Suggestions.. HELP.. for editting.. Internal or External Hard Drives?

Im using FCP 5 for editting.. and I want to know what I need for my edittings.
Internal or External Hard Drives? and why? FireWire800...
Thanks...

My suggestion is to keep the internal drive for your OS system and applications and get Raided external drives (like 0 or5) to edit on the fly.
To learn more about RAID system read the link below or just google it as there's a lot to read on the web.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
Also google eSATA and Fibre-channel drives to compare speeds, specs, system requirement etc.

Similar Messages

Backup internal and external hard drives-TC and offsite

I now have Mavericks 10.9.3 on my iMac with a 2TB (1.25 TB used) internal hard drive.
I also have some external drives attached to my iMac with older iPhoto libraries and other files (total file sizes 940 GB and 505 GB). I primarily use Aperture now on my internal hard drive, but still access those iPhoto libraries on my external drives on occasion. I have Time Machine backup my iMac internal hard drive on my 2TB Time Capsule regularly.
My primary question is in regards to getting another copy onto a larger external drive that covers my internal and external drives so I can have a backup off-site. Online backup services seem to always exclude external drives. So a physical drive I can have offsite seems to be the best option.
A year ago I changed the destination of my Time Machine backup to be on a 3TB external drive (backed up iMac internal hard drive and the two externals). However, when I changed the destination of the backup back to the Time Capsule, the TM initiated a brand new backup (it did not recall that I had backed up prior to that on my Time Capsule).
I want to backup monthly, if not quarterly for my off-site storage. But, if every time I change the destination drive for TM, a new backup profile is created, it will overwork my drives unnecessarily.
Is there a backup program or a process on "disk utility" I could run parallel to TM that I just use quarterly capturing only the changes/additions in those few months for both the internal and external hard drives? Also, is there a way to add an external drive to my Time Capsule that is solely used to wirelessly backup the two externals on a regular basis (i.e. keep the internal 2TB drive backing up to the Time Capsule; and the external hard drive attached to Time Capsule via USB used as the backup drive for the external hard drives)?
Summary: I need to backup regularly to the local Time Capsule/additional external hard drive. The data will come from my internal hard drive and my two external hard drives. I also want to do quarterly backups of the additions/changes to all three drives to have on an offsite external drive that I manually backup to quarterly. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Carbon Copy Cloner is not on the App store.
Correct.. it is not approved because Apple do not like the fact that CCC (and most likely superduper) which are the most popular backup software for Mac because it makes a bootable clone. Apple will never approve of that. But let me assure you that is the genius of it. If the internal disk fails, you simply boot from the external. It is $40 but you can use on all the computers in your home.
CCC is a clone.. ie when it does the backup, any changes on the drive are changed on the clone. It does not work like Time Machine which simply piles up incrementals until the drive fills up. The idea of CCC is a backup of the drive as it exists at any point in time. TM btw is also not a reliable archive, ie it thins backups constantly.. so you should never rely on it to archive old versions.. but in the middle of a project it does a good job to keep various versions of your files. That is why I specifically said in my last post do not stop using it.
and you can keep using the TC just for the internal drive.
Keep TM running to the TC.. that will then keep a current hourly incremental of your drive. You can set CCC in a way which is a lot more flexible. ie backup just at the end of the day. There is no need for constant hourly backups. So to answer the second question.. you are still using your TC and TM.. but I suggest you only backup the internal drive.
Please read a bit from forum expert Pondini on the value of clones and TM.
http://pondini.org/TM/Clones.html
That's why many folks use both Time Machine and a bootable clone, to have two separate, independent backups, with the advantages of both. If one fails, the other remains.
Now the ports issue.
You can of course continue to use USB2. Just that moving large volumes around will be slow.. as doubtless you already know.
On your particular Mac since you missed out on USB3 which is a pain.. you can buy a Thunderbolt to USB3 adapter like the belkin.
http://www.belkin.com/au/p/P-F4U055/
I suggested the Thunderbolt to Esata (it is an older interface and the adapter is rather cheaper but I hear more reliable.. check reviews for both).
http://store.apple.com/au/product/H8875ZM/A/lacie-esata-hub-thunderbolt-series
Sata is the interface of the hard disk.. Esata just means external sata.. so it is native and without conversion.
I was merely suggesting ways to speed things up. But as long as you don't run CCC on more than daily basis then I think you will be fine just with USB 2. It will take a while on the day you do the swap over for the archive volume, but if you turn off the power saving in the Mac and leave it run overnight it should be able to do most of it.. you need to realise it will have to deep scan both the disks.. to compare files.. but CCC is based on Rsync and it is extremely fast and efficient. I am just not sure I know how long it will take to do. Anyway.. there is a plan.. tweak and adapt as you see fits your needs.

ILife with both internal and external hard drives?

I've been considering switching from a homebrew, multi-boot desktop to a MacBook for my primary computer, in part so I can hang out with my family in the living room rather than be exiled to the home office when I want to compute.
But here's my concern: I have media. We have about 50 GB of iTunes; maybe 30 GB of iPhoto; and tons and tons of digital video that would be stored in iMovie. Obviously the libraries are all interlinked. And it's all growing. I also like to rip DVDs and re-encode them for my iPod and AppleTV. Right now, my desktop has 480 GB of internal storage and that's just about enough.
I have discovered that the MacBook only comes with an option up to 250 GB. I absolutely need AppleCare, so I can't get an aftermarket hard drive. (All my Macs break - this one from the office that I'm on right now has a bum DVD drive, and my wife's has needed both fan and logic board replacements.)
While I'm aware of the existence of external hard drives, I'm concerned about Apple's non-external-hard-drive-friendly way of storing iLife data. If I wanted to keep more recent or useful music and photos on the internal drive but older stuff on an external, and still be able to use iLife seamlessly, would that be possible? (I see myself editing recent video in the living room, but then hooking back into the external HD in the office if I need older stuff.)
What solutions are out there for integrating data stores on both internal and external hard drives into an iLifestyle?
Thanks!

Sascha Segan1 wrote:
.. What solutions are out there for integrating data stores on both internal and external hard drives into an iLifestyle?
all iApps (iPhoto, iTunes, iM08) support usage of external drives as 'mass storage' devices.. you can tell all apps which drive to use for the Libraries.. there some tools out there, which even allow the usage of 2/many different Libraries in iTunes/iPhoto..
for iM in detail: the Projects are small files, and should stay internal (allthough I'm discribing a 'hack' on my site: http://karsten.schluter.googlepages.com/im08tricks Project Library (and Events) on External Harddrive); the Events (=GBs) could be located on as much ext. HDDs as you want..
but ...
all iApps are single-user .. you can NOT 'share' Libraries to 2/many different users; the idea of a 'media server' which hosts/shares all kind of data to all kind of users is not 'on concept' of iLife ..

I have a external hard drive connected, Finder will not let me search for files in the external hard drive how do i search in a hard drive

i have a external hard drive connected, Finder will not let me search for files in the external hard drive how do i search in a hard drive

What are you using to search? You should be able to search any drive in from the Finder. If you're having trouble, try "EasyFind" from the App Store (free). You can search any volumes with it.
Clinton

URGENT HELP: Need to reformat an external hard drive for Mac/Win!

We got a Desk Hammer external hard drive and my hubby chose to format it as Mac Only when it first initialized. We needed it to be formatted for Mac/Win usage. Now we cannot figure otu how to reinitialize and reformat it. It's been years since I messed with his Mac. Help--right now we just have a big old doorstop instead of a hard drive! BTW Desk Hammer is no help with support (I guess that's why they were on sale); their website isn't even complete!

Use the Disk Utility application found in /Applications/Utilities to format the Drive as MS-DOS File System. This will be readable by both Mac and Windows platforms.
Hope this helps! bill
1 GHz Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

HELP!! Problems using external hard drive

I have moved my iTunes music library from my internal hard drive on my laptop to a new external hard drive in order to free up space on my laptop. The problem I now experience is that when my external hard drive is conected and turned on, my computer will not recognize my iPod. When I turn the external hard drive off, my computer will then recognize my iPod. I can use one or the other but I can't use both at the same time. Because of this problem I can't access my iTunes music library with my iPod in order to update my iPod with new music that has been added to the music library on the external hard drive.
Is it that I need a Firewire conection possibly? If so, is there any way around that? Any help would be appreciated!
MY COMPUTER (purchased new in 2006)
Gateway Laptop running Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
70 gig hard drive
1.83GHz - 480 MB Ram
MY IPOD (purchased new in 2006)
80 gig - video enabled
MY EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE (purchased new in 2007)
Western Digital "My Book" Essential Edition (USB)
250 gig (NTFS)

Change the drive letter for the external drive.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93499

Help/explanation needed - Using an external hard drive

Hi everyone,
I bought an external 250gb hard drive as my MBP was very close to full capacity. Yesterday, I had a bit of a scare...
1. I backed up my Aperture Library onto the external hard drive.
2. I had about 500 of my favourite images rated 5 star and so I selected these and set up a new project.
3. I went through my Aperture library deleting folders/projects that I have completed.
4. I went back into the 5 star ratings and they did not exist. I assume this is because I deleted the master files.
5. I wanted to have the 5 star images on my laptop and so I connected my external hard drive once again. [This is where I felt I lost control and understanding of what was going on].
6. I looked for the seperate Aperture files but could only find a file called Aperture Library. I clicked on this but nothing happened at all [I had thought that it would open up Aperture with the previous library].
7. I dragged the library onto my desktop and waiting for all the images to reload onto my laptop. I then saw that everything was as it was previously, i.e. all the files and images existed. However, my hard drive space was even lower [I assume this was because the current workflow that I had left on the laptop was now duplicated?].
8. Then I got a message saying my iDisk space is critically low and may damage my Aperture library. Moments later the majority of my images disappeared and a red space appeared where every photo had previously been. Since I have 2 weddings that I am yet to deliver I was very panicked. I tried to drag and drop the Aperture library once again and the message came back that the operation could not be completed due to the current file already existing.
9. I unplugged the external hard drive and the photos re-appeared [much to my delight]. However, my concern is that I really don't understand what happened and more importantly why. I will need access to the data on the external hard drive in the event in the near future and am worried that the same thing will happen next time I connect it.
As a result of all this I have some questions, as follows:-
- Have I adopted the completely wrong approach to backing up data?
- Can the master files be compressed as I shoot RAW and these are huge files?
- Why could I not use the Aperture library stored on the external hard drive without downloading it back onto the laptop?
and a more general question about file storage...
- I am confused as to how much hard drive space is being used on my MBP. I have 13gb in Aperture, 1gb in iTunes and 1gb in iPhoto. However, I only have 50gb available, so half the capacity is currently being used. I know that Aperture and Garageband applications use about 10gb between them and there is of course the operating system, but 50gb in total seems a lot. On investigation in the finder screen I see that on my personal drive the Aperture, iTunes and iPhoto data is stored there. However, it is also stored under pictures and music respectively. Does this mean that it is storing duplicate copies of this data and that is the explanation for such high hard drive usage? If this is the case, can one be removed?
I appreciate that this has been a long email, but I felt it was important to illustrate the steps I have taken. As you will no doubt glean from this post I am not the most computer literate person. Any help/explanation would be most appreciated.
Many thanks,
Jamie

Hi Jamie.
I am not sure what went wrong with your setup but I will let you know my configuration as an example and you can decide if you think it is a good way to have it. I am asuming you are using ver 1.5?
Like you I have only a Laptop (G4 17" 1.5Ghz 2 Gig Ram - would love a macbook) so hard disk space is a premium. I also have an external firewire drive to hold all the HiRes RAW images. When I download my images from the Camera I do it manually into folders on the external drive (Cataloged by Date and maybe description of location). I then Import the images from those folders into Aperture but use the option when importing to "Store Files - In their current location".
My Aperture library file is on my laptop so all that it has to store is the "Preview" file that gets generated automatically (in the preferences I have it set up to the resolution of my laptop 1440pix so that if I did a slide show it is only as big as my screen - anything more is a waste of disk space IMO.)
I do it this way so that it is easy to find and work on my files with other programs such as Photoshop by going straight to the image rather than exporting from Aperture.
Obviously I cant edit the RAW files while the drive is disconnected but I can still do ratings and keywords without the original files being there.
I hope this helps.
Regards
Andrew
G4 17inch Mac OS X (10.4.8) 2 Gigs RAM

Can I split my itunes music library between and internal and external hard drive?

Is it possible to have music on the two different drives and still be able to make playlists from both drives to put on my ipod? Here's my situation: I'm using a Dell 32 bit computer running Vista Home Premium SP2 which I share with other users. I have a large itunes library (40g+ of music only) that's starting to hog the hard disk space from other users. If possible, I would like to split off part of my itunes library to an external hard drive while still having access to the entire library for my ipod. Ideally I would like to have all my downloaded songs on both the internal and external drives so I'll have backups in case a drive fails, while putting all the music I have hard copies of solely on the external drive. Any help on how this can be done would be appreciated.

If you manually manage your itues library, you can store parts of it on an external drive, or on an internal drive. Just keep in mind that in iTunes that you must set a default location for iTunes to manage it's files, and that will be the default location for iTunes to store anything it downloads. You would need to manuay manage moving things from there if tht is not where you want them stored.
Perhaps a "better" solution would be for you to invest a little mone into 2 external drives. One to hold your entire iTunes library, and the second to be your off-line backup of the first. This is the method I have gone with and I like how it works for me. My entire iTunes library is on an external (portable) 320GB drive. Then, when iTunes is not running, I will clone my external drive onto a second drive I happen to have, this way if I have any failure of my primary drive, I lose at most about a weeks worth of content. For me, I purchase little content during a week, but I do move a fairly large volume of podcasts. With the entire library being on the external drive, if I ever have to swap to using my backup drive iTunes wil just think that it hasn't run and downloaded anything for a week, and all the "lost" content will be re-downloaded automatically. This won't work for apps or purchased content, but for subscribed podcasts, it is great.

Brand New iMac 24" internal or external hard drive upgrade to 1TB?

I just purchased a brand new iMac 24" MB325LL with a 320GB hard drive. I currently have 432GB of data on my PC and I would like to upgrade the hard drive to 1TB. I have 2 options and I need your advice:
Option #1 » Cost:CDN*$255*
Buy a Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB from DirectCanada.com for CDN$155 (tax+shipping included). Get it installed by a certified Apple technician for CDN$100 in Toronto. I doubt I can get it installed for a lower fee.
Option #2 » Cost:CDN*$317*
Buy a LaCie D2 1TB external hard drive with Firewire 800 for CDN$317 (tax+shipping included) either from a U.S. retailer (e.g. iUnitek) or a Canadian one. Prices at Canadian online retailers start from CDN$266 + CDN$37 (13% tax) + CDN$18 (shipping) = CDN$321, which is just CDN$4 more than in the States, taking into account the exchange rate.
So, there you. From the financial point of view, the incentive is to get an internal hard drive, which I don't mind at all. I'd like to install Vista on a 30-40GB partition, if that makes a difference. If I were to get an external hard drive, I would keep all of my data (e.g. music, movies, documents, music, etc) on it and reserve the internal 320GB hard drive for system files and OS.
What would justify paying a premium for an external hard drive other than portability? If I were to get one, I would need to be able to access it not only from my iMac's Vista partition, but also from my HP Vista laptop. Same applies to the internal hard drive. If I were to get a Samsung F1, I would still need to access my mac files from Vista's partition (when I boot into Vista) as well as from my HP Vista laptop (over wi-fi). FYI: I have no use for Time Machine, since I've never deleted a file which I needed to recover..well, maybe once or twice. What I DO need is a utility to synchronize files across machines. Hence, I will need some kind of program to automatically sync my iMac files with my HP laptop files. Currently, I utilize SyncBackSE to sync files between my HP laptop and my PC over Wi-Fi every morning at 6am. Works like a charm.
That's my dilemma in a nutshell. Any comments, suggestions and words of wisdom are welcome.
P.S. I'm also planning on upgrading RAM to 4GB. Newegg.ca is running a promotion (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227251): $72 CDN minus $20 USD mail-in rebate. It's not related to my question in any way, but some Canadians might find this info relevant.

Well, I don't have the budget for both and as I've already pointed out, Time Machine does not address my needs. It's a great backup solution, but what I need is a synchronization solution. I need to have the same versions of basic files, such as music, photos, documents, and other miscellaneous stuff on my iMac and my HP Vista laptop. Even if I were to get a MacBook in the future, I would still need the same set-up. That way, if something happens to either my iMac or my MacBook, I would always be able to simply copy-paste files from one machine to another. That's, sort of, my version of a perfect backup solution...unless, there's an option to load up files from a Time Machine backup onto a separate one (e.g. MacBook). In the end, Time Machine only partially addresses my need in keeping 2 machines backed up in a sense that it only backs up one of them. My solution kills 2 birds with one stone. I would have 2 syncronized computers (e.g. iMac + HP Laptop, iMac + MacBook) AND both computers would serve as mutual backup sources, since whatever happens to one of them, I would always be able to copy data from the other.
The problem arises when I factor in the sheer number of gigabytes required on the portable computer to mirror everything from the iMac, whether be it a Windows laptop or a MacBook. I would always have more data on my iMac than the available space on a smaller hard drive. I now have 432GB of stuff and I can presume that this number will only grow. Hence, at any given time I would be able to synchronize only the most essential files to the laptop. Ideally, I would need a NAS which would collect = synchronize data from both machines. That way, whenever files get modified, changes would automatically be transferred to the NAS and routed further down the chain to the iMac. It would work both ways, obviously. In that scenario, I don't need to worry about any of the computers, since whichever one fails on me, I would always have a copy of the entire collection of files. Now, that I doubt Time Machine can accomplish.

Help! Data lost on external hard drive.

Well, I will explain what I did first.
I have an external hard drive. It has 4 FAT32 partitions, the 1st and 3rd ones are empty, the 2nd and 4th ones has about 10G data on each. I wanted to make a minimum backup of the current Tiger system with Superduper! to partition (or volume) 1. So I moved all my photos, musics and documents out from the internal hard drive to the 4th partition on the external hard drive. Then, I deleted all the original files on the internal hard drive, and emptied the Trash, sign... And then, I tried to use Superduper! to make a backup of the only volume on the internal hard drive. I chose the method of "volume to volume". I forgot I have another option to just make a backup image of this volume. I guess if I did that, it would save me all the trouble that I have right now. Anyway, after I hit "copy now", Superduper! tells me that I have to use a volume that has a format of Mac OS Extended in order to do that. So I used the disk utility to convert the 1st FAT32 partition to Mac OS extended format as suggested by Superduper!. I think the disk utility told me that this operation would deleted everything on that volume, however, it won't affect the other 3 volumes. Since it is empty, I proceeded. However, it ended up with an error. I forget what it said now. The result is that all the four volumes are not accessible to either mac or windows OS. I successfully retrieved all the files on partition 2 of that external hard drive to another disk with EasyRecovery Pro. They all seem good. I tried the same thing on partition 4. I do get all the files that are moved there long time ago using windows. However, only a few files that are just moved to it from the internal hard drive using Mac OS Tiger right before the disaster were retrieved with success. All the others including my iPhoto and iTune Library are nowhere to be found now.
I tried Data Rescue II (for mac) on my internal hard drive hoping that it might find the files that I deleted, however, I think running the Tiger OS itself may have changed the information on the disk already, so it doesn't really give me the files I wanted. Maybe it did find most of them, but they are not grouped in a folder like what they were before. Anyway, I think I have a better change with the external hard drive since it is not even accessible without a software that is dedicated to recover files.
Right now, I am out of ideas. Please tell me what I can do to get those missing files back. Any suggestion is welcome. Thank you!

"Stellar Phoenix Macintosh - Mac data recovery software, recovers data from damaged, deleted, or corrupted volumes and even from initialized disks."
They have a trial version, so I guess you can see if your data can be recovered...
http://www.stellarinfo.com/mac-data-recovery.htm
"Data Rescue II is the best data recovery software on the market for recovering files from a problem hard drive. Data Rescue II works when other tools fail. Data Rescue II is also completely safe to use since it does not attempt any risky repairs to the drive while its scanning."
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
FileSalvage is an extremely powerful Macintosh application for exploring and recovering deleted files from a drive or volume. FileSalvage is designed to restore files that have:
* been accidentally deleted.
* become unreadable due to media faults.
* been stored on a drive before it was re-initialized/formatted.
http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?mainpage=product_info&productsid=1
Entering:
mac data recovery
into Google will list some firms who specialize in recovering data. Data recovery isn't cheap.
Robert

Need help reinstalling Yosemite/Question about external hard drive

I have an early MacBook Pro and I have to reinstall Yosemite because I've been getting nothing but spinning beach balls, slow loading, lag in type showing up, and wi-fi issues. I took the laptop to the Genius Bar at the Apple store last week and they ran diagnostics on everything and all was perfectly OK. No hardware issues, no memory issue and he said my laptop was very clean. He saw the spinning beach ball many times while he was working on my laptop and suggested that I turn off File Vault as that could be causing the slowdown. He said if that didn't work (it didn't) to buy an external hard drive (which I received today) and to back up everything through Time Machine then reinstall Yosemite. I specifically bought an external HD that says "for Mac" and as soon as I connected it Time Machine opened and did the backup.
Now these are my questions. Are all my photos on iPhoto, and my Word for Mac documents backed up so that when I reinstall Yosemite, everything is going to be right where I left it? Will I lose Word for Mac and have to reinstall it? Isn't Word for Mac a one time use/install and will I have trouble and have to call Microsoft to input my authentication key in again and will they let me? I know silly questions but I'm really worried about losing stuff.
Also step-by-step detailed instruction on how to reinstall Yosemite would really be appreciated. Thank you!

YoJoLo wrote:
Are all my photos on iPhoto, and my Word for Mac documents backed up so that when I reinstall Yosemite, everything is going to be right where I left it?
If you have taken the backup using the Time machine then there is nothing to worry as all your photos from iPhotos and Word for mac documents are backup safely by your time machine.
Only keep one thing in mind that the external HDD which you use for the time machine backup should have the capacity size of about 3-4 times that of your backup data size. Or else, the time machine external drive will start deleting the files if the external drive is about to be full.
YoJoLo wrote:
Will I lose Word for Mac and have to reinstall it? Isn't Word for Mac a one time use/install and will I have trouble and have to call Microsoft to input my authentication key in again and will they let me?
You absolutely don’t have to reinstall the Word for mac if its install in the first place because Time machine will backup the system installed files of your MS Word which you had installed.
Word for mac is a one time install and you don’t have to call Microsoft for any authentication key after you have restored your Word backup files from the time machine drive. As I said before the time machine will backup your Word system installed files leaving you no chance to reinstall it again.
YoJoLo wrote:
Also step-by-step detailed instruction on how to reinstall Yosemite would really be appreciated. Thank you!
Here, Yosemite reinstall procedure......
Important: To reinstall OS X, you must be connected to the Internet. Make sure your power adapter is plugged in. Reinstall OS X using the built-in recovery disk.
In the menu bar, choose Apple menu > Restart. Once your Mac restarts (and the gray screen appears), hold down the Command and R keys.
Select Disk Utility, then click Continue.
Select your startup disk on the left, then click the Erase tab.
Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) from the Format menu, enter a name, then click Erase.
Important: Erasing the disk removes all the information from the disk. Be sure to back up the information you want to keep to an external device.
After the disk is erased, choose Disk Utility > Quit Disk Utility.
Select Reinstall OS X, click Continue, then follow the onscreen instructions.
Hope this helps.....

Internal to external hard drive questions (G4 iBook 10.3.9)

Hello All,
I have a G4 iBook that the internal hard drive has crashed. At the Apple store, they cannot get the drive to mount.... I have a friend that thinks he can get it to spin, and therefore thinks he can get any info that is not corrupted off the drive. That would be way cool!! He only wants me to bring him the drive, and is going to use a device that plugs into the drive just like it would in any computer, and at the other and it is USB on the end he will plug into his PC to make the transfer. Here comes where I need help. He is a PC guy, and knows nothing of Mac. If I buy an external hard drive will it need to be formatted HFS+ first in order to transfer any data that might still be good? I herd that most external drives come formatted in Fat32. Another thing is I would like to use this external hard drive for both my Mac at home, and a PC at work. i have herd that fat32 will work for both, but have herd some people having trouble with backing up a mac on a fat 32 partition.
If anyone has any other ideas of how to get what ever is left on my drive so that I can recover it, and also how I can use an external HD for mac and pc (although not simaltaniously)that would be cool.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Thanks,
Sean

I have encountered no problems with fat32 formatted drives. I format my flash drives the same way too. For backing up files or using the drives for file transfer between a Mac and a PC it's very convenient. You can't use a fat32 formatted drive for cloning PPC Mac hard drives. Your friend may also find he can't access the hard drive through a Windoze computer.

Need help moving music collection from external hard drive to Macbook Pro

     I just bought a Macbook Pro today after my Windows desktop was bricked a few weeks ago. Luckily, I didn't lose the most important files on my pc, my music, because it was all on my Zune, as well. So, I borrowed an external hard drive, copied all of the music from my zune onto a friend's pc, and then copied it again from their pc to the external. Finally, I just plugged the external into my new mac, copied the folder within it holding my music, and hit "paste item" in the "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder. Initially, everything seemed to work perfectly, however, after transferring a little over 7 of my 54gb of music, an error message appeared saying that the operation was ending because it could not transfer all files.
     I then tried playing a file off of the hard drive, a wma, and received a prompt that the file was incompatible with Quicktime player, the default for no apparent reason. I tried then opening it with iTunes, and nothing happened, as far as I could see. Naturally, my next step was to google how one would transfer wma files to a mac, and, to make matters even more confusing, all of the results seemed to tell me that iTunes should automatically convert wma files to mp3, which does not seem to be happening in my case.
     I'm still not sure why this isn't working, as I'm sure more than 7gb of my music collection is non-wma, so that doesn't even seem to be the sole issue. Any help with importing my collection would be hugely appreciated, as I'm enjoying my mac so far, but will have to return it if I can't get music on here.
     Thanks.

One problem is that iTunes for Mac can't handle WMA files, iTunes for Windows will convert them, but not iTunes for Mac. When you add unprotected WMA files to your iTunes library (Windows only), iTunes converts them to new files that iTunes can play, based on your import settings. See if you can use your friend's PC to do this. If the borrowed PC has iTunes, create an alternate iTunes library so you don't mess up your friend's library. This explains how: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1589
This support document might be helpful: iTunes: About the Add to Library, Import, and Convert functions, http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1347

Open thread for new purchase of external hard drive

I have 4x 500 GB drives and 2x 250GB drives that I want to consolidate to one drive. I have trusted LaCie and recently (in the past 2 years) have been happy with the G-Drives as well.
To my suprise (and shock really) the Mac geniuses I spoke to at the Calgary Apple Store said their techs use the WD 500GB Passport drives all the time. Super durable etc etc. but I was in need of 2 TB. I was torn between the G-Drive and the WD My Book Studio. The difference in cost was about $70. Historically, I've had the "don't trust western digital for Macs" running through my head ever since I heard it.
However, I was convinced to go with the Western Digital My Book Studio 2TB (it's not a "new" company), but I've found that every time I boot up the drive, it runs the proprietary software which I don't intend to use. So far, I'm not finding any luck on how to get around this as I'm told it's "built into the firmware". Also, after my iMac goes to sleep, the drive disappears and I have to shut it off and turn it back on to bring it back.
What would you recommend for an external hard drive for long term storage (not to be used for time machine or iPhoto or iTunes)?
Would you recommend I take the WD drive back and get my head checked?
Purchased this:
http://store.apple.com/ca/product/TX880ZM/A?fnode=MTY1NDA0Nw&mco=MTY5NDk2NzI&s=a lpha
Was looking at this:
http://store.apple.com/ca/product/TX538VC/A?fnode=MTY1NDA0Nw&mco=MTM3NjM5NTg&s=a lpha
Thanks.
Message was edited by: Middleborn

I'd return it for something else or a refund, but that's just me.
I too was shocked upon a recent visit to an Apple Store when I saw WD external drives for sale. One salesperson told me she was shocked that they were carrying them but that other staff member had told her that the WDs were now performing well for Mac users. I don't know what to make of it.
I find the external drive market to be confusing. I'll just say that I've been happy with an Iomega 250 GB triple interface drive that I bought 4 or 5 years ago and am happy with a 1 TB OWC Mercury Elite triple interface drive that I bought a couple of months ago.
Both these drives came WITHOUT any of the proprietary software so I didn't have to face the hassle of removing any of it.
Regards,
Steve M.

URGENT HELP: How to reformat an external hard drive?!

We purchased a Desk Hammer external hard drive with USB. My hubby plugged it into his Mac G4/OS 8.6 and when it was recognized, he selected to format it for Mac only. We needed it to be ISO Whatever so I can use it on my Windows systems too. The Desk Hammer people are no help with how to get access to this thing and reformat it (in fact, WARNING they say they do not even support Mac usage for these drives!). What can I do to reformat it to work on the Windows side? thanks for any help....
Mac G4 Mac OS 8.6 or Earlier Mac OS is 8.6

Windows machines support Windows formats some of the time.
The Mac formats and supports many common formats, and is nice about it.
You use the exact same utility you used to format it for the Mac, only you select MS-DOS as the type. If the drive is of a modest size, that is all you need to do.
The Mac will also happily read and write files on it, even though it is an MS-DOS drive. It may not properly show their Icons (everything may be generic MS-DOS documents) until the files are copied to a Mac drive.
A very large drive will need a third-party utility to format all the space on it into Windows format.
ISO-whatever and High Sierra and a few others are CD-only formats, you will not be able to format a Hard drive to that format.

Suggestions.. HELP.. for editting.. Internal or External Hard Drives?

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