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I have two seagate portable hard drives and when I plug them into my imac it wont let me save anything on them, I do not have this issue with my pc, it lets me save and access all files. With my Imac however it will only let me view and use the files that are already on it and not save new files.
Answer
The drives are formatted NTFS: that's Windows' partition format and while Mac's can read NTFS, they can't write to them. You would need to back up all the files on the external drive and reformat it as FAT32 - both Windows and OS X can read/write FAT32 drives, but you will be limited to 4GB per file on the drive.
There are also utilities that let OS X write to a NTFS drive. They are cheap, but I don't know of any free ones.
The drives are formatted NTFS: that's Windows' partition format and while Mac's can read NTFS, they can't write to them. You would need to back up all the files on the external drive and reformat it as FAT32 - both Windows and OS X can read/write FAT32 drives, but you will be limited to 4GB per file on the drive.
There are also utilities that let OS X write to a NTFS drive. They are cheap, but I don't know of any free ones.
Can some one help me with my new Portable Hard Drive [several questions really ; Mac]?
jx2_117
I got a SeaGate portable Hard Drive. And i have a Mac. i just want to use it as a giant Flash Drive and not is a backup disk and i got several questions about it:
1. Can i treat the hard drive as a USB or is it for back up purposes only?
2. There's a whole bunch of stuff already in it and i think it's installation for Windows. what do i do with it?
3.i read online that i can use Disk utility to erase the stuff on it [because the disk cant be modified i can't move the files to the trash]
4. Should i do what Time Machine backup tells me to do?
5. How can i get it to work more like a Flash Drive than a back up disk.
i'm sorry if i sound stupid / asked a stupid question. it's my first time buying a portable hard drive and using Time Machine. Thanks for your help.
this is the Hard Drive
http://gnagri.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/seagate_freeagent_go_1.jpg
Answer
1. If you can connect it to Mac and it recognizes it, you can use it any way you want, provided the format of your drive is HFS+ or FAT, or a bunch of other rare formats that might work. There is only read support for NTFS - but there are programs that allow you to get write access too. If that is what you need, try MacFuse (it's free) to get access to your NTFS drive.
2. If you need that Windows stuff, keep it, burn it to dvd for backup or trasnfer it to your Mac's hard drive. It seems from what you say that you should keep it. My recomendations on what to do are in #5. Otherwise, delete it.
3. Yes, you can do that. If your disk can't be modified it can be because Mac doesn't support write access to NTFS formatted drives - see above, #1. And Disk Utility can format your drive - it was one of the reasons it was made.
4. No, or at least not yet. Time Machine is a beast - an aquaintance of mine discovered Time machine fills up every bit of space it has access to in the place it is told to back up to the hard way - his portable hard drive was full of Time Machine's backups when he wanted to store some files on it for himself.
5. This is my recommendations. If you wish to purely use it as a flash drive, take out the important files, and go ahead, wipe the drive completely and format it to FAT or MSDOS, whichever appears in Disk Utility. If you wish to use as both a flash stick and a backup, it gets hairier. Take out every file, go to Disk Utility, select the Portable Drive and under Partitions, split it into two partitions (pick wisely the size of each). You may or may not have to format to HFS+ (because Mac might not allow to make Time Machine backups to non-Apple-formatted media). Now in one partition put your files for your flash-stick part of the drive and on the other one, follow the instructions Time Machine gives you but set Time Machine to back up to that partition. Be extra careful - If it says to you that it wishes to use the entire drive, don't go ahead.
1. If you can connect it to Mac and it recognizes it, you can use it any way you want, provided the format of your drive is HFS+ or FAT, or a bunch of other rare formats that might work. There is only read support for NTFS - but there are programs that allow you to get write access too. If that is what you need, try MacFuse (it's free) to get access to your NTFS drive.
2. If you need that Windows stuff, keep it, burn it to dvd for backup or trasnfer it to your Mac's hard drive. It seems from what you say that you should keep it. My recomendations on what to do are in #5. Otherwise, delete it.
3. Yes, you can do that. If your disk can't be modified it can be because Mac doesn't support write access to NTFS formatted drives - see above, #1. And Disk Utility can format your drive - it was one of the reasons it was made.
4. No, or at least not yet. Time Machine is a beast - an aquaintance of mine discovered Time machine fills up every bit of space it has access to in the place it is told to back up to the hard way - his portable hard drive was full of Time Machine's backups when he wanted to store some files on it for himself.
5. This is my recommendations. If you wish to purely use it as a flash drive, take out the important files, and go ahead, wipe the drive completely and format it to FAT or MSDOS, whichever appears in Disk Utility. If you wish to use as both a flash stick and a backup, it gets hairier. Take out every file, go to Disk Utility, select the Portable Drive and under Partitions, split it into two partitions (pick wisely the size of each). You may or may not have to format to HFS+ (because Mac might not allow to make Time Machine backups to non-Apple-formatted media). Now in one partition put your files for your flash-stick part of the drive and on the other one, follow the instructions Time Machine gives you but set Time Machine to back up to that partition. Be extra careful - If it says to you that it wishes to use the entire drive, don't go ahead.
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