Time Machine with Seagate GoFlex Ultra Portable external hard drive?

katiebee

Will the Seagate GoFlex Ultra Portable external hard drive work with the Time Machine function of a macbook and if so does it have to be the version for a mac or is the regular version just as good? Thanks for your help!

Answer
Short answer: Yes, it will work.

There are two parts to any "external drive":
-- The case.
-- The HDD inside the case.

All HDDs are exactly the same for external use. All that is important is that they have the type of connector that matches the case. New HDDs use SATA connector. In your situation, you already have the HDD inside the case, so this is academic info.

The case also doesn't care what type of computer you have, except that often a "Mac" drive has a case with Firewire connection as well as USB. You will be hard-pressed to find a PC with Firewire connection, because it is more expensive than USB, and PC folks tend to shun expensive hardware. All Macs except the MB Air have Firewire for much faster copying to the external drive.

Some companies know that many people think everything about a Mac is special, so they sell a "special" Mac version of a drive. Nothing is different except that it is pre-formatted for Mac OS use. If you buy a "non-Mac" drive, it is pre-formatted for Windows XP or later (NTFS format). That is easily changed to Mac format using Disk Utility > Erase tab.

Time Machine needs a drive volume ("volume" means a partition that is formatted) with "Mac OS Extended" format. That's the only requirement.... other than enough room on it for the backup files.

How do I fix my portable hard drive?

HELP ME.

I have a WD portable hard drive that I've used with my hp laptop and I recently just connected to a brand new macbook...it started working and detecting on the macbook but as soon as I ejected it and connected it back to my HP, it just didnt detect it anymore. I've looked at its properties and it says its unpartitioned?

It has that plug and play capability so I really dont get it.
It didnt end up working on my mac either.

There's data on it that I really need to save. I cant format it..thats my last option. I've looked at the properties and it says "not initialized" under the status, and partition style - non applicable.

It was working all so perfectly...

Answer
Well, firstly you should try and connect the hard drive back to your Mac to see if it works.

If that doesn't help, then it is likely something wiped your hard drive clean, hence you're getting the un-partitioned error from Windows. You will have to partition the drive all over again.

Follow the instructions in this link:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313348

Be sure to check that your hard drive does NOT work on Mac before you do this.

Hope this helped :)

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Need help with my portable hard drive!?

Reckinshop

I have a Wester Digital 1TB portable hard drive. I have always used it with my Mac with no problem, I can plug it in and go through all my files in finder. My problem is when I plug it into a windows PC tried with (Windows 7 and XP) it doesn't show up. I know the ports are fine in the PC because my flash drives, mouse, keyboard, act. work through them. Is there a way to make my hard drive work over PC?

I never partitioned it either so it is the same as it came out of the box except iv added movies, music, papers, act. to it.

Answer
Since you used this in your mac it partitioned it to a file system that only the mac can see HFS. You can try reformatting the hard drive using NTFS so that both systems can see the contents of the drive.

Time Machine with Seagate GoFlex Ultra Portable external hard drive?

katiebee

Will the Seagate GoFlex Ultra Portable external hard drive work with the Time Machine function of a macbook and if so does it have to be the version for a mac or is the regular version just as good? Thanks for your help!

Answer
Short answer: Yes, it will work.

There are two parts to any "external drive":
-- The case.
-- The HDD inside the case.

All HDDs are exactly the same for external use. All that is important is that they have the type of connector that matches the case. New HDDs use SATA connector. In your situation, you already have the HDD inside the case, so this is academic info.

The case also doesn't care what type of computer you have, except that often a "Mac" drive has a case with Firewire connection as well as USB. You will be hard-pressed to find a PC with Firewire connection, because it is more expensive than USB, and PC folks tend to shun expensive hardware. All Macs except the MB Air have Firewire for much faster copying to the external drive.

Some companies know that many people think everything about a Mac is special, so they sell a "special" Mac version of a drive. Nothing is different except that it is pre-formatted for Mac OS use. If you buy a "non-Mac" drive, it is pre-formatted for Windows XP or later (NTFS format). That is easily changed to Mac format using Disk Utility > Erase tab.

Time Machine needs a drive volume ("volume" means a partition that is formatted) with "Mac OS Extended" format. That's the only requirement.... other than enough room on it for the backup files.

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How to successfully partition and install an OS on a portable hard drive?

portable hard drive partition image

Adam

Ok, so I have a portable hard drive and wanted to install an os on it? How would I partition it for multiple OS's?

Answer
You would do it the same you would do for an internal drive.

Open up diskmanagment by typing "diskmgmt.msc" in the "run" field and partition away.


But, installing an OS on a portable drive will do nothing for you.

When you install the operating system, it configures itself for that particular computer. If you try to take that portable drive and hook it up to a different computer, it will try to reconfigure itself for the new computer.

This will cause duplicate drivers, system resource conflicts and memory management issues. In other words, you will have a mess of error messages, freezing, hangs, and the OS likely will not even load up.

How can I partition my portable hard drive to save files both from my MAC and from an old PC?

mr blonde7

I just want to save a ton of files from my MAC to my portable hard drive and if possible, also save files from my PC. I was told the hard drive can be 'partitioned' but have no idea how. I'm fairly clueless regarding all things tech so please use keep it simple LOL.

Answer
You have two options.

1) You can format the drive to FAT32 (MS-DOS in OSX) to make it both PC and Mac compatible. This will allow it to be used on both types of system without partitioning. This is the best option, except that this format won't allow file transfers of single files larger than 4GB in size.

2) You can follow the link below to learn how to use Disk Utility to partition your drive, created two partitions on the one drive, format one for Windows(NTFS) and one for OSX(Max OS Journaled). This will give you storage space for both Operating Systems, but you wouldn't be able to copy items between the systems. By default, OSX cannot read and write a NTFS drive, and Windows cannot read and write to a Mac OS Journaled drive.

http://macs.about.com/od/applications/ss/diskutilitypart.htm

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