Drag and Drop Files Onto Seagate External Hardrive

I have a MacBook Pro. I had no clue what to do. I purchased a Seagate Backup Slim Plus 1TB. I had to go to the APPLE store to get my computer fixed and it was an internal cable that slowed my computer and eventually left me with a "?" blinking folder. Problem solved and it was covered under a special program. BUT, they showed me quickly how to BACKUP my system with the Seagate Slim Plus. Here's how:

Plugged in the USB. Move the mouse/pointer on the top dashboard the TimeMachine appeared. Click it on . Click the lock on the lower left hand side and type in your password. Then you will see ON/OFF Button. Click "ON" for the Time Machine. Click "Select Disk". Click Seagate Backup Plus Slim drive and start.

If you don't see the Time Machine on the dashboard above. Go to "search" on the dashboard at the top. Type in Time Machine. When it asks set up Time Machine, click OK. Then plug hard drive into the computer. Select hard drive then backup now. I didn't need a updated driver or to drag and drop files. Just set it up before you go to bed and it will automate itself. I had a lot of files.

I know it's been a couple years since you wrote the note that got me educated and allowed me to have a useable external hard drive. Thanks for the education! I followed the directions to go to Utilities, then all the erase stuff. Worked like a charm.

You see everyone, this guy actually related to the question and actually answered it. The guy who was asking the question was right to be pre-angry about stupid respondents.

This is the ONLY way to backup information on your hard drive before you delete them off your main internal Mac's hard drive. Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner will likely overwrite your precious files after the external drive gets full. I learned this the hard way. Mac offers no obvious solutions to the main reason for backing up - to move everything off your computer so you have more space. The solution is to drag everything you intend to delete (copy) from your Mac onto the external hard drive, make sure its safe, then delete the files from your main internal hard drive.

Therefore you MUST drag at least your entire USER folder onto an external hard drive every so often. Forget about Time Capsule except for cases of upgrading or losing your computer. Time Machine is not for removing hundreds of Gigabytes of data from your hard drive so you have more space. Calling it a 'backup solution' is shifty in the extreme. DO NOT RELY ON TIME MACHINE. If you have been saving everything with unique file names, you can even overwrite the backed up USER folder on your external drive later and it will only ADD new files and folders. Be careful - Cameras and some programs (Yes I call them 'programs', not 'applications' like a n00b) will start renaming based on counting rather than datetime when there are no files referenced by that number any more. If you know this, make new folders with proper dating and then drag the files you want into those new folders. A folder called 'My Pictures 2013-02-23' might contain IMG_0006.jpg, which is a precious photo of your sister's wedding, whereas a folder called 'My Pictures 2016-08-09' might contain IMG_0006.jpg, which is a blurred picture of your foot from when you dropped the camera.

So be careful, and create new folders with dates on them before dragging files and folders onto your backup hard drive. Otherwise when you delete them from your Mac's hard drive and clear your Trash, you would need some kind of retrieval tool or specialist to get that data back. Given that you don't want to spend $10,000, don't make this mistake. Buy more and more external drives and keep them airtight in plastic in a cool box for future generations.

I'm confused here, if you don't understand what that says, how does it solve the problem?

Is your problem actually solved?

Please answer the question, what is the current format if the drive, simple and descriptive answer please.

That says the drive is MSDOS and NTFS, which is not possible so please post a screenshot and I will read it for myself.

That's an NTFS formatted drive, Macs can not write to a drive formatted as NTFS.

You will need to reformat the drive, and that will erase it.

Believe what you want, I can't be bothered to argue with you.

Good luck

Thanks so much waughwoolf!!! Being non tech minded and having a product that doesn't 'just work' really gives me the sh*ts. You made my day 🙂