NTSF formate hard Drive is unvisable to Mac os x Lion

i have mac book with os x lion, when i plug my hard Drive with NTSF fromate it didn't appear, i can't see thehard Drive as it's not been pluged.
do any one know how to deal with this matter, to allow me to see my files

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FORMAT HARD DRIVE FOR USE ON MAC AND WINDOWS

I'm going to start working on scanning a lot of old family photos and getting them put on an external hard drive for my parents. I'd also like to eventually put old VHS family home movies on the hard drive as well. However, I'm not sure what to do about the hard drive. I know if I format it to be compatible with my Mac it probably won't be compatible with their PC. I read about the FAT32 option but I saw something about a file not working if it's over 4 GB in size. I'm thinking maybe some of those home movies will be larger than 4GB. I also saw an exFAT option. If I go with that will I be able to scan the photos on my Mac, get the home videos converted and put it all on the hard drive will all of it be visible and usable on their Windows PC?
Thanks for your help!

matahari_1946,
if you’re not yet backing up your Mac’s internal hard disk, I’d recommend first that you purchase an external hard drive for yourself for exclusive use as a Time Machine backup destination; that way, in case of a disk problem, you won’t permanently lose all of your scanned photos and imported movies.
A 4 GB file limit does apply to FAT32 filesystems. If their version of Windows allows, the external disk which will hold those photos and videos should be formatted as NTFS from their PC, so that they can watch video files over 4 GB. (It’s unlikely that an individual photo file would be over 4 GB.) However, OS X doesn’t come out of the box with NTFS support. The exFAT filesystem is able to hold files over 4 GB, and it is supported by Mac OS X 10.6.5 and newer, but it’s optimized for flash drives; it’s more “fragile” on hard disks than other filesystems are. As a workaround, you could format a flash drive to have exFAT, copy videos over 4 GB onto the flash drive, and then use your parents’ PC to copy the videos from the flash drive to their NTFS external disk. Other alternatives would be to look for third-party software for OS X which supports reading from and writing to NTFS disks, or third-party software for Windows which supports reading from and writing to journaled HFS+ (the default OS X filesystem) disks.

Can't access my NTFS formatted hard drive anymore on my Mac OS?

I downloaded this app back in November because of my new transfer to a MacBook Pro from a Windows PC.
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/26288/ntfs-for-mac-os-x
It worked fine back in November but now I am trying to back up my files and I cannot access anything in my hard drive. What do I do?
I have already redownloaded the NTFS software. I am not too computer savvy can I get any help please?

I am sorry to say that it very well might be. Chalk it up to a learning experience. Even with Paragon to allow writing to NTFS there are still dificulties with some applications that use features of HFS+ to do their magic. How are you backup up to that disk currently? Time Machine is known to have problem with NTFS.
My backup plan, rather then backing up a backup, is to do two backups using different software for each. One backup is done with Time Machine and the other is done with SuperDuper.
Since the SuperDuper backup is a bootable clone of my system disk, that allows me to recover my Mac by rebooting from it. So that I am able to continue in case of a disk failure very rapidly.
The Time Machine backup is good for recovery of files when I need to do that.
Either one can be used to do the same functions as the other except that it would be a little slower.
I like the idea of using different software for each since I think that gives me additional protection.
Allan

I cannot Search My External Hard drive using Spotlight in Mac OS X Lion ?? Plz help !!

I just upgraded from snow Leopard to Lion !..When i connect my external hard drive..and search it using spotlight..Nothing shows up ! NO results! Can anyone plz guide me how do i solve dis issue..? How can i reindex it ?

Hi...
I have a Synology NAS and wanted to be able to search for files and file contents on that NAS.
Digging around the forum, i found numerous suggestions for a solution, some more or less working,
but here is my may to getting i running.
In this example i have a shared folder on my NAS called Docs, so replace it with your share name.
Terminal is your friend (Use copy and paste for this, or make very sure to enter it correctly)
For enabling indexing on that share:
mdutil -i on /Volumes/Docs
it should return something like : indexing enabled.
To get indexing status:
mdutil -s /Volumes/Docs
Now, it looks like only new files gets indexed. I couldn't search in files already on the NAS, so :
cd /Volumes/Docs
and then
find . -exec touch {} \;
to set changed date/time to now.
After indexing is done (Can take some time - check activity monitor), search in finder
by cmd+F works also on the NAS for both files by name and contents.
I have not been able to get it working in the spotlight drop down in the top menu,
that seams to only search locally.
/Dennis

How do you format an NTSF external hard drive for use with Mountain Lion

I'm switching over to Mac from PC, and have an external NTSF formated hard drive I regularly use. I understand from the forum the initial file transfer should be no issue, but for ongoing use of the HD, does it need to be formated to something other than NTSF... and if so, to what and how.

Do this when you're ready:
Drive Partition and Format
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 Apply 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.

Formatting a PC-formatted External Hard Drive to work in Mac OS

So I have a 300 gig external hard drive formatted for Windows XP with NTFS. I recently got a Macbook Pro and as it stands in Mac OS X the hard drive is read only. I can copy files from the hard drive to my Mac, but I can't edit files on the external HD or copy from my Mac to my external HD. This of course is a problem and so I need to reformat it to work in Mac OS. While I will not be using PCs anymore, if possible I would like for the external HD to be Mac and Windows compatible.
First things first I have to get all 300 gigs of files off the external HD in order to reformat it. This will be a pain but I have the means to do this. Once I get everything off, how and with what method should I reformat it to work in Mac? Should I use the HFS file system or MS-DOS? Also, what utility in Mac OS lets me reformat it. As I said, I probably won't be hooking up this external HD to Windows anytime soon, but if there is a way to format it in Mac to work with Windows, then fine.
So what exactly are my options here? I understand that I can format the hard drive in Mac OS with either MS-DOS or FAT32. I just don't know which is better/faster/more reliable in Mac OS, as I'm still a Mac newbie. I don't have files that are over 2 gigs as far as I remember, so I don't think that will be an issue. If it helps, it is mostly media files (videos, music). I've read up online about formatting a drive to work with Mac OS, but there's just so much info I'm getting confused. Thanks.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.
So from what people are saying, I can format the drive in Mac OS as FAT32 (aka MS-DOS) and it will work fine between the two operating systems.
I've been reading more though and it seems that FAT32 drives can not be larger than 130 gigs? Or is that just for partitions.
I have a 350 gig hard drive and I don't plan on having any partitions. Can I just format the drive as FAT32 in Mac OS and the whole 350 gigs will be available? There's so much conflicting info in articles I've been reading.
thanks

If I have to format an external hard drive to make it Mac compatible, will it delete all the content in the external hard drive?

If I have to format an external hard drive to make it Mac compatible, will it delete all the content in the external hard drive?

As others have said, the answer to your question is a big YES. Formatting a drive will delete everything!
To keep your data, yet reformat the drive for optimal Mac compatibility, you will need to:
1) copy your files to a different hard drive (I would recommend two different locations if you value your data)
2) repartition/format the external drive
3) then copy the files back to the external.
You haven't given details but if you need the external to ONLY be compatible with the Mac (and no longer care if if can be read by Windows), then you will want to partition the drive using the GUID partition scheme, and format as the (HFS+) "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" filesystem. You can do so using the built-in "Disk Utility" application on your Mac (in the Applications/Utilities directory). Here are instructions:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ph5845
If you need the drive to be compatible with both Mac and Windows computers then please post that so someone can recommend a solution for your specific needs.

Hey, can i clone my Macbook Pro internal hard drive and then paste it all onto a formated external hard drive, then make the Mac use the external as the primary hard drive?

hey, can i clone my Macbook Pro internal hard drive and then paste it all onto a formated external hard drive, then make the Mac use the external as the primary hard drive? please help for i only have around 618mb left out of 189GB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If what doesn't work?
If cloning your internal drive to the external drive is not successful, I expect CCC will tell you so. Assuming that doesn't happen, you will have a bootable replica of the internal drive on the external drive once CCC has finished.
You can then do any of several things:
1. Replace your internal drive with a much larger one (320GB or 500GB, or even larger), and clone the external drive's contents onto the new drive so you'll have all your data in one place. Note that if you do this, you'll also need to buy an external drive that's large enough to back the new internal drive up on.
2. Boot from the external drive as a temporary measure while you clear at least 30-40GB of data off the internal drive, allowing you to keep using it and saving small amounts of data to it. The external drive will then contain the only copies of the files you've deleted from the internal drive, so you'll need a seond external drive large enough to back both the other drives up on.
If you can't comfortably clear a minimum of 30GB off the internal drive, you really need a larger internal drive right now, and you shouldn't bother fooling around with the inadequate one you have — you'll just quickly overfill it again.
3. Replace the optical drive in your MBP with a large conventional hard drive, giving you two hard drives inside the machine. You will then need one or more external drives large enough to back up both of the internal drives.
If you sense a theme here — back up, back up, back up — you are correct. It's flat-out foolhardy to own or use a computer without maintaining complete, up-to-date backups of everything at all times.

I had a second hard drive added to my Mac Pro. How do I format it and not effect my orginal hard drive?

I had a second hard drive added to my Mac Pro. How do I format it and not effect my orginal hard drive?

Just format it with Disk Utility as mentioned above. Select the new disk on the list at the left. Click the erase tab. Specify Mac OS Extended (Journaled) if not already specified and give the disk a name of your choice. Then click the erase button.
That's the simplest way to format a disk with a single partition (volum). If you want to create multiple volume (partitions) then click the Partition tab instead of Erase. You can then use then specify a number of volumes and size each volume by specifying its size or just dragging the slider in the bootm right of each partition. Give each a name as before and again Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Click Apply button to create the partitions.
Since you appear to be new at this just "play" with the erase and partition settings so you can become comfortable with them. So long as you have the new disk selected on the left you can't really hurt anything since it's a new disk and no data to loose. You can always go back and erase it back to a single partition.

HT4796 Can i use windows migration assistant to transfer files from a windows formatted hard drive to a mac?

I have a windows formatted hard drive and a macbook pro. I was wondering if i could use the windows migration assistant to transfer files from my hard drive to the mac

No.
Just connect the drive to your Mac. The Mac can read most Windows formats (it cannot WRITE Windows New Technology File System (NTFS) formatted drives.

Formatting hard drive for project compatibility PC /Mac

I'm editing a project for a friend who uses PC. I bought a Lacie Quadra d2 drive for the project. The media files I'm being give are DV and WMV files, which my friend will copy to the drive.
So my question is: Will there be any compatibility issues and is there any way to avoid them?
Should I (or how should I) format hard drive before giving it to my friend? And will I be able to take drive back as is and work with the files?
I appreciate any guidance.

Download this free driver: http://www.ntfs-3g.org/index.html#download and you can format the drive as NTFS, which both of you can read and write.
Once installed, NTFS will appear as a formatting option in Disk Utility.

How can I use my external hard drive from PC to Mac without reformatting???

Ok, so I am computer illiterate. I have always used PC's and have just bought a MacBook. When I plug in my external hard drive into my new Mac, it says it needs to be reformatted to use with Mac, which would cause all data to be erased. Is there anyway to get around this?
Please help me!

OK... as Woggledog indicated, OS X cannot write to NTFS formatted drives. NTFS is a proprietary Microsoft format. Conversely, Windows can neither read nor write to an OS X formatted drive.
Both Windows and OS X can read and write to FAT32 (this is a fairly old format). The down side to FAT32 is that the largest file you can work with is 4GB. That is probably fine for most people... but if you're working with large files (videos, virtual drive images, large backup files, etc...) FAT32 is not suitable. There are applications that you can purchase for both Macs and Windows machines that will allow them to read and write to the other format.
An immediate option provided you have the space on either your PC or Mac is to create a folder on either machine and move everything from your external drive into that folder. Then you can format the drive to FAT32 and then copy everything back over to the external drive (and delete it from your Mac or PC's internal drive). It might take some time depending on how much data you have... but you'll only have to do it once... and this is assuming you have enough space on one of you machines to copy the data from your external drive.

External Hard Drive from PC to Mac.

Hi !
I'm curently using a 250 gb Western Digital external Hard Drive in a FAT32 Format on my Windows XP PC. I'm about to get a Mac and would like to know if I will have to format my hard drive, or if I will simply have to plug it in the Mac.
Thanks for helping,
Bastien.

Mac OS X understands FAT32. There may be file naming issues, and I wouldn't use a FAT32 volume to backup a Mac with cloning software. Only individual user document files should be copied over from the Mac to the drive, and files that have been Archived with the control-mouse click of the individual files and folders on Mac OS X. If you want a full clone of your data you'll want to reformat the drive, and use MacDrive for Windows to read the Mac formatted hard drive on Windows.
Here's my backup FAQ:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html
You decide which method best suits your needs.

Trying to use portable hard drive on both my Mac and PC...

I just purchased a Toshiba Canvio Plus 1TB portable hard drive for my three Macs. Out of the box, I need to format the drive for Mac, which is fine, but I just found out that my fiance would also like to use it for her work computer, which is a PC running Windows XP. I need your help in finding out how to read and write to this portable drive from both a Mac and PC.
I thought about partitioning the drive but that wouldn't work because we want both systems to access the same data. After doing a few Google searches, I thought formatting the drive to a FAT32 would be the answer but I read that file sizes can't exceed 4GB. Since I purchased this specifically to complement my new HD camcorder, a 4GB file size limit will not work for us.
One last thing, since she has a company-issued PC, I'm pretty sure she's unable to install third party software and/or drivers. So please factor that in.
What would be our best solution? Thank you so much for all your help.
Message was edited by: madeinguam

madeinguam wrote:
What would be our best solution?
two possible ways:
(a) format the drive for Mac and install MacDrive on the winsloth machine(s)
(b) format the drive NTFS and install the _*NTFS 3G*_ driver on the Mac(s)
JGG

External hard drive not visible on Mac Mini

I just purchased a Mini with Lion. The Seagate Freeagent external hard drive is visible from finder on the Mini but it is "read only" and it is not visible on the wireless network to my macbook. How can I make the external hard drive read write and make it visible on the network?

OS X can read an NTFS formatted drive, but not write to it.
Sharing drives | Utilities - Page 1 | Macworld
If you want to use the drive for sharing files between Window's and Mac's, then MS-DOS / FAT-32 works fine, except that it has a 4GB single file size limit.
If you are going to use the drive exclusively with your Intel Mac's for sharing, backup and booting, then use GUID Partition Table / Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for the Partition Scheme and Format.
Format a Drive to Boot Intel Macs | Tips | The Mac Observer

NTSF formate hard Drive is unvisable to Mac os x Lion

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