Hardware :: External HD Needs Formatting?
Feb 12, 2008
My external has been acting weird lately like crashing and just today it started not letting me trash anything off it. So I investigated more into and fiquired out that when I bought it second hand I forgot to format it for Mac. It's formatted with MS-DOS File Systems (FAT32) all this time. Now I don't if that's the reason for the weirdness lately but I think it should be formatted?
Question-although be it a lazy one, is there anyway to format an external HD with moving everything off of it? it has over 67GB of things on it. I can't move it to the internal, cause my poor little G4 is only 19GB. If there isn't anyway to do it, I will have to start burning DVD's I guess. Just wanted to check though.
View 4 Replies
ADVERTISEMENT
Mar 17, 2012
I bought a 2 TB Western Digital external HD for my iMac and instructions say it's set for PC and needs to be formatted for OSX. It sounds simple enough, but I'm new to Apple and want to make sure all I do is to reformat the HD thru Disk Utility.
Info:iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 2.5 GHz 2GB Ram 500GB external
View 2 Replies
View Related
Aug 19, 2008
When I try to format my Western Digital "MyBook" external drive, I get an error. It says "could not unmount the disk." What does this mean, and how do I fix it? Also, what's the difference between Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and not journaled?
View 8 Replies
View Related
Mar 11, 2012
Still new to iMAC (1TB). I have an external HDD 1.5TB and initiated TimeMachine (seems easy and fit for purpose) to keep a backup of everything on the iMAC. The iMAC did not come with an installation disc - apparently I would need to download the OS again should it fail or corrupt - unfortunately I have a VERY slow net connection - is there any way of backing it up to the external HDD to avoid having to download?
I believe I can purchase a copy of Lion in a flash drive - but I have already paid for Lion when I bought the machine? Would cloning sort this issue? If so - should I put the clone (Using something like CCC) in a separate partition? Have come across Recovery Agent - does it need to go in a separate partition? Finally - for now (!!) if I have to create any new partitions on the external HDD will it erase existing files, meaning I have to restart Time Machine?
View 5 Replies
View Related
Mar 20, 2008
I just purchased a new 750GB Seagate FreeAgent drive. I hooked it up via FireWire 400, opened Disk Utility and tried to format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). It gave me an error message saying it was the wrong format (or something like that - I can't remember exactly). I tried every Mac OS option and it gave me the same error message.
View 6 Replies
View Related
Apr 21, 2008
I have an external external 500gb Seagate hard drive, that works fine as a USB external but I wanted to put it inside my MacPro, is this possible without any need to format, just plug and play?
View 1 Replies
View Related
Dec 26, 2009
if i can partition my Windows NFTS External Hard Drive. I do not want to format it because i have some important files and programs on my External Hard drive, But I also want to use it for Time Machine Backup. I was wondering if it was possible to Not format my Hard drive, Partition it, And then format the 2nd partition to Mac, and use it for time machine. I am using Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8
The Capacity of the EHD is 55.9GB
Available: 37.1GB
Used: 18.8GB
View 1 Replies
View Related
Apr 2, 2012
I recently bought an external 1TB Samsung usb disk for my Imac.I cant get the disk to partition or format correctly.Disk utility just keeps hanging waiting for the disk to reappear!
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
View 3 Replies
View Related
Jul 15, 2008
I've been having problems with 3 Maxtor 500GB 400/800/USB FW drives. They will randomly unmount themselves -- forcing me to turn them off, wait a minute, then turn them back on. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to when they unmount themselves. All three drives had been formatted using Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and I'm on the most recent version of Leopard.
Thinking I had 3 lemons, I called Seagate (who purchased Maxtor) for tech assistance. The tech guy told me that external drives should not be formatted using Journaled, only Mac OS Extended.
View 11 Replies
View Related
Jan 24, 2010
I just bout this Western Digital External Hard drive, Passport SE. Anyways, I formatted it to MS-DOS (FAT) so I can use on mac and/or windows. One of the other main reasons I bought it was so I could use it to watch videos on my Xbox 360.
Now I've seen tutorials online with windows how to re-format it to FAT32 so it works properly on xbox 360 but cannot figure it out on mac? On some of the tutorials they use certain programs to do it, is there something like that for mac I can download? Is fat32 and fat the same? I know there has to be a way for me to be able to format it to FAT32 using mac.
View 3 Replies
View Related
Mar 18, 2012
I have an external hard drive which I first used with my pc. It is formatted for NTFS. Now with my new MBP, I want to back up data, and I am having no luck. The external hard drive is a Verbatim brand, 500GB. On their website FAT32 download dosnt work! I have tried disk utility with no luck. What am I missing?
Info:
MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), Mac OS X (10.6.8)
View 2 Replies
View Related
Apr 1, 2012
how to properly format and partition an ext drive using Disk Utility. I will be making a clone using CCC.
Info:
iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.3)
View 2 Replies
View Related
Apr 14, 2012
I am, I hope, at the end of a 36+ hour formatting process with this WD Elements 3TB external drive. I decided to zero out the drive and when I went to bed last night at around 12am, there were about 6 hours left in the process. This morning at aroud 9am I went to check on the drive, expecting it to be ready to go, but I found it writing a temporary file. The progress bar is about 90% done. Is this part of the normal zeroing out process? If so, how long should this take? If this ISN'T part of the normal process, what should I do?
Info:
Mac Mini 2 GHz intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3, Mac OS X (10.6.4), 512 MB DDR SDRAM
View 2 Replies
View Related
Jun 5, 2012
what are the disadvantages of formatting an external drive as FAT32?
Info:
MacBook Pro
View 4 Replies
View Related
Sep 2, 2010
I just bought a new external hard drive and backed-up my computer onto it. Then today I realized that I didn't format the drive. All I did was follow instruction for hooking it up. Also, I'm a Mac user. Is it customary to do a full and proper format of newly purchased external hard drives? The most I did was verify the disk in disk utility when I first plugged in the HD to my computer. Is that enough?
View 5 Replies
View Related
Dec 27, 2010
I bought a WD My Book Essential to do Time Machine backups. It is formatted for a PC but I was told I need to format for my IMac before I can use it. How do I do that? Is it a complicated process? I have only been using a Mac for about a year now and am still learning about them.
View 3 Replies
View Related
May 16, 2012
Ive recently purchased a new external hard drive. I plan to use it on both Apple and Windows OS.
I was told that if I do, then i could corrupt the files/data that I will be accessing on both computers.
Is there a "universal" format for an external drive which would prevent/avoid this kind of thing happening ? How should i format it or which format should i use so that i can use the drive both OS ?
Info:
MacBook Pro (13-inch Late 2011), Mac OS X (10.7)
View 4 Replies
View Related
Jun 26, 2009
Can I use time machine to back up my data without formatting the external hard drive .. If not please let me know if there is a way to back up to hard drive without using time machine.. Thank you
View 5 Replies
View Related
Nov 27, 2009
I have an external hard drive that I use to watch movies on a Nintendo Wii and some of the movie files are over 7GB, which means when I format the drive to FAT32 I cannot copy the larger files. What are my options for getting around this problem? I have VMware fusion but I cannot easily see my external drive in XP. Is it possible to format the drive in XP and then transfer everything via VMware on XP?
View 1 Replies
View Related
Apr 8, 2010
got a real basic question to ask and you're gonna think im an idiot for asking...I just bought a 320gb western digital elements hard drive and want to reformat it so that its compatible for both mac and pc's. i intend to format it as NTFS-3G as it would allow me to use it on the 2 platforms without having the 4GB file size restriction that fat32 has, anyway.....
when I go to reformat my external hard drive in disk utility, I see my external hard drive to the left, and there's a "sub" hard drive as a child of the external hd listed uppermost. just wandering which one of the two do i select before going to Erase>Windows NT filesystem (NTFS-3G)>erase? Do I select the uppermost drive and erase that or the lower one? or both
View 2 Replies
View Related
Jul 27, 2010
I just got my new Seagate 640gb external hard drive and am in the process of formatting it on my MBP. However, I am not sure which format to do? My main use for the hard drive is for transferring media files back and forth between my MBP and PC using just one partition on the drive. I already know I'm not supposed to pick 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' because I believe that is to use it as a boot drive. So should I pick 'Mac OS Extended' or maybe 'Free Space'?
View 12 Replies
View Related
Jan 19, 2008
I have an external hard drive that I was previously using on PC, having attempted to use it on a Mac, it will not write to it. I've found that I have to format to FAT32, which I think i can just about manage (yes, im a girl) but my concern is, if i format through the MAC, will i then lose what's on the hard disk as the tab says 'erase'? I have a lot of images on the hard disk so am a little petrified! Any advice for this really basic question would be appreciated!
View 7 Replies
View Related
Jan 4, 2011
I am thinking of buying a macbook pro soon.But all the computers at home are windows.I would like to know if I buy a mac and pc compatible external hard drive,can I reformat it to HFS+ using windows and then copy my digital files like movies, songs and photos I have on my pc to the external hard drive,and use it with mac?If yes,how?
View 13 Replies
View Related
Nov 12, 2008
I accidentally reformatted my Sandisk SD card for my camera. Is there anyway to format it back to DOS FAT 16? I tried doing it in my camera and it didn't work.
View 2 Replies
View Related
Nov 14, 2008
I try to install it and i get the error cannot install on this computer. I assumed this is because I had a newer version of leopard on it so I erased the data on the drive through disk utility but its still giving me the error!
View 9 Replies
View Related
Jan 3, 2009
I got a new hard drive and put it in an external enclosure. When i plug it in, i get a notice saying that the new device is not readable. what i'm trying to do is clone my old drive to the new one using SuperDuper, then take the new drive out of the external enclosure and put it in my macbook. someone told me i need to set up your new drive with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a GUID partition map scheme before you try to clone to it as clones don't work with the PC format/partition map that they normally come with new.
View 1 Replies
View Related
Jul 28, 2009
I have a bunch of old floppy disks with date and photos on them. If I want to format them and remove the data how do I do that on my iMac? ( I have an external floppy disk drive). On windows it was pretty simple to do but not sure how to do it on a Mac. Do you use disk utility?
View 3 Replies
View Related
Aug 7, 2009
Im on holiday right now and taking advantage of the currency exchange rate. Anyway i have this problem...
I want to install an SSD into my mac mini, the SSD does not come pre-formatted into mac's format type (i think its gui extended or something similar).
How can i format this drive in mac format without a mac, all i have is my windows laptop and i dont know if it can format a drive for mac.
View 5 Replies
View Related
Nov 5, 2009
I just got a new 128GB Runcore SSD for my MacBook Air today and I've been running into some problems with it. It came preformatted to FAT32 which wouldn't work to copy all the data over to and boot from, obviously. So, I tried opening Disk Utility to format it and it gets about halfway through before it just stops all progress and no progress is had after that.
After verifying the same case on my MacBook Air and my MacBook Pro, I decided to see if it would work via Terminal. So I typed in the command "diskutil eraseDisk HFS+ untitled disk3" with disk3 being the SSD. I've let it sit for a few minutes now and it is still trying to unmount the disk.
Any ideas as to how I can format this hard drive and go from misery to glee on my MacBook Air?
EDIT:
Ok, I've unplugged and replugged in the SSD and tried the terminal command again. This time it is getting further, but still not completing the task:
Formatting disk3s2 as Mac OS Extended with name untitled
View 3 Replies
View Related
Feb 9, 2010
I've been getting slowness, beachballs, and overheating/loud fans over the last few weeks. It feels like it's getting worse by the day. I want to reinstall and get a fresh start. (Btw, I was on Leopard and upgraded to SL...I'm hoping a fresh SL will clear up most of my problems.)
View 4 Replies
View Related
