an outdated standard, inferior to both NTFS and HFS+.
The other option is to keep the disk formatted as HFS+, but use third party software to work with the disk in Windows. Google "Macdrive" and you will find some nice software for this. The downside here is that you have to buy a third-party program. However, HFS+ is far superior to FAT32, and at least you can try out Macdrive for free before deciding to pay up and go this route in the long run.

Use an external hard disc

I have a Macbook white with 120GB internal hard disk. I also have an external hard disc (Lacie 500GB).
I don't want to use all the Macbooks internal hard disc space to store all my music and photo's on...How can I use my Lacie 500GB as an external disc to put photo's and music on?
I also want to make a backup of the Macbook every now and then (time machine). Can I use the external Hard disc for that and can I still also use it to put music and photo's on?
Message was edited by: Jaap74

With respect to keeping your music/video library on an external drive, I know that is completely possible, but as I have not done so, I'm not the person to respond to that issue... but I'm sure someone will.
With respect to using your external drive for TimeMachine and external storage, you will need to create at least two partitions using Disk Utility to do so. TimeMachine needs its own dedicated drive or its own dedicated partition on a drive. Basically, TimeMachine will consume as much space as it has available (either consuming an entire drive if it is dedicated or an entire partition on a drive). If you breakdown your external drive into at least two partitions, you can dedicate one to TimeMachine and the other to whatever you like. Remember that your TimeMachine partition should be at least as large as your internal drive... but dedicating more space will allow you to go further back "in time". If you have a 500GB external and your internal is 120GB... dedicating half your external drive should be fine for your TimeMachine backup. Note that you may become unhappy with your 120GB internal drive at some point and decide to upgrade to a larger one. You should take that possibility into consideration as changing the partition sizes later, while fairly easy... can be problematic if your second partition is close to full.

How can I edit lightroom 5 smart previews on mac book pro (mbp) when the lightroom 5 master image files are on my external hard drive is disconnected from the mbp

How can I edit lightroom 5 smart previews on mac book pro (mbp) when the lightroom 5 master image files are on my external hard drive is disconnected from the mbp? So far when I try to disconnect the external HD from the mbp, I get the following pop up window: The disk "external hard drive A" couldn't be ejected because "Lightroom" is using it. Quit that application and try to eject this disk again. When I do that and restart Lightroom 5, the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom - Select Catalog screen pops up but doesn't list my external hard drive A as a choice.
I've reviewed Adobe's Lightroom Help | Smart Previews Lightroom 5 web page and still haven't been able to figure what I'm doing wrong. Any help would be appreciated.

Your internal HDD. by default, is named 'Macintosh HD'. From what information you supplied, it looks like there is already a Lightroom catalog installed on you local (internal) HDD using the standard naming convention Adobe uses as well as a Lightroom catalog on your external drive which you created. To be sure of which catalog Lightroom is loading when it starts up, To do this, start Lightroom as you normally would. After it starts, select the Lightroom menu item, then select the Catalog Preferences item and finally, navigate to the General tab. The Location information will tell you exactly what catalog Lightroom is opening by default. This will likely be the Photography Mac Book Pro Versions catalog on your external HDD. Once that is confirmed, you are ready to proceed. As an additional test/verification, you can shut down Lightroom and, this time, start Lightroom while holding down the ALT/OPTION key. This will cause Lightroom to pause and display a screen which will allow you to chose a different catalog to open. Navigate to the /Users/[user name]/Pictures/Lightroom folder and select the Lightroom 5 Catalog.lrcat file. When Lightroom comes up, there should be no previews or folders as this catalog should be empty. Now you can be certain which catalog is being used and which catalog has all your data and you are ready to migrate your current catalog. Shut down Lightroom.
To migrate your current catalog, use Finder to locate your Photography Mac Book Pro Versions folder on your external drive. Select the folder and select COPY from the context menu. Next, use Finder to navigate to the /Users/[user name]/Pictures/Lightroom folder on you internal HDD. You can start at the Macintosh HD level and work your way down by opening each level (Macintosh HD/Users/[user name]/Pictures). Select the /Pictures folder and then select PASTE... from the context menu. When the COPY/PASTE is complete, you should see the following files on the Macintosh HD:
Macintosh HD/Users/[user name]/Pictures/Lightroom/ and
Macintosh HD/Users/[user name]/Pictures/Photography Mac Book Pro Versions
The Macintosh HD/Users/[user name]/Pictures/Lightroom folder will contain the empty default catalog the Adobe created when Lightroom was installed and Macintosh HD/Users/[user name]/Pictures/Photography Mac Book Pro Versions will contain a copy of the catalog you created on your external HDD.
You are almost done now. Make sure your external drive is still attached for this step. Restart Lightroom using the ALT/OPTION key again. When the Select Catalog screen appears, select the Choose a Different Catalog button (lower left side). When you do, a Finder window will open to allow you to navigate to a catalog of your choosing. Navigate to Macintosh HD/Users/[user name]/Pictures/Photography Mac Book Pro Versions and select the file Photography Mac Book Pro Version.lrcat. This is the copy you just created. Select the Open button and Lightroom should start. You should see all of your previews and settings just as before. Also, in the left hand panel, all of your folder should show up and none of them should be dimmed and none of your previews should display a small exclamation point badge. Either a dimmed folder name or an exclamation point badge indicates that Lightroom can't find the associated image file. If everything looks good, go to the Lightroom menu, select Preferences and then select the General tab. Under Default Catalog, select an option to either load the LAST catalog opened or select the Users/[user name]/Pictures/Photography Mac Book Pro Versions catalog from the drop down. Shut down Lightroom and then restart it normally. This time, when Lightroom starts, you should be viewing the new copy of your catalog. You can confirm this by looking at the General tab on the Catalog Preferences screen (Lightroom/Catalog Preferences menu items). Shut down Lightroom once again and this time, eject your external drive before restarting. This time, your folders in the left hand panel will be dimmed but you should be able to work with your smart previews. If Lightroom should display a Select Catalog screen with the external drive detached, double check your settings as it indicates Lightroom is still looking at the copy of the catalog on the external drive rather than the new copy you made.
Finally, if you are seeing dimmed folders and/or exclamation point badges with the external drive attached, this indicates a problem. You can select any folder and select Update Folder Location from the context menu. This will allow you to navigate to the copy on the external drive and select it. Lightroom will then update the catalog (select to synchronize the content). This will not only clear the dimmed folder problem but also remove the exclamation point badges for all photos in that missing folder. However, it may indicate that not all went well with the copy of the catalog so make sure to verify all went well. You can use the Get Info option on the two folders. You should see the same number of files/folders for both the copy on the internal drive as well as on the external drive but you can't rely on the byte count because of the possibility of differences between the geometry of the two drives. Hope this all helps!

I want to take files from my PC (using a Seagate external hard drive) then plug this Seagate External hard drive into my Mac Book Pro and move the files from the Seagate External Hard drive onto my Time Capsule. I do not want to put these files on my Mac

I want to take files from my PC (using a Seagate external hard drive) then plug this Seagate External hard drive into my Mac Book Pro and move the files from the Seagate External Hard drive onto my Time Capsule. I do not want to put these files on my Mac. How do I do this? Where do I put these files on my Time Capsule? Will it affect the functioning of my Time Capsule?

Mixing files with data is not always great idea.
See info here.
Q3 http://pondini.org/TM/Time_Capsule.html
Why not just connect the PC directly to the TC by ethernet and copy the files over?
It is hugely faster and much less mucking around.
In windows load the airport utility for windows.. if you have not already as this will help you access the drive.
There is more info here.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1331

Invisible files (??) blocking space on external hard disc

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for