Purchasing external hard drive before upgrading to Snow Leopard

I have an early 2009 iMac running OS X 10.5.8. We are planning on purchasing Snow Leopard to upgrade to 10.6 and beyond but would like to back up what we have on an external hard drive first. Is there anything specifically we need to watch out for or be aware of when buying an external hard drive? Thanks in advance.

I second rkaufmann87's recommendation of OWC's external hard drives.  I have 6 and have had no issues.

Similar Messages

  • How to format an external hard drive for vista and snow leopard?

    I want to format an external hard drive to attach to Airport Extreme base station to us with Snow Leopard and a PC with Vista. What format should I use for read/write access for both?

    I use NTFS for my external drives being used on both Macs and Windows. To get the Mac to write to NTFS, you need a separate program. I use Paragon for Mac software. It works behind the scenes. There are also some free things that do the same thing but I found them cranky and unreliable. YMMV.
    Windows can not read any of the Mac disk formats without additional software.. FAT32 is fine but is extremely limited.
    For the last year, I have had absolutely no problems on any computer, Mac or Windows.

  • Snow Leopard on an external hard drive; sign-in issues, Snow Leopard on an external hard drive; sign-in issues

    I have an older (circa 2006) MacBook running Tiger. I've been able to install Snow Leopard on an external hard drive and when I restart, it seems to boot from the external drive. However, it asks for a user name and password and the combination I use in Tiger doesn't work. I don't get an option for an admin user/password.
    Any suggestions?

    If you did a fresh installation from the original installer disk, then unless you used Migration Utility as part of the installation then you would have been stepped through the process to set up a user acount. Without that there would be no account to log into. So either you don't remember, you didn't install on an empty drive, or you used Migration Utility.
    In any case, boot from the original installer, select the external drive, and under the Utilities menu choose Password Reset.
    Regards.

  • External hard drive not recognized with Snow Leopard?

    This isn't a new problem, but I finally can't avoid solving it any longer!! When I updated to Snow Leopard, my iMac stopped seeing my LaCie external hard drive (firewire). I've gone through the steps at the LaCie site and checked for updates from Apple, but no luck. I do see an "unknown device" in "About this Mac," but I can't get it to recognize it.
    Has this problem been dealt with? Thanks in advance.

    monicadale wrote:
    I do see an "unknown device" in "About this Mac," but I can't get it to recognize it.
    LaCie support is usually excellent, you might give them a call, if you can't find enough on their site.
    Look in Disk Utility... is it mounted, or grayed out?
    Does it show a volume or not (the indented listing under the drive icon)
    If it's not mounted, try choosing it and using the mount icon.
    Have you tried reformatting the drive?
    Launch/Utilities/Terminal and enter this command at the prompt:diskutil listPress return. Note the number of the disk (far left column) you want to unmount.
    Launch/Utilities/Terminal and enter this command at the prompt:
    diskutil list
    Press return.
    If it sees the disk, note the number of the disk (far left column) you want to mount.
    Then, enter this command:
    mount /dev/(number of disk)
    Put in the number without parenthesis.
    Press Return.
    You may also want to run sudo diskutil repairVolume /dev/(the number of the disk)
    Let us know.
    -mj

  • External hard drive for iMac with snow leopard and window XP

    I have snow leopard with windows XP ON MY MAC. WHICH EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE SHOULD I USE

    Any make and model of any size will work. But if yoyu plan on using it for both Windows and Mac OS X it needs to be formatted FAT32 or exFAT.

  • Moving folders to an external hard drive - LR3.2, Mac Snow Leopard

    I apologize for this right off, but after reading other threads in this forum, buying a book, and watching a video, I'm more confused than ever! I want to move (not copy), 6 months of folders, with their subfolders, meta-data and keywords, off my laptop hard drive onto an external hard drive, to free up room on my laptop. Then I want to be able to access them with the LR catalog on the external drive. The catalog I'm currently using (pointing to all my 2010 pictures) also contains more recent folders that I don't want to export, as they're still current. From my studies, there are all kinds of suggestions about creating new folders by drag and drop, using the plus sign, exporting catalogs etc., but nothing that tells me step by step how to achieve what I want to do! Could some kind person please walk me through this?
    Thnaks,
    Richard

    To make LR "see" your external hard drive, you have to make a folder on it from within LR.
    In the Library Module, click on the "+" icon in the Folders-panel, then click "Add folder".
    Navigate to your external hard drive and create folder, call it whatever you want it to be.
    Right click the new folder and click on "Add parent folder"; the drive should then become visible.
    Then drag and drop your images into that folder.
    WW

  • I have seen so much response about the Mountain Lion update slowing down computers.  I am updating from Mac OS x 10.6.8.  What can I do to ensure the upgrade will go fine?  Do I unplug my external hard drive before installing, or keep it plugged in?

    I have seen so much response about the Mountain Lion update slowing down computers.  I am updating from Mac OS x 10.6.8.  What can I do to ensure the upgrade will go fine?  Do I unplug my external hard drive before installing, or keep it plugged in?
    Also, I have the 08 version of iWork. Will this cause problems for the update?  Can I update this AFTER I update the processor?

    Welcome to Apple Support Communities
    There's no reason to think that Mountain Lion will slow down your Mac. Just make a backup of your data before upgrading with Time Machine > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
    Also, check that your apps are compatible > http://www.roaringapps.com Upgrade them to a compatible version or delete them before upgrading.
    The external drive won't make the OS X Mountain Lion installer fail, but it's better to unplug it during the upgrade.
    iWork '08 is compatible with Mountain Lion. iWork '09 includes OS X Mountain Lion features and can be purchased at the Mac App Store.
    To upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion, I recommend at least 4 GB of RAM. You can check how much memory you have in Apple menu > About this Mac

  • After installing a new hard drive can I install snow leopard directly from snow leopard disc

    After installing a new hard drive can I install snow leopard directly from snow leopard disc. Or do I have to install previous versions first. iMac 7.1 (2007) 2.8ghz

    You can install directly, assuming the disk is newer than your computer and not designed for a different Mac, but doing so won't install iLife.
    (64305)

  • Help?  Can not find external hard drive after upgrading to 10.6.3

    I upgraded my iMac to Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and now my external hard drive does not appear.  Not sure what to do.

    It is powered (the light is on).  I was uploading photos from the drive yesterday, so it worked perfectly fine before the upgrade to 10.6.8 (which I did during the night).  Is there anything else to try before I move it to another computer to see if it works?  Again, thanks.

  • Can't open external hard drive after upgrading to photos 9.6

    I know there have been other variations to this question but mine's a bit different and I didn't find a conversation about this yet:
    I've always backed up all my pictures on an external hard drive (Seagate, standard, works with all computers). After I upgraded to Yosemite 10.10.1 and therefore iPhotos 9.6, I haven't been able to access them at all. I'm trying not to panic and am wondering what I can do. There's no way that the upgrade DELETED everything on my hard drive, right?!? Checking the back-up (i.e., Time Machine) on my laptop doesn't help in this case because none of the photos were there in the first place. Please help!
    MacBook (13-inch, Late 2009)
    Processor 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
    Memory 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

    It is powered (the light is on).  I was uploading photos from the drive yesterday, so it worked perfectly fine before the upgrade to 10.6.8 (which I did during the night).  Is there anything else to try before I move it to another computer to see if it works?  Again, thanks.

  • Can't mount WD external hard drive after upgrade to Mountain Lion

    I have two external hard drives on my iMac.  One for Time Machine and Aperture Library Files (My Book Essentials formatted Mac OS Extended Journaled) - this works fine. 
    The other is an older WD 500Gb drive which is partitioned Windows_Fat_32.  (Keep in mind, I'm not even sure what this means exactly).  It contained my iTunes library and a lot of photo backups.  It worked fine on my iMac with Snow Leopard, but since upgrading to Mountain Lion, it won't mount.  I get an error that says "this drive is not readable by this computer" and I get options to "intialize", "ignore", or "eject".  Disk Utility sees the drive but won't let me do anything with it.  Is there a way to salvage this data?  I don't mind reformatting after I move the data or getting a new drive, but I don't want to lose the data.  My iTunes music files are extensive and they are on the good external drive, but the "library" is on the bad one...
    Sorry if I haven't explained well..

    hi,
    it is kind of late, but I wonder, did you manage to solve the issue?
    I have lacie drives, and the firmware upgrade is apparently required, but I cannot find the appropriate one at lacie's website... the ones i tried do not recognize my drive...
    my lacie quadra d2 250 GB (USB, FW 400, 800) goes to sleep, and does not wake up....
    I'm still searching for help...
    ps: lacie's support page is quite hard to pierce, they require one to sign up, but no support for latinaamerican countries... so I could not sign up, therefore could not reach their support

  • Not recognizing external hard drive after upgrading to mountain lion

    I recently upgraded to mountain lion.  While my external hard drive originally showed on the desktop it does not anymore,  The hard drive is partitioned between my wife (laptop) and my desktop.  My wife's part does show on the desktop but mine does not.  From reading some of the issues on the Support Community I did a disk repair as it does show up under disk utility.  Although the disk repair was performed successfully, it still does not appear.  I read some other comments about Fuse but I don't understand what this is about.  Any suggestions to get my external hard drive back so I can keep my computer backed up.  Thanks.

    It is powered (the light is on).  I was uploading photos from the drive yesterday, so it worked perfectly fine before the upgrade to 10.6.8 (which I did during the night).  Is there anything else to try before I move it to another computer to see if it works?  Again, thanks.

  • Lost files on external hard drive after upgrading to 10.8

    I needed to format my laptop and upgrade it from 10.6 to 10.08
    i uploaded everything on an external hard drive
    some files had some names like "Music", "Pictures", etc ...
    but I named two files "                     " by that name the the icon i made it transperant
    when i came to copy everything from the external hard drive everything was ok but the two files with the space name and transperant icon
    they disappeared at all and i even tried showing hidden files by terminal and it didn't work
    i tried installing NTFS but still didn't work
    the problem is that i know they are not deleted but they are somewhere hidden because when i uploaded the files to the external hard drive the free space on it was the same so the files are there and they are not deleted
    i just dont know how to get them back i even tried on windows 7 i did see the files but can't copy them and it tells me that they are under use
    help please ???

    It is powered (the light is on).  I was uploading photos from the drive yesterday, so it worked perfectly fine before the upgrade to 10.6.8 (which I did during the night).  Is there anything else to try before I move it to another computer to see if it works?  Again, thanks.

  • Should I disconnect external hard drive before updating to yosemite

    I have an external hard drive (time machine) connected. Should I disconnect before upgrading to Yosemite?

    It shouldn't matter since the install only affects the internal drive.

  • How do I delete photos from an external hard drive before downloading to my new Mac?

    I have a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex external hard drive that has all my photos from my old computer on it  Because there are thousands, I want to delete a bunch of them before downloading onto my new Mac.  However, when I click on the photos, they say "locked."  Once I have the photos trimmed down, how do I get the to download to my Mac?

    Don't touch that one !
    I was hoping that in addition to that there should be another device listed, namely the USB External HD you've got plugged into the USB port. It should show up something like this:

Maybe you are looking for