Upgrade to Yosemite, iPhoto won't open and NTFS-3G could not mount error with new external HD

Question

Upgrade to Yosemite, iPhoto won't open and NTFS-3G could not mount error with new external HD

Help!

I just did a software update to get OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 on my MacBook Pro.

Now iPhoto won't open and I get this error:

"Your photo library is either in use by another application or has become unreadable....Shut down and restart your computer, and then open iPhoto again. If the problem persists, try rebuilding your photo library. To do this, quit iPhoto, and then reopen it while keeping the Option and Command keys pressed. You can also try restoring your photo library from a backup."

So I do this and try to repair the database as suggested and I get another error:

"iPhoto will open as soon as the iPhoto library is available. Time Machine might be backing it up."

But it's not - no external hard drive is connected.

I'm terrified I can't get access to my photos (and I admit I haven't backed up with Time Machine for over a year - my mistake that I won't make again).

So I bought a brand new external hard drive (seagate for mac and pc, 2TB) so I could save only my photos to the hard drive (because I googled and read you can manually save your photos to disk by dragging and dropping the photo library onto the external hard drive).

But I can't even get the hard drive to work....I get this error

"NTFS-3G could not mount /dev/disk2s1

at /Volumes/Seagate Backup Plus Drive because the following problem occurred:

/Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/fusefs.kext failed to load - (libkern/kext) link error; check the system/kernel logs for errors or try kextutil(8).

the MacFUSE file system is not available (71)"

I google the issue again and it says to uninstall NTFS-3G but I actually think I just deleted it a long ago without uninstalling it properly?? I don't know....

(a) how do i fix iphoto

(b) how do i get external hard drives to work with this OS (I've read lots of posts and don't really understand the advice)

(c) how do i get all my photos onto the hard drive safely so I can import them onto a PC

Any assistance would be magic for this little lady!

MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Feb 6, 2015 5:30 AM

Reply

Answer 1

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,329 points

Feb 6, 2015 5:32 AM in response to trudy.urquhart

I will request that your query be relocated to the iPhoto forum where knowledgeable iPhoto users will be able to assist you.

Ciao.

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Answer 2

Yer_Man

Level 10

166,098 points

Feb 6, 2015 5:36 AM in response to trudy.urquhart

Your Library must be on a disk formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). It must be directly connected to your Mac. It sounds like that disk is not correctly formatted.

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Answer 3

LarryHN

Level 10

106,142 points

Feb 6, 2015 8:41 AM in response to trudy.urquhart

1 - there is nothing wrong with iPhoto - you have an incompatible disk format - to be used with iPhoto it must be Mac OS extended (journaled) - reformat using Disk Utility (remember this totally erases the disk)

2 - see #1

3 - You can not use a drive formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) with a PC unless there is PC software to add support for it - I do not use a PC and have no idea if that is available or not - you can share photo with a PC using either MyPhotoStream or SharedPhotoStreams - https://www.apple.com/support/icloud/

LN

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Answer 4

Old Toad

Level 10

216,536 points

Feb 6, 2015 10:05 AM in response to trudy.urquhart

(c) how do i get all my photos onto the hard drive safely so I can import them onto a PC

First see if you can reformat the EHD to MS-DOS FAT with Disk Utility. If you can

open iPhoto and select all of the Events in the Events mode. Use the File ➙ Export ➙ File Export menu option and export to the EHD with these settings:

Select the destination for the export to be the EHD or a folder on the EHD. This process will create a folder for each Event in your library with the same name as the Event and contain the original image files. The EHD will be useable by a PC and the photos will be available also.

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Answer 5

Feb 6, 2015 12:18 PM in response to Old Toad

Hi Old Toad,

When I connect the EHD to the laptop, I get the NTFS-3G error straight away, so I can't access it to format it. It's a brand new out of the box EHD. The forums I've read said with this version of OS X "Unsigned kexts are no longer allowed to run by default in Yosemite."

Any idea how to actually get the EHD to be read so that I can format it for use with a mac? I hope I'm asking the right questions...

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Answer 6

LarryHN

Level 10

106,142 points

Feb 6, 2015 12:32 PM in response to trudy.urquhart

While the drive is connected launch Disk Utility and see if it will see the drive and format it Mac OS extended (journaled) if you want your iphoto library on it

If you only want photos (exporting them from iPhoto) that can be read by a PC then format it FAT (you can not put your iphoto library an a FAT volume)

reformat using Disk Utility (remember this totally erases the disk)

If you can not do this then contact tech support for the Drive manufacturer for assistance in correctly formatting

LN

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