Mac disk utility for external hard drive?

Tica

I am supposed to format my new external hard drive before I can use it with my Mac. The instructions tell me I need the Erase option in the Disk Utility but I can't find out how to access the Disk Utility. Can someone help?

Answer
Not sure why you say you are "supposed to format". Why not just use it as is? You can use FAT32 format with Mac, no problem. If it has NTFS format right out of the box, well, yeah, that should be formatted to FAT32, or as it is shown in Disk Utility, "MS-DOS file system". But you don't select the "Partition" tab. For non-Windows operating systems, the term "partition" is used only to designate one of the "divisions" of a physical drive, in the same sense that a room "partition" divides a room into more than one section. You should select the "Erase" tab. Although Windows systems do not list the word "Erase" related to drives, that is the term used in Mac OS to indicate format.

To open Disk Utility, get to the Finder by clicking on the desktop. Then click on "Go" in the menu bar and choose "Utilities". Then click on Disk Utility. Select the drive and then select the "Erase" tab. Choose the format "MS-DOS file system". If you choose the format "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", you will have a disk that works with Mac or Windows systems with MacDrive installed so just don't do it unless you plan to use the drive only with Macs and you want better reliability than FAT32. You do not need to create small partitions for FAT32 although this idea is common. The Windows XP installer format option says you cannot create a partition size larger than 32GB but that is truly a limit set by that particular format application. Anytime I want to install Windows XP and use FAT32, I boot to a Windows 2000 SP4 CD which does not have this limitation and format from there, and then I restart to the Windows XP CD and install, no problem. There is no partition limit (based on today's available drive sizes) using Apple's Disk Utility.

By the way, Disk Utility can "secure erase" to the level of 35 pass overwrite, see link below.

How do i back up the data from my external hard drive to my mac?

tariq b

Here's my problem: I just got a new mac, and i have all my data on my hard drive. My hard drive isn't configured to function with macs. In order to configure my hard drive to work with my mac i have to format it and then it will give mew the option to chose a 'mac+windows' configuration. When i try to manually copy the data i keep getting errors and its just impossible. is there a way to easily copy the data from my hard drive to my mac so that i can format it??

Answer
I will give you my answer for this question:
"Can I use one HDD with both OS X and Windows?"

Maybe that is not your real question, but how could anyone guess?

You say "In order to configure my hard drive to work with my mac i have to format it."
Format means erase... and if the file system is different, create a new file system. Erase means all data is lost, gone forever. Is that what you want?

You say "and then it will give mew the option to chose a 'mac+windows' configuration" What is "it"? Do you mean Disk Utility? No way. The options are "Mac OS Extended", "MS-DOS File System" and "NTFS". Unless you make some special changes, "Mac" format is for Mac OS only, and NTFS is not for Mac OS. "MS-DOS File System" (a.k.a. Fat-32) is not a good choice for a large drive volume.

You say "When i try to manually copy the data i keep getting errors." Tell us the exact words in the error message. I can copy files from any Windows formatted HDD to my Mac OS X HDD with no errors, and I have done it several hundred times over the past five years with various Macs and with at least a hundred drives (90% of my students use Windows, and I copy from their drives). Tell us what happens exactly, and we can solve it for you.

To copy files from any NTFS formatted drive volume to a Mac formatted drive volume in OS X, no special software is needed. It just works.

To copy files to an NTFS format drive volume with OS X, install either NTFS-3G or SL-NTFS.

To use one HDD with both OS X and Windows, see the link below.

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Can I download a Mac App to an external hard drive?

Coolterp3

I want to download Call of Duty 4 for my Mac but I don't want it to take up my RAM, etc. Am I able to download it straight to my external hard drive and when I want to play it, plug the hard drive in and start it up?

Answer
Sorry, but I wanted to do the same thing. It is not possible to INSTALL anything on an external hard drive not running Mac OSX. In order to do this, you will have to download the game (you can download it to your external hard drive), then install it on the Mac's internal hard drive, THEN drag it back over to the external hard drive. That is the only way, unless you can somehow run Mac OSX on the hard drive.
Hope this helps!

Cheers

Mac disk utility for external hard drive?

Tica

I am supposed to format my new external hard drive before I can use it with my Mac. The instructions tell me I need the Erase option in the Disk Utility but I can't find out how to access the Disk Utility. Can someone help?

Answer
Not sure why you say you are "supposed to format". Why not just use it as is? You can use FAT32 format with Mac, no problem. If it has NTFS format right out of the box, well, yeah, that should be formatted to FAT32, or as it is shown in Disk Utility, "MS-DOS file system". But you don't select the "Partition" tab. For non-Windows operating systems, the term "partition" is used only to designate one of the "divisions" of a physical drive, in the same sense that a room "partition" divides a room into more than one section. You should select the "Erase" tab. Although Windows systems do not list the word "Erase" related to drives, that is the term used in Mac OS to indicate format.

To open Disk Utility, get to the Finder by clicking on the desktop. Then click on "Go" in the menu bar and choose "Utilities". Then click on Disk Utility. Select the drive and then select the "Erase" tab. Choose the format "MS-DOS file system". If you choose the format "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", you will have a disk that works with Mac or Windows systems with MacDrive installed so just don't do it unless you plan to use the drive only with Macs and you want better reliability than FAT32. You do not need to create small partitions for FAT32 although this idea is common. The Windows XP installer format option says you cannot create a partition size larger than 32GB but that is truly a limit set by that particular format application. Anytime I want to install Windows XP and use FAT32, I boot to a Windows 2000 SP4 CD which does not have this limitation and format from there, and then I restart to the Windows XP CD and install, no problem. There is no partition limit (based on today's available drive sizes) using Apple's Disk Utility.

By the way, Disk Utility can "secure erase" to the level of 35 pass overwrite, see link below.

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How to reformat an external hard drive to a mac book?

best external hard drives with mac image

Chloe

I have an external hard drive that my macbook recognize and it shows up on the desk top but for some reason I can't add anything into the external hard drive. I can remove items from my external hard drive into my mac book.

I tried to format it but it continually says:
Volume Erase failed with the error:

Could not modify partition map

I have no idea what to do to fix this problem, so please any help would be most appreciative!!

Answer
Was your external hard drive set up on or for a Windows machine? If so, it may be formatted as NTFS. Natively, OS X can read from but not write to NTFS discs. Disk Utility should be able to tell you the current format. If it is NTFS, your options will be obtain a utility that lets you write NTFS discs, reformat as FAT32 if you want to be able to read and write on both OS X and Windows â this will result in some restrictions on file size under FAT32â or reformat as an OS X Extended disc if you never have to exchange with Windows. You'll need to repartition the whole disc, not just attempt to reformat the individual partitions, I think.

What format should my external hard drive be formatted to work on a Mac and also hold files bigger than 4GB?

Alekz

I can't modify my external hard drive on my Mac because it's formatted on NTFS.

Then, What format should it be formatted if my files are bigger than 4GB? Fat32 doesn't let me save files any bigger than that! Any solution?

Answer
Well, you have encountered the limitations of using a PC formatted drive on a Mac. Is there any reason you're not wanting to format it as a Mac drive?

The normal reason for not doing this is because you want to share the drive with a PC. You haven't mentioned this situation and your question, but it's the only possibility I can think of.

So the bottom line, at least as far as I can see, is that if you want to share the drive with a PC then you aren't going to be able to do files over 4 GB. If you don't want to share it with a PC, then just reformat it as a Mac OS extended volume.

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How do you format an external hard drive from Mac to PC?

best external hard drives with mac image

Allie

I bought a Fantom 1TB external hard drive that someone had formatted for a Mac. I have Windows XP and am trying to reformat the drive. The drive does not show up under My Computer. I pull up the disk management window and try to select the drive. All it will let me do is view the properties, but it won't let me select format drive. Any suggestions?

Answer
Connect your Fantom 1TB external hard drive and depending on what version of Windows you are currently using (mine is Windows 7), right click on your Computer icon on your Desktop and click on Manage. Then select Storage then Disk Management. You should be able to see all the drives including the Fantom 1TB external drive. It will probably be labeled as unknown. Right click on it and you should be able to see Delete Volume. Click that and you will get a warning that all data will be erased. Acknowledge OK and the volume will be deleted. Once done, do the same but this time you should see Create Volume and after that, just format.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

How to make external hard drive writeable to mac and PC?

Jake

I need to make my external hard drive writeable from my mac and my PC. How can i do this so i can use it fully on both??

Answer
@brisray:
Stand back. I'm going to shoot a few holes in your -- answer.

-- "Macs can natively read but not write to NTFS volumes.
Windows cannot read from or write to drives formatted in Macs."

Should be "Windows cannot natively mount drive volumes formatted Mac OS Extended." With HFSExplorer, free, Windows can mount a Mac volume and read files from it... but not write to it. With MacDrive or TransMac, Windows can mount and read-write Mac volumes.

-- "Macs can read and write NTFS volumes using MacFuse"

Not true MacFuse only allows using third-party drivers (technically, it allows creating a file system without root). Without the third-party driver, MacFuse does nothing.

-- "Windows (XP and above) and Macs (Snow Leopard and above) can read and write to exfat drives."
Not exactly. exFAT works with Windows 7 SP1 and above, plus Mac OS 10.6.4 and above.

Now for the real correct answer....
-- DO NOT USE ANY FAT FORMAT FOR ANY LARGE DRIVE VOLUME. That applies to both FAT32 and exFAT. Remember how XP would chop a drive into 32 GB partitions to use FAT32? That was because Microsoft knew how lousy and inefficient FAT is with large volumes due to cluster size increasing with volume size.
-- REAL ANSWER: Either 1. use NTFS with write enabled in OS X, or 2. use two partitions.

Advantage of 1: Files can be added to one large volume without planning for cross-platform partition arrangement.
Advantage of 2.: You can use Time Machine with that Mac volume. Also, the Mac volume can be used with other Mac OS systems that do not have write enabled for NTFS.

-- For NTFS, and OS 10.6.8 or earlier, use NTFS-3G (free) to enable read-write in OS X.
-- For OS 10.7 or later, use Paragon NTFS For Mac (US$20) to enable read-write in OS X.

{In fact, the newest version of NTFS-3G seems to work in OS 10.7, but the developer has no install package, just source code. If you know how to compile it, you can use it with OS 10.7.}

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