jagtarr
Level 1
(0 points)
Q: External Hard Drive
Hello, Currently i am using PC but planning to go for Mac.
I have 1TB external hard drive with NTFS file system and the data on it is extremely important for me.
Do i have to format it or i can use as it is with Mac?
Thanks
Brett L
Community Specialists
Hi jagtarr,
Macs are able to read drives in NTFS format, but not write to them. See this article -
Boot Camp 3.0, Mac OS X 10.6: Frequently asked questions - Apple Support
In particular -
If the Windows volume was formatted using NTFS, Mac OS X can read it but not write files to it or rename it.
So one solution for your issue would be to connect the NTFS external drive to your Mac, copy the files to the Mac's internal hard drive, back them up, and then reformat that drive (which erases all information on the drive) in a different format that is more useable by the Mac, such as Mac OS X Extended, or FAT32.
See this article for how to copy files -
This article explains how to reformat the hard drive once you have the files safely copied and backed up -
Disk Utility 12.x: Erase a disk, CD, or DVD
I hope we see you soon in the Mac world.
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Brett L
