Various external hard drives from windows PC readable on my MacBook Pro?

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Level 1

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Various external hard drives from windows PC readable on my MacBook Pro?

I need some help trying to integrate all of my files from the previous couple of decades into the new MacBook-friendly way of life and includes two brand new external hard drives that are fine and working perfectly. Don't need help with those. It's the older stuff that's proving to be really challenging to read and work with. I have lots of external hard drives that were either 1) always external hard drives that serve as locations for backups or 2) actually were the CPU for a computer I no longer have assembled in functioning.

I have a Sabarent hard disk enclosure as well as an older one that was made by Roswell, and neither is working. I've also tried to read the disks on a Windows laptop, but I'm having no luck.

I can't even get my MacBook to show any sign that it's aware that these external hard drive readers are connected and powered on. I am not so ignorant about all of this that I haven't gone to the websites and downloaded the software and done my due diligence in all of those categories. I just feel like I'm howling at the moon with this

I had a friend who helped me with all of this for years and tried to teach me so much more than I was willing to sit through and learn. Not only do I dearly miss him, but I am so mad at myself for not learning as much from him as I could.

The photos included are not really necessary but couldn't hurt either

Posted on Jul 20, 2024 1:17 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Barney-15E

Level 10

123,026 points

Jul 20, 2024 1:41 PM in response to GEFogarty

The photos included are not really necessary but couldn't hurt either

The bare mechanical hard drives show in that box may entirely be broken. Drives like that are extremely fragile. A very slight drop could make them unusable.

You cannot power those drives directly from your Mac. You must use the external power supply on the drive enclosure to power them.

On an Apple Laptop, the system is configured to not allow accessories to be connected without approval. The first time you connect one, it should ask if you want to allow it. If you clicked no or somehow missed that, it won't show up on the desktop.

Open System Settings, click on Privacy & Security and set "Allow accessories to connect" to "Always Ask" if you want to confirm them or "Always" if you don't care if someone connects something to your Mac.

Plug in one of the drives and you should be presented with a dialog asking if you want to allow that device to connect to your Mac. Allow it. Once you have confirmed them all, you can change that setting to something else like "Ask for New Accessories."

You can also configure your Mac to not show external drives on the Desktop or pretty much anywhere. The one place you cannot alter is Go > Computer in Finder. So, choose Computer from the Go menu in Finder and connect the drives. If they mount, they will show up in that window. You can also always see them in Disk Utility, so have that app open, too. Another way to test them is to wait to open Disk Utility until after plugging one into the Mac. If it hangs up and takes a long time to display any disks at all, the drive is damaged.

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Answer 2

GEFogarty Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 20, 2024 2:01 PM in response to GEFogarty

So I've made some progress with a free trial of paragon NTFS… Something I thought I had tried but maybe the second time around I did a step differently and it worked. I'm always hesitant to give authority to programs I really don't know a lot about over the security in my system but multiple sources recommended it and MacGPT did too lol

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Answer 3

GEFogarty Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 20, 2024 2:06 PM in response to Barney-15E

They aren't even the whole batch of items that I have. Some are still pretty new/lightly used and I have every confidence that they remain unbroken but you're right some of the others are quite old. I did make some progress with a free trial of paragon.

Once I separate the emotional connection to what I perceive are digital representations of my life in the form of these files, I'm able to work at these tasks and the learning processes involved a lot more rationally.

Yes a separate power supply was always something I used and will continue to. I didn't anticipate being able to power it from my Mac.

Thanks very much for your thoughtful post.

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