Hardware :: External Hard Drive Recognized On Mac/but Not On Windows?
Jan 20, 2009
I have two external hard drives, one 250GB for my Time Machine, and one 500GB for other stuff. I had accidently formatted my 500GB to use for Time Machine, but realized, I didn't need that much storage, so reverted to the 250GB for Time Machine and the 500GB for storage. But it seems, in the formatting stage (for Time Machine), it set my file system for the 500GB to Mac OS Journaled. I can see this hard drive on the Mac, but it does not recognize it in Windows (although I hear the USB plug in sound, doesn't show up in "My Computer"). Does this have to do with the formatting? If so, how can I format it so that the external hard drives can be read by both Mac OS X and Windows? Does it require moving my data (before formatting?)?
I am a photographer. I use 4 X 1TB LaCie external hard drives to store my digital images. 2 as masters for different business segments and 2 as their back-ups. They are daisy-chained using Firewire 800. Recently my G5 has stopped recognizing one of the drives. Is there any way to get my machine to re-recognize the missing drive? I have rewired the four drives to see if there was a problem with the cabling, but this does not appear to be the case. I am coming up to the 1 year warranty period on this drive and need to get it back to LaCie if there is no other solution.
I've got an external hard drive. It's a "My BooK" Western Digital 500 Gb that uses both USB and Firewire. I've used it many times successfully with my MacBook but today, my Macbook will not recognize it.
my new MacBook Pro not recognizing my hard drives. Yes, thats two hard drives I have that don't seem to work on this computer but both work on my older MacBook and many other computers.
I recently invested in a refurbished iMac which is running Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3 (11D2001).
I am trying to access my existing external hard drive through the machine and although this lights up when plugged in, it doesn't appear in the finder. Other Memory sticks work without problem.
It is a Western Digital Elements 160GB Portable Hard Drive that has worked and continues to do so without problem on my ancient iBook G4.
Info: iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.3)
I have used a Samsung HX 1Tb external hard drive under OSX Snow Leopard with absolutely no problem. Since I upgraded to the free (improved?!?) OSX Mavericks my Macbook Pro cannot "see" my hard drive. All I get when I plug it in is the following message -
my MacBook thinks that the hard drive is formatted for windows - but why should it work OK under Snow Leopard but not with Mavericks? I don't want to simply reformat the external drive because I'll lose all the files stored on it.Is there suitable software/Apps that I can use to let my Mac access this external hard drive.Incidentally my partners new Macbook Air can still read this hard drive.
Info: MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2010), OS X Mavericks (10.9.3)
My WD firewire 800 drive has stopped working, I can hear it spinning when I plug it in but the light doesn't come on and my computer doesn't recognize it. I've tried both the firewire and usb connections.
Another one of those "external hard drive not recognized" problems: I am using a Mac Mini. The external LaCie drive is in one of those beautiful boxes designed by a guy named Porsche. It's connected via Fire Wire. I have my iPhoto library stored on it. It was working just fine for the past two days after I first connected it.
Now it does not show on the Desktop. It is identified only as "Unknown device" in "About This Mac." iPhoto doesn't recognize it. I've looked at the other threads on this subject here and have reset the PRAM. Disk Utility recognized it for a while and said the disk was OK. Now Disk Utility does not recognize it at all.
I turned off the drive and turned it back on. That resulted in an alarming series of beeps, almost like somebody was sending the Morse code symbol for "E" over and over again. I turned the drive off and then on again. Now the light goes on and the drive whirs nicely. I am using System 10.6.2. Or rather, at this point it is using me.
I am trying to pull up my Western Digital External Hard drive after connecting it via USB. I used to be able to open it through Finder and there is nothing showing up.
I just installed a new internal hard drive into my macbook as my old one was failing. Before doing this I backed up all of my information through Time Machine onto a Seagate FreeAgent external hard drive. I've been using this external hard drive for the past two years and I've never had any problems with my macbook mounting it. Once I had all of my personal information backed up I took out the external hard drive and then proceeded to take out my old internal hard drive and installed the new one. I installed the Mac operating system and the Macbook started up just fine but when it came time to reload all of my personal setting using Time Machine my macbook didn't recognize that there was an external drive plugged in. I know it isn't the external drive as it mounts just fine on other laptops. how I can get my macbook to mount the drive so that I can transfer all of my information onto this new internal drive?
Info: MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.8), Seagate FreeAgent
i have Macbook Pro 2011 8GB RAM, 1 TB Hard drive OSX Mavrick. i recently ejected my back up drive but it was not a properly ejected now when i plug in the computer it doesnt come up as hard drive. it shows up in the disk utlity but it doesnt open its my backup drive and i dont want to loose m data
So I plug my external hard drive into my IMac via a usb port, the drive turns on but the drive never appears on my desktop. How do I access my external hard drive when it is not recognized automatically?
I had a Windows based PC a couple of years ago that had crashed. So recently i tried to put the files from my old hard drive from my Windows computer to my Mac. In order to keep track of what i have copied and what I haven't i thought it would be good to delete the stuff of my windows hard drive once it was copied. However, it doesn't let me delete anything of the Windows drive since it is set to read only. Is there a way around this? i've tried everything i can think of, but haven't found a soluti
Is there any way without creating a usb bootable install cd that I can install windows XP onto my USB Hard Drive and boot from it in mac? If I can download a already bootable version of XP, please show me a link (please tell me if thats not allowed). Also, my H.D. doesn't show up when I boot up and hold option. Thanks In Advance
Im running on a UMP 13" base model + 4GB Ram, I want to know whats the best way to install widows on an external hard drive on my macbook ? do i need anti virus as well ?
I'm having some huge problems. I have an .iso of Windows 7 Ultimate but my whole problem is that my macbooks dvd-rom drive crapped out on me a year ago so no burning no reading and Disc Utility wont let me restore the iso onto an external hard drive.
Does anyone have any idea what I could do to fix this? Is there a way I can put the image onto the hard drive at all?
I have an external hard drive which I have successfully installed Windows XP SP3 onto. It was a long and painful process but I finally was able to get a modified XP install disc ready and from a Dell PC running Windows was able to install onto the external hard drive and I'm able to boot from it and everything. I did this on a PC because I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to boot correctly from an external drive in Mac.
Anyway, the hardest part is in the past and now my only problem is how to boot this external hard drive from my macbook, which is primarily what I want to use it on. I currently have a Macbook with three operating systems on it: Mac OS 10.5.8, Ubuntu Linux, and Windows XP SP3. I use rEFIt to boot into these operating systems. I tried using rEFIt to boot into XP on the external hard drive but it just gives me the legacy error messages saying that it couldn't load and noting the booting legacy os is not well supported by mac.
so today I bought a Toshiba external harddrive (black with green stripes?) and it has 160 GB capacity. I run windows on my Black MacBook, and am starting to run out of room on both (its 1/2 and 1/2 partitions of OS X and XP) Is there a way for me to put my windows onto my external harddrive and then restore my internal to ALL osx? then, I could just plug in the external harddrive and hold down something at start, and then it would boot up in windows?
(If this is possible, please just say it's not, but if it is, some detailed instructions
I'm trying to access my WD Passport using firewire 800 on both Windows & Mac.
The current situation is:
I have partitioned the drive through Mac Disc Utility with three partitions. 1. Time Machine 2. Mac OS Extended (Journaled) 3. MS DOS (FAT32)
I can access all partitions when running the MAC OS. However when using boot camp to lunch Windows 7 Ultimate (64bit) I cannot see the drive.
I've tried going into windows disc manager and can see the disc as an unallocated drive with no partitions.
What I want to achieve is to have the one external drive like this; 1: Time Machine (for MAC backups) 2: A partition for storing my MAC files on 3: A partition for storing windows files on (accessed while using bootcamp).
All without losing the existing backups on the drive.
I've just got a new external HD, but it's not being recognised by Mac OS X (10.5.7). I assumed it was because it was in a Windows format, so booted Windows, but it then turned out it wasn't formatted at all. What is the easiest way to make this an HFS+ (the Mac OS extended format), and how do I do it as I can't see it anywhere on the Mac (including Disk Utility)?
I want to use it as storage for all my iTunes music. However, I would also like to be able to plug the hard drive (usb) into Windows computers to play my music.
I understand that it is possible to do this by formatting the drive as MS-DOS (FAT) using Disk Utility.
Okay, that's great.
Here's the problem: I seem to somehow have damaged my harddrive (no idea how) so that I can't put more that 116.9mb of info on it before there is an error. However, when I partition off the first 4gb or so as free space, I have found that I can use the rest of the drive just fine. BUUUT when partitioning the hard drive, the option for MS-DOS (FAT) is unavailable.
Do any of the other available formats work for both mac and pc? (I have Mac OS 10.5.6 and the other available formats appear to be: Mac Os X Extended (Journaled), Mac Os X Extended, Mac Os X Extended (Case-Sensitive, Journaled), Mac Os X Extended (Case-Sensitive), and, of course, Free Space.)
I've got a external usb hard drive that I want to be able to use on both a Windows machine and a Mac OSX. I want to be able to read & right on both computers.
What format should I use for the drive? FAT, FAT32, or something else.
I took my external drive round to a friends and plugged it into his windows 7 computer. When plugging it in a menu popped up asking if the disk should be initialized and before I could stop my friend he pressed it! So I have a drive which has basically had its partitions table wiped but is still full of data.
Now, I have used Disk Rescue II which by all accounts seems to have recovered all the data, however I am in the annoying position of having no free space on hard drives to download the recovered data to. Can I therefore use something like diskwarrior to fix the initialized hard drive and re-create the directory structure, preserving all of the data on the drive? If not I guess I will have to locate an extra external drive to download my data to.
I bought a new 1TB external hard drive. What formats should I choose in Disk Utility to make this disc compatible with both Mac and Windows? I rarely have files over 2GB and my Mac is running on Snow Leopard.
My parents bought a new iMac and have finally made the switch. There's one program on their old hard drive that they need to use. I've installed Windows XP on the new iMac, put the old pc hard disk in a USB2 enclosure and would love to use that to boot off of. The problem is that the iMac doesn't consider that as an option when booting.
The other issue is that if the power goes off and the computer reboots, the default seems to be for the Windows partition and the Mac OSX.
I have the Windows 7 .iso from Microsoft, but I can't burn it to a DVD as it's too large. I do have a 1TB external HDD, though. Is there a way I can put the .iso on that, and when I go to set up windows it installs off the drive instead of a disk?
I have recently made the plunge into mac kingdom and very pleased so far.
I am going through the pain staking task of transferring music, photos etc.. from my windows laptop to my new macbook pro.
I started off by setting up file sharing and copying files but it is taking absolutely ages.
Ideally I would like to use my 500gb mybook external hard drive but given an experience I just had when putting a memory stick in my mac straight after loading it up from my pc am I likely to lose all my current external hard drive data?
Complete ball ache if thats the case as all my films are on there and burning it all to DVD would take forever.
