External Hard Drive Compatibility Technical Question!

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External Hard Drive Compatibility Technical Question!

I have a technical question....

I just recently bought a MBP 13" and am brand new to the Mac world. I have an external hard drive that has all my pictures and Word documents on it. I didn't realize that this particular hard drive has to be reformatted to be compatible with the Mac! Since it's just pics and documents do I really have to reformat it? Or, would I be better off transferring everything to my Windows desktop and then move what I want to a portable flash drive? Need some advice...Please

Tiffany =)

iPhone 3GS, iPad 64gb -3G, HP Pavilion Dv6338se, HP Desktop, Windows Vista

Posted on Jul 5, 2010 8:29 PM

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Answer 1

Fortuny

Level 7

21,455 points

Jul 5, 2010 9:42 PM in response to TiffanyNicole

Hi Tiffany,

a reformating or repartitioning of the external HD would definetly delete everything that is on it right now.

But if you want to use this 'opportunity' to clean up your files/photos the way you proposed (using the PC and the flash drive) would be my personal way of doing this.

After you have copied all important files from the HD you can then do the reformating without losing anything.

Regards

Stefan

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Answer 2

Jul 6, 2010 1:38 AM in response to TiffanyNicole

I'm not sure why you say the drive needs to be reformatted. If it is Fat32 format it should be totally compatible for file storage. If NTFS then the Mac should still be able to at least see & read the files. Are you sure that it's not a problem of the software versions you have?

I've found that it's sometimes necessary to open files created on a windows platform by using the application menu File/Open rather than trying to open with a double click.

Perhaps you can feed back the format details for the external drive and the software versions they were created with and that you are using on the Mac. This kind of detail can help focus our suggestions.

Neville

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Answer 3

Jul 6, 2010 7:47 PM in response to Neville Mayfield

Neville,

Here's the information I can give you. It's a WD My Passport Essential Ultra-portable 320GB Hard Drive.

SySteM coMPatIbIlIty
Formatted NTFS for Windows® XP, Windows Vista®, Windows 7, Mac OS® X, Tiger®, Leopard®, Snow LeopardTM (requires reformatting)

Not sue if it's a Fat32 format or NTSF format but here's the site I got the specs from:
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/AAG/ENG/4178-705051.pdf

Would appreciate the help!

Tiffany

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Answer 4

Jul 6, 2010 7:54 PM in response to Neville Mayfield

Hey I found it...it is an NTFS Partition!

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Answer 5

Fortuny

Level 7

21,455 points

Jul 6, 2010 8:29 PM in response to TiffanyNicole

TiffanyNicole wrote:
Hey I found it...it is an NTFS Partition!

NTFS is a Microsoft WIndows filesystem that Mac OSX can read from but cannot write to / copy files to without additional help.

One such helper tool is the free NTFS-3G http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/ (there are others for which you have to pay).

But if you plan to use that external Harddisk solely with your Mac it would be best to reformat/repartition it.

*Be aware that doing this would erase everything that is on it right now !*

Start Disk Utility (in the Applications/Utilities folder):

in the left pane click on the 'External Harddisk' -
then in the right pane click on the Partition Tab.
Then choose the amount of partitions you want ( or leave it at one partition) and use 'MacOS Extended (Journaled)' as file system.
Give it a 'Name' to your liking.
Click on the 'Options'-button and make sure that GPT Partition Table is set if you have an Intel-based Mac.

Then start the partitioning.

Regards

Stefan

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