I have an external drive that will need to be connected at different times to both my Mac (Leopard) and my Windows XP & Vista machines. I had it formatted for Mac OS (Journaled) but it wasn't readable in XP or Windows. So what is the best format so that all can read/write to it normally? NTFS? It needs to be able to handle larger files (4GB and bigger).
View 12 RepliesI can't manage to format my Seagate 500GB external HD correctly so it can be readable with my Macbook. I formatted like six times already in Windows 7 and XP to NTFS and still my macbook won't read it...only my Windows computers can read/write it. What am I doing wrong?
View 4 Replies View RelatedI 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.
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Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
I have an external hard drive that I have been using for back ups for several months, but now I get an error message that says, "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer". I looked up other peoples issues with this, and they have used things like disk warrior to fix it, but I am not very interested in saving what's on the hard drive anyways. I just want to clear out the hard drive and start fresh.
View 4 Replies View RelatedI'm running Snow Leopard on my new Macbook Pro. I've got a 1.5TB External hard drive that I'm trying to figure out how to format in HFS+ with Apple Partition Map. I can figure out how to format in HFS using Disk Utility, however it still does it in GUID format and I do not know how to do it in Apple Partition Map.
Googleing this for hours has lead with all kinds of information on how to go to GUID FROM Apple Partition Map but not the other way around. I know GUID is the new hottness.. but this drive will be used exclusively to connect to my XBOX 360 and it supposedly only reads HFS+ when its formatted with Apple Partition Map. (I have tried it with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with GUID, and the XBOX does NOT recognize it) I do not want to use Fat 32, (I know that that is the other major option) beacuse it limits file size.
I have had this WD "my book" ext. HD for about a year without a problem. Today after restarting the computer I got a notice, instead of the HD icon. On screen I got a box that said "the disk you inserted is not readable by this computer" below this was 3 options. Initialize, ignore, eject". I was afraid that initialize would erase or reformat the drive so I pressed eject, I've tried many times but still the same thing. Has my ext. HD died? Should I click initialize? All my backup data & time machine, music,etc., is on this drive, I don't know what to do.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI'm considering using dedicated internal drive for TimeMachine backups and an external drive for an additional backup of photos, videos. Wondering if there is an option for formatting an external drive with a file system that could be read by a PC so that I could transfer images or videos by simply plugging the external drive into the PC.
View 2 Replies View Related when I insert my 'FAT' formatted external hard drive (Samsung M3) into my mac book pro it comes up with the error message that says "the inserted disk is not readable by this computer" and I therefore cannot access the files. The story (potential further details):
1. I had a problem with my mac where it took hours to load each time I turned it on, would only work when power was plugged in etc. so I had to reformat my mac hard drive (when I tried to veriify it said repair, that wouldn't work). So i'm starting with a recently reformatted, clean mac.
2. Before doing this I reformatted my external hard drive (whilst on windows machine) to FAT32 (so I can use on both windows and mac) so that I could back up my files.
3. I then transferred files from mac onto external hard drive and then also put them on a windows machine.
4. After reformatting mac hard drive when I then tried to transfer files back onto the mac I get the 'not readable' error.
Info:
MacBook Pro, iOS 7.1
I just bought a new 1 TB external hard drive for back up purposes. When i connect it via USB to my Snow Leopard macbook pro, it gives me a "this disk not readable by this computer message". I click ignore, and it lets me do whatever i want to the disk - read, write, etc. I have tried repair disk - tells me it's good to go, and tried reformatting several times - thought not zero disk data or the 7 pass bs.
View 1 Replies View Relatedhow do i convert mac classic files to a currently readable format? I have managed to copy them to a USB stick, and would like to find a site which can convert them to RTF or another current format.
Info:
Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.5.8)
I have a playlist in iTunes and I wanna export the list so I can show people what my play list is, if I export it as plain text or xml it just shows code, is their anyway to save the playlist in a readable format?
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View 1 Replies View RelatedI am using a Mac OX10 with Mountain Lion. I saved a vital mailbox to an original document file but it turned out encrypted. How can I get it into normal format? why did this happen?
Info:
OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)
I correct in the understanding that this external drive can now be used by both my iMac and my Windows Vista PC? I want to be able to share the files (whether it be documents, photos or video) on the external hard drive with both my iMac and PC.
Additionally, is this type of formatting as stable as any other format? I am just concerned about losing any data long term. I will be backing up my files on two separate external drives using the same formatting. The duplication is in case one of the external hard drives crash.
i just bought the Seagate Freeagent 250GB external hard drive. I've already formatted it using disk utility and used Mac OS Extended (Journaled). the problem is that my friends who use windows cannot detect the hard drive. Can i format it another way so it can be used for both mac and windows?
View 24 Replies View RelatedI was using my external hard drive with my mac and its formatted in the MAC HF(something like that) file system. I would like to format that external hard drive such that the file system is either NTFS or FAT32 so that I can use it on my windows partition running on boot camp. I am asking this question since I am planning to get a new HD for my mac and use the old one with windows.
View 10 Replies View RelatedI just brought a Western Digital 1TB USB drive for my Mac Pro. Now when I try and format it in Mac OSX journaled it keeps coming up in an error saying it can't be done, It will format as FAT32 but I need it to be Mac OSX formatted. Does anyone know what might be wrong?
View 2 Replies View RelatedI just bought a new WD Elements (1tb) and I am getting an error when I try and format. I wish I could tell you what that error says but I was trying to figure something else out so I chose the disk6s1 and formatted it to os extended but it seems like it is frozen. I am afraid if I force quit it will screw up the drive. This is the 2nd one I have tried, I returned the 1st one thinking the drive was faulty. Now I think I screwed up the drive when I formatted it in disk utility. I have installed 2 western digital internal Hard Drives into my Pro and have used 2 other external HDs both western digitals. If there was any problems with any of my HDs, I would open up Disk Utility and Erase them to be Mac OS Extended (My WD TV won't read Journaled drives).
View 9 Replies View RelatedI have the external drive formated as FAT of 1TB.
I have erasing all data whole day (about 20 hours) and formating as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) but at the end it reports an error.
Now, when I connect hard drive to my MBP it says "disk is not readable on this computer" - Initialize...
When i try to format as Mac OS Extended (J) it says: "Disk erase failed with error: File system formated fail"
I tried to format it on PC (Vista and XP) but they even can't see hard disk.
What should I do to get journaled formated external hard drive?
I bought a new Hitachi 1tb bare drive and have been trying to format it through Disk Utility. I have it connected to my iMac system using a Newertech USB 2.0 drive connector.The new drive appears in Disk Utility, and when I go through the "Erase" tab and set if up as Journaled - the system seems to go into formatting mode for about ten minutes and then I get an error and I have to Force Quit the Disk Utility.
View 4 Replies View RelatedJust got the WD MyBook 2TB. It's not the one specifically for Mac. It says it is compatible, needs to reformat. How easy is it to reformat? It is for Time Machine.
Info:
Mac mini (Mid 2011)
I have a Western Digital Elements 1TB External USB drive and am unable to format 1 partition as Mac OS Extended (or Journaled for that matter) in Disk Utility. I can format the drive as FAT32 with no issue, and I can format the drive as FAT32 with 1 NTFS partition with no issue. But any time I try to format the partition as Mac OS Extended or Mac OS Extended Journaled it reports an underlying error and stops. I can't figure it out. I don't know what the problem is or what to look for. Does anyone have any pointers?
View 6 Replies View RelatedI am going to be buying an external hard drive soon (Seagate FreeAgent Go 250GB 2.5" External Hard Drive - Black) and I want to double format Or double partition it. I am pretty good with macs, I just don't know much about time machine and external hard drives. What I want to do is either:
A) Make a partition in which I can make backups, and make a separate partition in which I can store files
B) Make a single partition in which I can save back ups (from time machine) and my files (Music, Movies, Applications)
Also, would I be able to run Windows (XP) from my external hard drive somehow? Also, could I run mac applications off my external hard drive, is there a certain procedure?
I'm looking to format my external, which i did but one question under Info it says
Format : Mac OS Extended
Capacity : 999.86 GB
Available : 999.28 GB
Used : 579.4 MB on disk (579,424,256 bytes)
What is the used space about? When it should be 100% empty?
Which format would be most appropriate for reformatting my external drive whilst keeping it compatible across platforms (mac and windows)??
Info:
MacBook Pro
How do I format an external drive (My Passport) from mac to pc (iOS Snow Leopard) without losing my data?
Info:
MacBook Pro
Verbatim Store 'n' Go USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive 500Gb
this is a external hard drive i am looking to buy,but it has Nero back it up and burn software already on it,so in order for me to use it on my macbook,would i need to format it?
I'm creating a Digital Cinema Package, and I need to format an external drive to Linux ex2 or ex3, and then transfer the DCP files onto it. Is there a way to do this easily from OSX? I'm fairly computer literate, but I'm mostly uneducated (and very nervous) when it comes to drive formatting, so the easier/less sketchy the better.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
How do I format an external hard drive?
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