Saving data to external hard drive

I want to make sure that I am saving my data/photos/music correctly on my external hard drive. I usually plug in my hard drive then plug it in the computer. I open up the icon of it on my desktop. then I drag my files to it. Is that correct? If so, will you list the steps for me so that I can refer to them in the future?

That sounds right and when you are ready to disconnect, you drag the icon to the Trash can turned Eject and wait for it to unmount and then physically disconnect.
What your doing is manually backing up files to a storage drive and it can be used to transfer files to other Mac's or PC's.
Now of course is the problem of the format of the external drive and what you intend to do with it.
For instance the format your using now is likely just fine between Mac's and PC's for under 4GB sized files.
But once you have a large movie or something else to copy that's over 4GB in size, you might run into problems and need to get a copy of the data off and right click format the drive exFAT on a Windows PC (the oldest one you connect to)
So I suggest you read all about drives and their formatting here
Drives, partitions, formatting w/Mac's + PC's
Also learn about other various backup options like TimeMachine and bootable clones.
Most commonly used backup methods

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Saving data to external hard drive and which camera to buy?

Hi everyone! I'm getting started with my editing and shooting in the next few days and I had a couple questions.
1. If I want to save all my date to an external hard drive, so that it wont take up space on my MacBook Pro, how do I change the pathing so it'll save on the external and not the Macbook.
2. I have 1000 to spend on a camera. I know a 3CCD, mini-dv with an external mic output is best, so what's a good camera considering? The Canon XL2, GL2...? If anyone has any suggestions, let me know!
Thank you so much, looking forward to contributing to this community!
-Ro

I looked on eBay and saw that you can get a used GL2 for under $1000. I have a GL1 and like it very much. I capture to a second internal HD so I don't have any connection problems. With a MBP I recommend an external drive connected by Firewire as you are planning.
I see on this forum some people have had trouble with Canon cameras on a Firewire port shared with other devices. As a test I tried connecting my GL1 to my external backup drive through a second Firewire connector (I believe that's called daisy chaining) and I had no problem with FCE recognizing my camera by switching to the "Basic" Easy Set Up setting.
In the System Settings you can set where you want to save your files.

Install data from external hard drive?

Hi, we have our old macbook data saved on external hard drive (old laptop had water damage but able to retrieve data). I now have new macbook, how do I install data from external hard drive to new macbook? Is it super easy? I didn't want to set up new laptop until I could understand how to install all our old data. Thanks

Do you have the appropriate cable to connect the external drive to to new Macbook?
If you do, the rest is easy. Connect the drive and start up the new Mac. The first steps in the setup will be to enter information about yourself, etc. etc. As you proceed you will be asked if you want to bring in data from another place. Just follow the directions, and the Mac Setup Assistant will do everything for you.
The critical part is making sure the external is corectly connected to the new computer.

I had all of my video files that I work on in iMovie saved to an external hard drive exclusively to save space on my Macbook. I had just finalized a project, went to work on another one and files couldn't be found, were not deleted how do I find them?

I had all of my video files that I work on in iMovie saved to an external hard drive exclusively to save space on my Macbook. The other day I had just finalized a project and went to work on another one and when I opened the project I could see what should have been there, but scrolling over the entire clip I would only see black and that the file was missing. I did not drag anything on the hard drive to the trash or move anything. How can I get those files? These are videos of my kids and I am devastated and willing to try anything!

Control click does not work - no option to find files. I have no idea what to do. When I look at the usage of the external drive the space is being used, but I cannot find the files. I am going to try MacKeeper's Undelete and see if I can make any progress with it.

Copy Data from external hard drive to tc via usb

how do iCopy Data from external hard drive to tc via usb

you can't - unless you're willing to void your warranty by removing the TC's HD from the device, put it in an external enclosure, and connect that to your computer.

Recovering data from external hard drive

I backed up music,pictures and personal documents
It said backup was successful, I they to retrieve some documents and none of the those files were in that restored folder

Very similar with your experience
Last time when I was in Rio, I took part in the famous Carnival there with my boyfriend and we took a lot of interesting photos there. About one week ago, one of my friends asked me to show her the photos. However, it turned out to be inaccessible and the PC can not read the data on the drive. And the PC suggested me to format the external hard drive for reusing it again.
people often lose their data from External hard drive, a handy external hard drive data recovery software will be highly recommended to you, ---- EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard
Launch EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, Then click next button
Select the disk where you lost your data and click Scan button, the software will quickly scan the selected disk to find your target files.
Watch the video below, step by step, you can recover your data.
https://youtu.be/ZA4XzL1mD1s

Hard drive replaced on imac how to restore data from external hard drive

Hard drive crashed, replaced by authorized dealer. Need to transfer all data from external hard drive to repaired computer.

http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/14.html
See especially C.

I can not save any data to external hard drive from my mac pro. Is there anyone can help me in this regard?( note, when i first plug my ext. drive to mac i chose option to backup later)

I can not save any data to external hard drive from my mac pro. Is there anyone can help me in this regard?( note, when i first plug my ext. drive to mac i chose option to backup later)

The device may be formatted for Windows, as NTFS. The format is readable, but not natively writable on a Mac. To write to the device, you must either reformat it (erasing all the contents) or install third-party software to enable write access to NTFS.

Recover data from external hard drive that was Windows format and connected on a Macbook Pro. Did I lose everything? What happened?

Hi there this is my first question here!
I connected my external hard drive originally formatted on PC on my new Macbook. The first time I connected it I could see all my files but today I connected it and after I couldn't see any file nor even on my pc appears as NO NAME with a different name and nothing on it. I think was reformatted, any help to recover all my data?
It's really important stuff for me

If the Apple Store couldn't get files off of the drive, it is unlikely that you will be able to. If you have backups, those would be the best way to go. You could also try booting up the computer and holding down T to boot into Target Disk Mode. Plug the broken computer into another one with FireWire and see if it works to recover data from external hard drive. If you can see it, try booting up the broken computer while holding down Option. Choose Recovery HD from the menu, then choose to Reinstall OS X.
It is unlikely that this will work, because I'm pretty sure that the Apple Store would have tried this. You could try using expensive software to get files off the drive, but it would be risky and the results might not be any good.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4273

How do I transfer data from external hard drive to new computer

We had been using a PC with XP that had four different users and ITune libraries. It was attacked by viruses that got deep in op system and could not be fixed. We purchased a new PC with Windows 8. I had transfered the itune files by copying them from the hard drive to a external hard drive. Is there a way to transfer the files from the external hard drive to the iTunes that I just downloaded onto the new computer. I thought that it would be as easy as copying the files from the external hard drive to the iTunes file on the new computer but this did not work. If I go into iTunes and select copy file from library it will import the file just file but I really don't want to copy thousands of files one by one. However, when I try to open those files I get an error message. We have two iPads and four iPod Touches. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I found a posted answer from someone else who asked the same question and it worked. It said to copy the entire file that was saved on the external hard drive to the my music folder before ever opening ITunes that was newly installed and it worked.

Hi,disc wiped ,OSX10.9 back on ,how do I restore my data from external hard drive ?Any help welcome .

Hi,disc wiped ,OSX10.9 back on ,how do I restore my data from external hard drive ?Any help welcome .

There's Setup Assistant and Migration Assistant. The cleanest way to do it is Setup Assistant, but you only get that option once when you fire up a fresh install of OSX. If you're past that, you could reinstall OSX by booting with Command-R, or you could use Migration Assistant.
Setup/Migration Assistant instructions:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5872

Have old MacBook Pro running tiger 10.4 want to save date to external hard drive and buy newer MacBook and still use same drive. Any suggestions, most WD drives say nothing about os tiger 10.4.

Have old MacBook Pro running tiger 10.4 want to save date to external hard drive and buy newer MacBook and still use same drive. Any suggestions, most WD drives say nothing about os tiger 10.4. The OS compatibility is much newer on the data. Totally confused. Not a computer person.

I haven't checked reviews recently but there's a difference between bare drives and drives with enclosures. Western Digital made some of the most reliable drives last time I checked, though the enclosures weren't all that great. It is convenient to get both in one package but I usually buy a highly rated enclosure and then put a highly rated drive in it myself. OWC sells some good enclosures but if they put a so-so drive inside of it then the package is only as good as its weakest component. If you get a package from them, ask them what drive is inside (some vendors have no idea what's inside - went to an Apple Store recently and they couldn't tell me what was inside some of their Apple brand enclosures). My first thought if buying a new drive would be to buy a OWC enclosure with a WD drive, but chek around because I may be out of date.
10 years ago Seagate was one of the best drives. Now they rate poorly in reviews.

To index data in external hard drives

I'm using Time Capsule 500GB and Seagate external hard. My iMac and these two hard drives are connected wirelessly. I want to index data in those drives by using Spotlight but I can only index information in my iMac's internal hard. What should I do to index data in external hard drives?

I resolved this problem. Just go to Time Capsule in Finder and search in the upper right corner of Finder! It was more easier than I expected.
Message was edited by: JesseKimjd

Project will not open when saved to an external hard-drive

Hi,
Well, as the title says, I cannot reopen a project when saved to an external hard-drive, it will however do so when I save to a local drive... Not good if you wanna work around several workstations, any ideas as to why?
Thanks,
Phil.

Are you using Final Cut Pro?
You should be asking on that forum. It would be beneficial if you provided some concrete information, what computer, what drives, how are they formatted, how are they connected, what exactly happens when you try to open it?

I am using referenced images, saved on an external hard drive. It would be most helpful to transfer the new captions (version name) to the referenced images which still have the camera code on them. How can this be done? Thanks so much!

I am using referenced images, saved on an external hard drive. It would be most helpful to transfer the new captions (version name) to the referenced images which still have the camera code on them. How can this be done? Thanks so much!

You're question is hard to follow. Are you looking to rename your master files to the version name? Or are you looking to do something with IPTC caption field and the masters?

Saving data to external hard drive

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