Portable flash or hard drive?

For the purpose of keeping a lot of music accessible but not taking up valuable space, which is the best and easiest method of storage? A portable flash drive and/or a portable hard drive?

Hi,
No, it will lock the external HDD and you can't use for other tasks. For example you've got a 2Tb external HDD, after create the recovery media, it only uses around 24Gb, the rest becomes useless. Please ONLY use DVD's or USB flash drive (not too big, 32Gb is enough).
Regards.
BH
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One Computer No Longer Recgonizes My Toshiba Canvio Portable 500 GB Hard Drive

Hello. I have a Toshiba Canvio Portable 500 GB Hard Drive. I used it to back up my files on my main computer and connected it to that computer every now and again to download more files. Suddenly, it stopped being recognized by my main computer a while back. Or more accurately, my main computer recognizes it but says that it needs to be formated before it can be used. I have not idea what happened to it. Oddly, the hard drive is recognized by all of my other computers (a MAC, a Chromebook and a standard PC Laptop) and I can access the files on there using those computers. I have never used any of the other computers to download files. Is there a way to figure out how to get my main computer to recognize the hard drive again without reformatting it? I'd like to add more files from that computer to it. Thanks for the help. (I recently reinstalled windows and the drives for the hard drive on my main computer and still no luck.)

If you can get the 2008 started move large libraries such as your iPhoto, iMovie and iTunes libraries to an External HD. Once you have verified the libraries have been successfully moved then Trash the ones on the internal HD and empty the Trash. Once these operations have been done then use:
iPhoto: How to move the Library to an EHD
iMovie: How to move the Library to an EHD
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Can the flash storage hard drives in the brand new 15inch Macbook Pro Retina Display laptops (10.22.13) be upgraded/replaced in the future?

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Thanks everybody!

The modules are proprietary. They are installed in a slot secured with a tiny screw.
macsales.com has been working on providing aftermarket modules for the older models that were on the SATA Bus.
These newer ones are likley directly on the PCIe Bus. That will take some time to develop.

Flashing Earth - Hard Drive Failure?

In October 07 my MacBook HDD of less than a year crashed and had to be replaced. For about a week now I have been getting a "Flashing Earth" on the gray screen whenever I re-boot or cold-start the computer. The Earth flashes a regular 36 times before the apple logo appears and the system mounts.
Is my hard drive failing again? I have run both the Apple verification tool as well as the Tech Tool diagnostics, and all appears ok, but clearly I'm worried with the symptoms and may have a short window to be proactive about a fix.
I have backups in the form of Time Machine, as well as a drag-and-drop copy of the System folder on a portable drive.
What's my next course of action?
Thanks for your suggestions/help.

*"Is my hard drive failing again? "*
No. You've set it to look for a network boot volume before looking to it's own hard drive.
Change it using System Preferences --> Startup Disk

Flash Memory / Hard Drive failure

HP 311-1000 NR
Bought this computer new in 04/2010. Have used it for nothing but internet and itunes. Have used it maybe a total of 40 times in 18 months. Hard drive storage being used was maybe 30GB out of 250GB.
Turned on today, and got a black screen with error message "Flash Memory Error Hard Drive Failure"
Have not installed any new software in months. Had only been using the computer to visit Nike.com website the night before.
Computer has run it's antivirus and tune-ups without any errors every time I turn it on. No previous errors or freeze ups prior to this.
Any advice? Is this simply a matter of having the flash memory replaced? Thanks for any time and help.

we need to make sure that the HDD on the com works fine
here is the helpful link
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00439024&tmp_task=solveCategory&cc=us&dlc=en&la...
If you hav windows 7
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Time machine with WD portable 250gb external hard drive

im using the WD 250GB external hard drive to backup my HD...im very new to MAC and time machine. I have a MacBookPro. My question: do you recommend i back everything up with time machine on this external WD HD? thanks for your help

OK, I understand now. I think the following may be helpful:
Basic Backup
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. PsynchX 2.1.1 and RsyncX 2.1 (Freeware)
6. Carbon Copy Cloner (Freeware - 3.0 is a Universal Binary)
7. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
8. Intego Personal Backup (Commercial)
9. Data Backup (Commercial)
The following utilities can also be used for backup, but cannot create bootable clones:
1. Backup (requires a .Mac account with Apple both to get the software and to use it.)
2. Toast
3. Impression
4. arRSync
Apple's Backup is a full backup tool capable of also backing up across multiple media such as CD/DVD. However, it cannot create bootable backups. It is primarily an "archiving" utility as are the other two.
Impression and Toast are disk image based backups, only. Particularly useful if you need to backup to CD/DVD across multiple media.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Although you can buy a complete FireWire drive system, you can also put one together if you are so inclined. It's relatively easy and only requires a Phillips head screwdriver (typically.) You can purchase hard drives separately. This gives you an opportunity to shop for the best prices on a hard drive of your choice. Reliable brands include Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital, Toshiba, and Fujitsu. You can find reviews and benchmarks on many drives at Storage Review.
Enclosures for FireWire and USB are readily available. You can find only FireWire enclosures, only USB enclosures, and enclosures that feature multiple ports. I would stress getting enclosures that use the Oxford chipsets (911, 921, 922, for example.) You can find enclosures at places such as;
Cool Drives
OWC
WiebeTech
Firewire Direct
California Drives
NewEgg
All you need do is remove a case cover, mount the hard drive in the enclosure and connect the cables, then re-attach the case cover. Usually the only tool required is a small or medium Phillips screwdriver.
If you have any questions about this please ask. Obviously you can also use TM as your backup system letting it run with its defaults. TM will initially back up everything. Thereafter it does only incremental backups - it backs up only those files that have changed since the last backup. Currently TM backs up every hour, week, and month. If the backup drive becomes full TM is supposed to remove the earliest version of a file to make space for the latest version. You can find third-party utilities such as TimeMachineEditor or TimeMachine Scheduler - VersionTracker or MacUpdate - that will let you change the schedule intervals if you prefer not to have backups running so frequently. You can also add files and/or folders to an exclusion list in TM for items you don't want to backup such as the /System/ folder.
However, TM cannot make bootable backups. If you want a bootable backup you will need to use something other than TM. Several of the ones I suggest above do bootable backups, incremental backups, scheduled backups, and archival backups.

OSX 10.6.8 and Iomega portable hard drives

6/12/14
I have an "Iomega eGo® Portable 500 MB Hard Drive FireWire 800/FireWire 400/USB 2.0".
Is this compatible with OSX 10.6.8?
I will be using it with Time Machine.
Do I need to use the FireWire and if so how do I use the FireWire setup for optimum usage?
Thank you.

If it's the cable you have been using then you have the right cable. This is FW 400 cable:
This is the FW 800 cable:
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Issues with Portable External Hard Drive (500GB)

I recently purchased the 500GB Toshiba-branded external hard drive in blue from my local Wal-Mart. It has been working fine for the past few months, but when I plugged it into my computer this morning, it didn't light up the LED and I couldn't feel the disk drive spinning as normal.
I tried to call Toshiba support, but all they did was ask me if the cord was damaged (it's not, at least not in any obvious fashion), and then tell me that it's the drive itself and to start a warranty claim. When I asked about all the data I already have on there (all of my family pictures and my music collection), they basically said tough noogies, they can't do anything about it.
I am going to try and plug it in at home and see if it's just this computer, but it's worked fine on this computer dozens of times. Does anyone have any advice on where to find a cord that would work, or other possible solutions? I absolutely CAN'T lose the data that's on here.
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Justin

Hi
I too have an issue with my portable 500gb Toshiba hard drive. No LED lit up when plugged into the USB port (Ive tried them all). I have lots of data on there that I recently wanted backing up and uploaded from my laptop whilst that was being repaired. I too believe it may be the connector because it now seems a littel bit loose. Im no technogeek so can someone please advise how I remove the drive from the portable device and where I can get another case from...or even just retrieve the data and then get rid?

T43p hard drive replacement, flash and error 2010

I just replaced the hard drive on my 2668-92U with a Seagate that was on the "approved" list of the Lenovo drive flash utility (fwhd50.iso). I flashed this hard drive with this utility (it said successfully). I'm still getting error 2010 on boot. I've set bios to auto continue booting but the beeps are annoying. Any suggestions?
Modderator Note: Please don't duplicate posts. Duplicate moved.
Message Edited by andyP on 03-24-2008 09:30 PM

I recently replaced the original Fujitsu 30GB, 4200 RPM hard drive in my T40 with a Western Digital 160GB, 5400 RPM, Parallel ATA unit that I picked up at Fry's. I did this because I am hoping that this laptop --- the best one I have ever had --- will last me until I can replace it with a brand new model that has both an Intel Nehalem microprocessor and the W7 operating system. My guess is that I still have about a 14 month wait before this will become possible. Therefore, it made sense to replace the hard drive. I just don't want to take the interim step to Windows Vista unless this unit drops dead and it becomes absolutely necessary. My guess is that I am not unique in this thinking.
A couple of months ago, I caught it on sale for $59.99. Knock on wood, it has been running like a charm. In fact, although it may only be my imagination, there seemed to be an improvement in the speed of operation when I made the change. I am pleased with the update.
I see that this hard drive is now $79.99. But that's still plenty of bang for your buck. Here is the link.
http://shop4.frys.com/product/5528390?site=srEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
Let's be blunt, if you really need more primary hard drive than 160MB, then it is probably time to replace your T43 altogether.
Message Edited by Stu-be on 01-04-2009 04:07 PM
T41 2373-7FU
Windows XP Pro, 1.6GHz Pentium M, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD

Use external hard drive to copy music to second computer

Ok, here's the situation and what we're wanting to do. I'm so confused by all of the iTunes file manipulation, copies of music, libraries, playlists, etcetera.
We have a home computer (Win. XP) that has a slave drive in it. We use the slave drive for image, video and of course, our iPod music storage.
I have a work computer (Win XP Pro) that also has a slave drive in it, and I use it for image and video storage.
I have an external portable Maxtor USB hard drive.
My wife and I have different music tastes, but both of us do mutually like about 70% of the music on our home computer. It's that other 30% that we can't stand of the other person's music. Since iTunes makes it near impossible for us to use multiple iPods on one copy of iTunes (without jumping through hoops (such as computer user accounts, manual vs. automatic management, using Playlists, etc.) and confusing us to no end), I'd like to simply copy all of our music onto my external hard drive, carry it to work, put a fresh copy of iTunes 7 on the work computer, copy the music off my hard drive and onto my work computer's slave drive. Then do a fresh setup of my iPod again (since it's been loaded with some of her junk by accident).
I don't want to change my home computer's settings or anything. My wife does 90% of the music purchases. I'd just like to pick and choose what I want from home and I'll manage it at work on that computer. You see, she has her iPod setup to put any and all new music onto her iPod. If she buys an album, all of it goes on her iPod. Me, I like to pick and choose which songs go on there.
So, how is the best way to copy the music, library, whatever it is I need onto my external HD and then copy it onto my work computer's slave drive?
From then on, if we add songs/albums at home, how should I best keep taking the new songs/albums over to my work computer so I can manage my own iTunes/iPod? Can I just go in and copy the files out of "iTunes Music" folder onto a zip drive and then drop them in the work computer's "iTunes Music" folder?
BTW, I've decided my next computer will be a macbook. It will be my first Mac and I'm really looking forward to seeing what all the Apple/Mac fuss is about. But GESH, I'd thought Apple was a little better than all of this non-sense. I hope it's just that I'm really confused by iTunes and not yet up to the Apple/Mac way.
Oh, and THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR HELP!
Message was edited by: JJCoke

Thanks ed2345!
I was thinking maybe I could just use the "Moving your iTunes Music Folder" instructions all the way down to, BUT NOT INCLUDING steps 11 & 12. Instead, once the consolidation and copy to the external drive was done, I'd just need to go back up and point to the original iTunes Music folder, right?
I have no problem manually adding to the work PC during the week as we add new stuff to the house. Is just copying the new music out of home iTunes Music and onto a USB zip drive to carry to work and then drop in the work iTunes Music folder the way to do it? If so, that's easy enough for me!
As far as playlists, I thought had a pretty good understanding of what they were, but your use of the words "points to songs" better cemented my understanding of what they were. I thought they were duplicating songs into miniature libraries. I would have no problem doing as you suggest (creating a JJ Playlist) and then pick-n-choosing through the library. However, is there a not problem with two different iPods (both are Nanos, but hers is a 4GB and mine is an 8GB) plugging into iTunes (at different times of course) under the same computer user? Will it recognize that my 8GB Nano is connected and not her 4GB and then let me manage my iPod manually or by only updating "JJ Playlist"? And then 5 minutes later after I've unplugged she could go in and it would do her automatic full sync?

Advice for a new hard drive

My PowerBook has an 80 GB hard drive and I only have 14 GB free. Time for more space! So, two questions:
What's a great hard drive in the 160 to 250 GB range?
Should a guy with PC tech experience but very little Mac tech experience attempt this operation on his own?
Jeremy

You have several choices. You could get an external hard drive and backup some of the data if you want more space. If you do this, recommend either a firewire device or a powered USB device, as our Powerbooks don't put out enough juice on the USB ports to run many external hard drives. One portable external firewire hard drive, for example, is http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go . If you do upgrade your internal drive, you can get one of these cases and put your existing hard drive in it for selective backup (not the best approach, as you should have a complete backup of your data).
Regarding hard drives in the 160GB to 250GB range, there are several vendors that make drives: Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi, and Samsung come to mind, there may be others. Seagate, Western Digital, and Hitachi are all brands that people seem to like. If you want to go larger, Western Digital has a 320GB drive, too. You can look at user comments at http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150380%201035907 889%201035507777&name=5400%20RPM . Seagate used to have a 5 year warranty but recently seems to have recently changed their laptop drives to 3 years, which is more standard.
To see if you want to do the installation yourself, look at this guide: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Browse/PowerBook#SectionPowerBook_G4_Aluminum_Num12 Choose your system and hard drive replacement. Suggest buying a new small phillips head, and use cups to keep the screws together by each step of the instructions.

Is it possible to use an external hard drive to use the music collection at home and at work?

I recently started using iTunes both on my home notebook as on my desktop computer at work. I also discovered it is not possible to download the songs I bought on both machines. It's a pitty, but I can understand Apple's point of view.
I was thinking of bying a small portable USB powered hard drive to store my music collection on but I'd like to know whether this is possible before I buy myself a USB drive only to find out it's a waste of time and money. I assume it is possible the USB drive is assigned a different letter on each machine, but I think I can work around that. But is there anything else I need to keep into account?

Sync iPod/iPad/iPhone with two computers
Although it isn't possible to sync an Apple device with two different libraries it is possible to sync with the same logical library from multiple computers. Each library has an internal ID and when iTunes connects to your iPod/iPad/iPhone it compares the local ID with the one the device normally syncs with. If they are the same you can go ahead and sync...
I have my library cloned to a small 1Tb USB drive which I can take between home & work. At either location I use SyncToy 2.1 to update the local copy with the external drive. Mac users should be able to find similar tools. I can open either of the local libraries or the one on the external drive and update the media content of my iPhone. The slight exception is Photos which normally connects to a specific folder on a specific machine, although that can easily be remapped to the current library if you create a "Photos" folder inside the iTunes Media folder so that syncing the iTunes folders keeps this up to date as well. I periodically sweep my library for new files & orphans with iTunes Folder Watch just in case I make changes at one location but then overwrite the library with a newer copy from the other. Again Mac users should be able to find similar tools.
As long as your media is organised within an iTunes Music or Tunes Media folder, in turn held inside the main iTunes folder that has your library files (whether or not you let iTunes keep the media folder organised) each library can access items at the same relative path from the library folder so the library can be at different drives/paths on different machines. This solution ensures I always have adequate backups of my library and I can update my devices whenever I can connect to the same build of iTunes.
When working with an iPhone earlier builds of iTunes would remove any file not physically present in the local library, even if there was an entry for it, making manual management practically redundant on the iPhone. This behaviour has been changed but it will still only permit manual management with a library that has the correct internal ID. If you don't want to sync your library between machines on a regular basis just copy the iTunes Library.itl file from the current "home" machine to any other you want to use, then clean out the library entires and import the local content you have on that box.
tt2

How to use an external hard drive on a MacBook Air?

Hi there.
Recently I bought a portable USB external hard drive for my MacBook Air due to my full startup disk. I also bought multiple disks for the hard drive. I inserted the disk, hooked up the USB, and did everything properly. When I first hooked it up, I lost all internet files that I had saved. All images, videos and downloads (such as Minecraft and other gaming downloads) from the internet were gone and unable to find.
Now, I don't want to make the wrong move and lose all of my internet files again, so I am asking how to transfer files SAFELY to the USB without any files being deleted. I tranfered files before, but they were just short cuts to the original file, so I am also asking how to fix that as well. My Dad was a computer technician, although he didn't work for Apple, so he doesn't know how to use the USB.
I've tried everything to find my internet files, but nothing. If there is a way to get them back, I'd be glad if you shared that with me. My dock files aren't working due to this insanely full startup disk, so I'd appreciate it if you could tell me ASAP how to use the USB, how to SAFELY transfer files without them turning into shortcuts, and how to get my internet files back.
Thank you very much.
P.s My OS X version is 10.8.3 (Not with Mountain Lion)

You cannot format a drive so that files will be automatically put on that drive when you run out of room on another drive. Transferring the files must be done specifically by you. You will need to learn how to manage free space on the SSD because 64 GBs is a bit small for much more than OS X.
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 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.

External hard drive asks for password and does not mount on desktop

Hello all,
I bought a portable FireWire external hard drive to connect to my iMac G4. When connecting via FireWire, a message window appears telling me that the external disk is password protected and prompts me to type a password. Neither typing my administrator password nor activating the checkbox "Temporarily remove protection" and clicking the Unlock button is successfull: the hard drive does not appear on the desktop but it is listed in the System Profiler under Fire Wire Bus. I tried the external drive on an iMac G5 where it works without any problem. So what shall I do? Does anybody know an issue to this? I will be glad for every answer.

Have you written any data to the external drive? If not, perhaps you could add some data.
Are you using filevault?
You could reformat it in disk utilities.
Here is the path...
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility
It may be a problem with accessing the drive from different users, I could not recreate the problem with different users on my machine. I have only one machine with firewire.
Robert
Message was edited by: rccharles

USB powered hard drive recommendation?

I am having trouble finding an external removable hard drive that can be powered through my USB.
I bought one a Western Digital 120g portable drive - it won't even show up or eject unless it's plugged in with a cord I swiped from another device.
After reading the posts, it seems this is a problem. Any recommendations for brands/sizes that don't require a power source?
Thank you very much,
Emily

I would be willing to use whatever one works - I am not as savvy on my machine as I once was so I appreciate ANY pointers.
I am trying to keep some photos/video on an external, portable, self-powered hard drive. I don't need to boot it up, just access it as additional storage.
I do have a firewire port. I didn't know if that would have difficulty powering a device the same way my USB port is limited in powering - so any tips for an external, portable hard drive that is powered through the laptop, either via USB or Firewire, would be appreciated.
Let me know if I'm asking the wrong question or need to go a different direction.
Thanks again!
Emily
PS Did they change the forum? I know I've posted lots and lots of dumb questions!

Portable flash or hard drive?

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