Using Seagate FreeAgent 500GB hard drive: PLEASE READ

Question

Using Seagate FreeAgent 500GB hard drive: PLEASE READ

Hi,

I am using Seagate FreeAgent 500GB hard drive and even though I have used it with my MacBook before, I am trying to move files from my Mac to the FreeAgent Drive but I am now getting the message "cannot move item because FreeAgent Drive cannot be modified." How do I rectify this problem so I can use the hard drive? Also, the hard drive is formatted in Windows NTFS if this means anything to anyone.

Please help!

Thanks

MacBook

Posted on Jan 4, 2010 2:49 AM

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Answer 1

Len D

Level 4

1,004 points

Jan 4, 2010 5:59 AM in response to Olivia Ribeiro

The Mac is unable to write to NTFS directly. You would need to use a driver to enable writing to NTFS. Here is a link to give you some info on that.

Another way to write to it (if you have a windows computer on the network), would be to plug it into the windows computer, and share the drive via Windows. Once the mac sees the shared drive, it can write to it.

Lastly, you could reformat the external drive using FAT32 (MS-DOS as Mac calls it), then the Mac could write to it. You would only want to do this if the external drive was empty since you would have to erase it upon reformatting it. The issue with FAT32 is that you would not be able to copy a file larger than approximately 4GB to it. It is a limitation of FAT32.

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Answer 2

Wong*Cpz

Level 1

0 points

Jan 4, 2010 8:10 AM in response to Len D

as u say so...
is there any HDD which can straightly Connected and Write similar to Drag a file into it easily?

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Answer 3

Len D

Level 4

1,004 points

Jan 4, 2010 8:46 AM in response to Wong*Cpz

Yes, actually if you have an external drive that you only want to use with a Mac, then reformat it using Disk Utility choosing the partition scheme as Mac OS extended. Once this is done, the external drive cannot be used with Windows unless using a program such as MacDrive.

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