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I have an external Hard Drive that is formatted in NTFS, but my Lion won't read it. How can I read and copy the files from that one into my MacBook Air?
Imac, Mac OS X (10.4.10)
There should be nothing you need to do to read the drive.
Does the drive show up in the Finder when you connect it?
Or, can you not see anything on it?
Nope. Nothing shows in finder. If I open disk utility I can see the external hard drive, but it doesn't show data ( I know there is data)
In Disk Utitliy, select the disk and try clicking the Mount button, if able.
If the drive is failing to mount, it may need repairing, but I wouldn't try on a Mac. Repair it on a Windows computer.
Don't have the option to mount it. Is shaded.
That would seem to indicate to me that there is something wrong with the drive that is preventing the Mac from mounting the file system.
I guess il have to go back to the original windows machine and see if I can fix this. I also downloaded NTFS-3G and that one is not working neither.
Maybe I should try to change the format to FAT32
If you want to reformat it, you might want to try exFAT, instead. Mac OS X can read/write exFAT since 10.6.6 and Windows can back to some version of XP. You can put larger files on exFAT.
Is this on a USB powered drive? If it is your MBP does nnot put out enough power to fully power the drive and you will need a Y USB cable to connect it to both USB ports at the same time to get enough power to it.
Yes, it us a USB powered external hard drive.
Oh, good catch, Shootist. I had forgotten about that.
rikysara wrote:
Yes, it us a USB powered external hard drive.
Then you will need one of those Y USB cables. You may be able to find one at your local electronics/computer stores.
OK, thank you guys. I'll try to get the cabkle or re-format the drive. Not a tech savy, but I cannot see any Y cable option in the USB hard drive I have.... Is a Western Digital
What he's talking about is a USB cable that provides data on one plug, and power on another. The Y end plugs into both of your USB ports and the other end connects to the drive.
Your drive is asking for more power than your Mac can supply on one port.
Thanks Again. I'll look for that cable.
Reformatting the drive won't help as it is trying to draw too much current.
These are the kinds of things you are looking for:
Make sure the single end of the cable will work with your drive. It is probably a miniUSB.
how to read NTFS drives in Lion
