My drive collapsed. I have an external hard drive. How can I put all my files there, using disk utility?

So my MacBook Pro collapsed one day, and it turns on but only "Restarts" and shuts itself down on the procesa. The only thing I have access to is that 'Command + R' thing. There I tried "Verifying" and "Reparing" the Diak but the message of "Cant repair disk backup as many files as possible, reformat the disk and restore" popped up. So I have am external hard drive with more than enough space to put all of my files in there. my question is: HOW DO I DO THAT? from disk utility. Can somone please help me? Please! Step by step cause ptherwise I will mess it up and I really dont want to lose all the memories I have in my computer.

After you restart so you have access to Disk Utility, with the external drive connected, choose the external drive from the left sidebar of the DU window. If the drive has not been formatted for the Mac, choose Partition from the buttons top center of the main window. Give the drive a name, you can leave it as one partition if you like, make sure the format is set as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled), and the partition table is GUID. Then Apply and acknowledge that you know this will erase the disk.
Then go to the button that says Restore. Drag and drop the internal drive, Macintosh HD is most common, to the Source box, and drag and drop the external drive to Destination box. Then Restore.
That will create a clone of the internal and that will be a bootable clone.

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Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Time Machine makes local snapshots in all portable Macs with Lion or Mountain Lion. They are made in the internal drive and they are removed when your hard disk gets full, so you don't have to worry about it.
If you want to delete them, turn off Time Machine and turn it on every time you want to make a backup. You can also turn them off manually without having to turn off Time Machine, or you can delete those local snapshots > http://pondini.org/TM/30.html

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Your drive is formatted with the NTFS file system. OS X can read but not write to the NTFS file system. There are third party drivers available that claim to add the ability to OS X to write to an NTFS partition. I have not tried them and don't know if they work.
The only file system that OS X and Windows can both write to natively is the FAT32 file system.

I have a external Hard drive of 1TB. I want to transfer HD movies to it from my MAC but it can only take 4 gb at a time, now i have to format it which is the best format in this situation NTFS or exFAT, as i use windows part ion as well??

I have a external Hard drive of 1TB. I want to transfer HD movies to it from my MAC but it can only take 4 gb at a time, now i have to format it which is the best format in this situation NTFS or exFAT, as i use windows part ion as well?? plzz help
Merry Christmas

Repartition and format the drive for a Mac:
Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

I have an external hard drive that shows up in disk utility but Verify and Restore are greyed out.

I have an external hard drive that shows up in disk utility but Verify and Restore are greyed out. I am trying to determine what is wrong with the drive.
I need the data on the drive and it won't show up in Disk Warrior. I have tried different Mac's and different USB cords only to find the same outcome. When selected in Disk Utility the information read as such...
Disk Description : WD Elements 1023 Media                      Total Capacity : 500.11 GB (500,105,740,288 Bytes)
Connection Bus : USB                                                               Write Status : Read/Write
Connection Type : External                                                     S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
USB Serial Number : 575837314135304D36373132        Partition Map Scheme : Unformatted
As the drive shows in Disk Utility there must be some life left in it surely. There is a possibilty that the physical connection between the USB cord and the external drive is damaged but since the drive shows up I believe it's unlikely... before I give it to the pro's is there anything else I can do to diagnose the issue?

Hello,
I have just experienced the same thing!
Although my external drive shows in Disk Utility, it does not show in Finder.
And the Verify/Repair buttons are also greyed out.
Also, although the drive is 2TB. DU shows it as having Total Capacity of only 4.14GB! (Which should be the Free Space).
I was wondering if you solved your problem, & if so, would you share your solution.
I´m afraid to Erase in case I lose all my Data on the drive.
Thanks in advance for your reply!

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I have an external hard drive that was formatted by a PC and has files and directories copied to it etc. I want to use it on my IMAC for backup. I see it on my my IMAC . I can open files etc. But I can't seem to write to it nor can I delete current content. I don't care if I lose current content. How do I initialize it for use with the MAC?

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http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24481/ntfs-3g
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I am finally taking the leap to use Time machine to back everything.
will I have to reformat that drive, thus wiping my previous back ups?
can I split it the drive in two partitions?
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as I have two separate Macbook Pro's- one older than the other.
OSX 10.68
the other is
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OT

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http://pondini.org/TM/17.html
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Check out > OS X Lion: How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from another Mac

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My drive collapsed. I have an external hard drive. How can I put all my files there, using disk utility?

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