Mac saving files to external hard drive.

Question

Level 1

0 points

Mac saving files to external hard drive.

I was trying to save some files from my mac to an external hard drive. When I attempted to save them the computer said that there was not enough room on the drive (which is insane because theres plenty of memory open and I was trying to save a very small word document). I googled the problem and I saw some thing saying that it may be a problem concerning a NATF? I discovered that the external hard drive was formatted as NATF. Whats the deal?

Mac Book Pro OSx, v 10.6.5

Posted on Dec 30, 2010 9:28 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,550 points

Dec 30, 2010 10:04 PM in response to Sean Donohoe

Sean,

I couldn't find a thing on NATF when I Googled it, can you enlighten us? I suspect the problem is the EHD isn't formatted so a Mac can write to it.

Reply

Answer 2

Sean Donohoe Author

Level 1

0 points

Dec 30, 2010 11:34 PM in response to rkaufmann87

NTFS maybe...

Reply

Answer 3

Fortuny

Level 7

21,455 points

Dec 31, 2010 12:04 AM in response to Sean Donohoe

Hi Sean,

NTFS is indeed the culprit here.

Mac OSX can read from NTFS Hds but cannot write to them.

For that you would need third-party helper tools like NTFS-3G (free) or the commercial ones Paragon NTFS for Mac or Tuxera NTFS for Mac.

If you use this EHD solely with your Mac you might want to consider reformating it to use the Mac OS Extended file system.
(Be aware though, that this would delete everything that is on the EHD right now !)

Regards

Stefan

Reply

Answer 4

Sean Donohoe Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 9, 2011 11:45 PM in response to Sean Donohoe

Thanks boys. The problem is solved

Reply