Unable to write to External Hard Drive, Disk Utility options don't work.

I am a recent new user of Apple Mac from when I bought this Macbook Air 3 months ago.
Nice machine, but difficult to get the hang of.
Specific problem I'd like help with please is to enable me to write to my Samsung S2 Portable Hard Drive (500GB)
I can see it and read files, but can't save to the EHD.
In Disk Utility, all options to verify and repair the EHD are greyed out. So, most of the friendly suggestions on other threads don't help me.
I don't know how big the hard drive is on my Macbook (nor how to find out), or how much remaining space there is, but there is over 400GB of data on the EHD.
The EHD is in NTFS format, all data on it was from Windows computers. There isn't space on my Windows laptop for all this data.
I don't have another EHD, so have nowhere to move the data to if I have to reformat the EHD.
On another thread I saw a suggestion to uninstall something or other before reformatting the EHD, but I don't even know how to uninstall programs on a Macbook.
I don't know why Apple have to spoil such a great machine by making it so difficult for non-afficionados to use (sorry, frustrated).
I say "great" because it's so light it makes work much easier. I can carry it around all day with little effort and don't have to take the charger to work.
Any help anyone could offer with the EHD will be appreciated.
Thanks...........

Hi Limnos,
Yes, I'm new to Mac, having bought this Macbook 3 months ago after years of Windows (as stated in my original post).
I still have a Windows laptop and all my work colleagues currently use Windows, so I need compatibility with both.
Paragon sounds like a good option, and I don't mind a bit of cost if it sorts the problem.
Hopefully I'll get feedback from someone who has used Paragon and can report how effective it is and whether or not there are any problems asociated with it.
Good tip thanks about the Disk Utility, I'll look into that.
Thanks........

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Reformatting External Hard drive: Disk Utility crashes near the end

I recently updated to Leopard and emptied off my external hard drive and then wanted to (zero out data &) reformat it and start fresh so as to use it with the new Time Machine feature.
However, near the end of reformatting it with Disk Utility the progress just stopped and after giving it some time I did a force quit and sure enough it came to light that it had crashed. Since then I've tried again several times to the same result. I even tried doing it of the Disk Utility on the install CD and it crashed with one minute left!!
Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated!

Use a more powerful utility such as DiskWarrior, or a product such as those listed here.
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External Hard Drive Disk Utility Can't Repair the Disk

Hi,
I have a Seagate 1 TB Backup Plus Drive which was working perfectly fine until I plugged it into a USB hub. It detected it while in the hub and I was able to get files off of it, but when I ejected it from the hub and put it back into the USB slot on the computer it was not detected by finder. It shows up in the disk utility and I clicked verify and repair and it says:
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Unable to back up external hard drive via Time Machine. Says no room but has back ups from two previous Mac notebooks on it. Tried deleting them and now can't do anything. Any ideas?

Unable to back up external hard drive via Time Machine. Says no room but has back ups from two previous Mac notebooks on it. Tried deleting them and now can't do anything. Any ideas?

As john noted, eventually that external is probably not going to be big enough, but it certainly is for now. The HD just needs enough capacity to cover the amount of data on your internal HD, not the internal HD's total capacity.
Format/partition the external as follows and you should be set to go:
1. Connect the external HD to the MBP.
2. Open Disk Utility on the MBP.
3. Select the external HD in the left pane.
4. Click on the Erase tab.
5. Choose the Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
NOTE: if you want to zero the HD (which I always think is a good idea, but does take time), click on Security Options, click the button for Zero Out Data, click OK. The larger the HD, the longer this will take, in some cases several hours.
6. Click on Erase and wait for the entire process to finish.
7. Click the Partition tab.
8. Click on Volume Scheme: and choose the number of partitions (just one in this situation).
9. Click on the Options button (located underneath the Volume Scheme pane) and select GUID.
10. Click Apply.
11. Quit Disk Utility.
Backup your internal to the external. What application are you using to backup with? I highly recommend both SuperDuper! and CarbonCopyCloner.

Read and write on external hard drive

I have bought my macbook air just yesterday.
I have an iOmega external hard drive with all files from my previous computer (an HP with Windows on it).
Now I would like to open and also edit and save the files on this external hard drive.
However, this does not work. I can open files, but cannot edit them. And I cannot save files to the external hard drive.
I have read a lot of things on the internet about Macfusion, but since I am new to Mac and not much of a computer-person, can someone give me like a step-by-step guide of how to handle this problem?
Your help is very much appreciated!

Drives used for Windows have NTFS partitions and MBR (master boot record) disk format.
Mac uses GUID disk format and HFS+ partitions. Mac, without additional software, cannot write to NTFS partitions, but only read them.
You will need to reformat the harddrive to GUID/HFS+ which would delete all information on it. Or buy some software that allows Mac to write to NTFS like NTFS-3G.

Unable to see my external hard drive

Hi
I've been sorting out my external hard drive and deleting numerous files. Suddenly a few small windows popped up showing a progress bar.
I am now unable to view the files from the External Hard Drive. I have tried rebooting the system a few times and I managed to see the files using Spotlight. But still,, no files shown on the drive. The Trash also shows "Bin Full" but it is empty. Any ideas? Please

Ok if disk utility was able to verify the drive I doubt there is any problem.. are you trying to open a TM backup??
You need to mount the sparsebundle then check the actual info inside the bundle.
Don't use disk warrior.. if the disk has verified then unless you deliberately deleted files there is nothing that is going to do.
Pondini has a lot of stuff about getting access to the sparsebundle.
http://pondini.org/TM/17.html
But if you have copied info to the TC that is now gone.. and the disk is ok.. I am not sure.. the TC will not have deleted the files itself.

Can't write to external hard drive set up by Windows

We have a 300gb Maxtor external hard drive. I had set it up using the Windows laptop I use for work.
The Mini that we have can read, but not write to, this external drive. I just went back and set the Security properties to allow Full Control for the Everyone group. That did not work; the drive is still read-only for the Mini.
Additionally, when it's hooked up to the Mini, the hard drive starts spinning for no apparent reason. When it's doing that, you cannot eject the hard drive. It will whir for several minutes; at times, we've had to reboot the Mini to get the thing to stop.
Is there a Mac OS setting somewhere that needs to be changed to allow the Mini to write to the drive?
Why is the drive spinning for no apparent reason? Is there something we can look at to find out what's happening with it?
Any other suggestions for fixing the problem? I'd like to avoid reformatting it, if possible....

We have a 300gb Maxtor external hard drive. I had set
it up using the Windows laptop I use for work.
The Mini that we have can read, but not write to,
this external drive. I just went back and set the
Security properties to allow Full Control for the
Everyone group. That did not work; the drive is still
read-only for the Mini.
Sounds like the drive is formatted in NTFS. Under OSX, your Mac will be able to read, but not write, to an NTFS formatted drive.
If you format as HFS or HFS+, the Mac will be able to readd/write to the disk, but the Windows box will not be able to recognize the disk.
Since it is a 300gb drive, FAT will not work (FAT does not recognize drives that large).
It must be formatted as FAT32.
It can be formatted as such on either the windows box or the Mac.
You can partition the disk, one HFS+, one FAT32, but the windows box still will not be able to recognize the HFS partition, and the Mac will be able to read/write both.
So...for maximum compatibility and cross-platform usage, format the drive as FAT32.
As for as the periodic drive spin, it's possible Spotlight is updating it's index.

Write on external Hard drive MyBook NFTS

I've got a WD MyBook 300 GB which i used on my XP PC. It's formatted in NFTS becauseof the large videofiles. I stored lots of files from my PC. No i use my MacBook i like to use it also as a backup unit for my Mac. In the info panel I can copy files from the MyBook to my MacBook but I can't write on the MyBook. Does anyone know what is the solution for this problem??
eljeebee

Oops, went to edit and it went past my 15 mintues allowed...So read this one instead... Or not. I wish I could delete my own posts....
What files types do you have exactly that are over 4GB each? I have no idea what could be this big other than dealing with possible video files, so I will use this post to show different things that could be possible with them (how to get smaller files or different storage options available for a 4GB file (some options will only be good for up to 10GB maybe).
I deal with a lot of Tivo to PC transfers, or recordings from a TV Tuner to my MCE 2005 laptop, and as far as I can guess, the best or second to best (depending on actual specs for the "recorder") video quality with a 2 hour movie (or 2 hour long tv episodes) would be about 4 (or a bit more like 4.2-7) GBs, which is about the size of a standard non-dual layer DVD (of 4.7GB).
To create a smaller size file, you can lower the quality setting for individual programs or for your default recording quality (if recording stuff yourself) to something like "medium" when used for Tivo, and probably just one level down for TV-Tuner recordings (sometimes they offer more settings to you with a level in between the few that Tivo has). Most likely, while this will reduce the video quality, it should still be good enough to watch things.
Or, you could just burn these items to a DVD (if not wanted permanently, use a DVD - or + RW instead of a DVD-+R) if only slightly larger than 4GB (again up to 4.7 for a standard disk). I can usually get 1 hour to be right around 1000 MB (each movie or show will vary so it might be 940 or 1027). I can get 2 movies onto a DVD (assuming they are no more that 4 hours total combined) or 4 hour long tv episodes.
Or you could possibly try to use a file splitter program and split the files into different sections, and store them this way (use the same application or another to join them back together again later on) but I guess that would only work for just storing items...
Another choice would be portable media, either using Micro Drives (small compact hard drives that fit (usually) into a compact flash (type 2 or maybe both 1 and 2) card slot, and while these cost alot, they are portable, can be used with PDAs and any computer with a compact flash card reader and go from about 4 up to 8 GBs roughly.
You can also then go for another Flash based portable style, like a USB stick/SD/the memory stick (or memory stick pro) like the items that the PSP takes and alot of the new cell phones with card slots. All of these are now being made in much larger capacities these days, and again, while they will start off at a decent price, the higher the capacity it adds, the approx same amount of money it usually adds too - $30 for 1 GB, $60 for 2 GB etc(compared to when it might be just a bit more if you are dealing with stuff like internal or even external hard drives). I have no idea if there is a cut-off limit on the size of files that are put onto these different card formats, you would have to do more research to find out.
Then there are the external hard drives that are "mobile" so they are made smaller and are meant to be taken around with you and your laptop compared to a normal External hard drive. Some are even really small in size (like the size of a Zippo lighter) and the might have a usb plug to attach it with that might wind up around or inside the case.
There are tons of different items available, and if you definitely want to store files or keep on being able to download and then "read only" them, and go back to a Windows computer and change what is on the drive there, you have your choices of types, sizes, how mobile the are, and what's best for short term/long term storage needs.
If you still want the better quality (and still have your way to create/get these files the way you were getting them), or are dealing with large files that are not video items (things that you can help choose the ending overall size of the file) then just have an external hard drive that is used for the storage of these items, and then just attach it (the external) to your Mac whenever you wish to use these files. You won't be able to write to it, but you can still read from it with your Mac, which makes this a good place to store those files that you will only need to read from (and not edit anytime in the future), and possibly would like to keep as a longer term storage item.
And again, you could always go and add new stuff to it if you have a chance to use another Windows computer, but if you don't need Windows applications and just want these larger NTFS files saved and be able to read them (like they are a book but you have no pen to write notes on the pages) and want OSX to be your new OS that you use, then that External HDD option could be very useful.
Congrats if you actually read through all of that. I know your original question was just wanting to know if you could write to your current External Hard Drive which was already answered. Hence the reason to help with other ways to use those files, store those files, or simply access those files.
Unfortunately for you, while you can go and reformat hard drives, to the same type or to another (FAT-FAT or FAT-FAT32 etc), the NTFS file system format does not allow you to reformat to a different format type (you can redo a format to NTFS again, but it can never be switched to a FAT or FAT32 format type after it has already been an NTFS format). So your drive has to stay a Mac read only drive, or you can sell/trade it and just get a new one that is formatted as FAT32 (or is not formatted yet so you can do it as that) instead. You still can't have the large -over 4GB- files then, but that's the reason for the above temp or long term storage work arounds...
Hope this might possibly help you and/or someone else in these forums...

Can't write to external hard drive. I have an NTFS driver.

I have a macbook pro running mavericks and an external hard drive that is NTFS and i can read but i can't write to it. I already have the paragon NTFS driver installed and i know the driver works cos i can use my other NTFS hard drive with no problems. In the "get info" pane under permissions it says i can "only read", but in disk utility under "write status" it says i can read/write. I tried to verify and repair the disk in disk utility and both completed normally with no errors detected.
Does anybody have any ideas on how to deal with this? i would rather not reformat the disk as it has roughly +500GB of work that i have no other place to store temporarily.

Jotsy wrote:
Does anybody have any ideas on how to deal with this?
Yes, HD are cheap as dirt, buy another HD and format it for your Mac (Mac OSX ext. Journaled)
OR for both PC and Mac in EXFAT format.
Jotsy wrote:
i would rather not reformat the disk as it has roughly +500GB of work that i have no other place to store temporarily.
Leave it as it is,
$65 for a 1TB HD, or $100 for a 2TB drive. you always need minimum 2 ext. HD for data redundancy protection anyway.

Can't write to external hard drive

I have a MacMini G4 and and iBook G3 both running Tiger. I bought a Verbatim USB 2.0 500 GB external hard drive and reformatted it to HFS+. I can write files from the iBook without any problems. However, from the MacMini, the external drive mounts, I just can't write to it. When I try to change permissions in Get Info, I get error code 195. No luck with Disk Utility or Disk Warrior either. I have a suspicion that the problem lies in the fact that until very recently, the MacMini had only a networked account, now it has two local accounts (the iBook has only ever had 1 local account). How can I fix this without having to reinstall Tiger on the Mini, if at all? Thanks!

Resource Manager Errors (other than I/O)
-195 addRefFailed AddReference failed
So it appears to not be a read/write problem, but either Permissions problem or missing OS components.
Have you done these two lately...
Using Disk Utility in Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later to verify or repair disks...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302672
About Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions feature...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25751
Reboot afterwards.

Unable to connect to external hard drive

Have just switched from a macbook to macbook pro, transferred all data etc via firewire with no problem. I have recently purchased an extreme base station and have ben using this with an imac and the mac book. I have a usb external drive and a printer connected to the base station via a usb hub. Both have worked flawlessley over the wireless network with the macbook. However, I can't get the new macbook pro to see the external hard drive, I have checked the automatically mount disk box etc, all to no avail.
Any ideas??

I have successfully connected two drives via a USB HUB, which worked flawlessly. I am however unable to connect another drive of a different brand and size and get it to be recognized. That drive is a Lacie bid drive ( 2 terabytes). It looks like the drive itself is an important factor. I tried every thing and this big drive would not mount.

How to edit (read/write) an external hard drive that is attached to a router

Hi everyone.
I have Macbook Air (2013) with OSX 10.9 Maverics, and Netgear WNDR4500 router with WD external hard drive attached to it. My problem is that I don’t have writing permissions. When I’m trying to change something in the hard drive, it says “The operation can’t be completed, because you don’t have necessary permission”. Under Get info / Sharing & Permissions, it just says “You have custom access”, and there is no option to change privileges to “Read & Write”.
I would appreciate if anyone could help me with this.
Thanks!

I don't use TM, but as far as I know, the only way it will work wirelessly is with a Time Capsule. Check the info here:
http://pondini.org/TM/2.html
which is from one of the subheadings here:
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
I would guess that you'd be able to write to the drive once you have it attached via a cable (FW, USB, etc) to your Mac (not your router).

Obtaining premission to write to external hard drive, obtaining premission to write to external hard drive

How do I obtain premission to write files to a external hard drive that I used with my old window system?

NTFS needs third party software unless you network to the old Windows system.
Note iOS does not run on Macs. Only Mac OS X, Linux, and WIndows do.

HELP!: How to read and write to External hard drives? What file system to use?

hey all, this has been really frustrating for me today. i want to be able to write to an external HDD that's formatted in NTFS. today i find out it isn't possible to write to this file system on a Mac and that on FAT32 it is possible. however, FAT32 can't address files larger than 4GB so this hurts me a lot. are there any other file systems that'll allow me to read and write from a Mac? my goal was to use freeNAS to build a NAS with an old tower and connect my external hard drives to it, but if i can't write to them this may not be possible.
thanks guys, i'd appreciate any help!

Read this, you don't need to install any software unless you have no choice.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3044
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents

Moving a music library from one external hard drive / disk to another

My music library is already on an external hard drive and I want to move it to another external hard drive (along with the music filkes). I have follwed the standard setps of chaning the itunes folder location, keeping my itunes folder organised etc. When I come to consolidate my library it doesnt find anything or copy anything accross? Is it just looking on my MAC drive do you think? How can I get it to look on my 1st external hard disk?
Getting fed up with this now - must be the 4th time I've had to move libraries from one machine / disk to another and each time I always end up having to re rate music, or have lots of duplicates etc.

Hey,
There's a really good guide to moving your iTunes Library to an external hard disk on Lifehacker...
Here's the link... http://lifehacker.com/238296/ultranewb--how-to-move-your-itunes-library-to-an-ex ternal-drive
Cheers
Rosco
proposed | solution

Unable to write to External Hard Drive, Disk Utility options don't work.

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