If fails to write to drive connected by firewire

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If fails to write to drive connected by firewire

My iPhoto libraries are all on a firewire connected drive to my mac. They worked fine until Photo was dumped on me. Photo says I am using a drive with the wrong formatting for mac - clearly wrong!! Yesterday I made a special visit to an Apple Store. They told me that there should be no problem, They showed me how to create a new photo library - because the file menu no longer has the option to change libraries. Today I cannot get photo to crate a new drive on my firewire connected drive that worked fine for iPhoto. Apple Store also told me that Photo would NOT work across all four of my Apple devices - despite the hype. Phtostream worked fine across all devices. So where is the advantage to me. The advantage to Apple is forcing me to buy massive monthly iCloud storage capacity

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), provider Tesco Net

Posted on May 3, 2015 11:40 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

léonie

Level 10

194,743 points

May 4, 2015 3:13 AM in response to old but not grey

They worked fine until Photo was dumped on me.

First of all - even if you upgraded to MacOS X 10.10.3, you can just ignore Photos and continue to use iPhoto. The update may have removed the iphoto icon from your Dock, but you can drag the iPhoto icon back to the Dock from the Applications folder.

If iphoto is crossed out, update to version 9.6.1, that is the compatibility update for MacOS X 10.10.3.

See this User Tip:

Get iPhoto 9.6.1 if you didn't update before OS... | Apple Support Communities

Photo says I am using a drive with the wrong formatting for mac - clearly wrong!!

What is the filesystem on that drive? Anything but MacOS Extended (Journaled) is no supported, if you want to use your Photos Library with iCloud.

Today I cannot get photo to crate a new drive on my firewire connected drive that worked fine for iPhoto.

Which version of iPhoto have you been using? Older iPhoto versions did not check the filesystems of the drives for compatibility, but filesystems other than MacOS Extended (Journaled) have always been problematic and not recommended for iPhoto libraries.

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Answer 2

LarryHN

Level 10

106,110 points

May 3, 2015 11:58 AM in response to old but not grey

You have to provide details and instead you spend your time on delusional paranoia

1 - nothing has been "dumped" on you. You choose whether to do updates or not - and Photos is added - nothing is removed (except the iPhoto icon in the Dock - if you want it then launch it form the Launch Pad or the applications folder and us eit

2 - you do not tell what format you external drive is - for Photos it must be Mac OS extended (journaled) - what is it?

3 - to create a new Photos library hold down the option key while launching Photos - but it must be on a drive formatted Mac OS extended (journaled)

4 - again you post everything except the necessary details to help you

Apple Store also told me that Photo would NOT work across all four of my Apple devices - despite the hype.

What four devices do you have and what OS do they each have? and what are you trying to do? PhotoStream works the same as always are you using it? Or using iCloud Photos Library? If the latter then all devices must be up to date for the OS or IOS and must be logged into iCloud using the same Apple ID.

5 - again no one is forcing you to do anything - you can continue using PhotoStream and iPhoto exactly as before - and even with Photos there is no need to use iCloud or to purchase iCloud storage unless you choose to use iCloud Photo library which has some great advantages but is neither required nor the best solution for everyone - you choose

LN

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Answer 3

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,308 points

May 3, 2015 12:22 PM in response to old but not grey

What format is the drive?

That's the key question.

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Answer 4

léonie

Level 10

194,743 points

May 4, 2015 3:29 AM in response to old but not grey

Could you solve the problem?

If not, check the filesystem on your Firewire drive: To see it, select the drive in the Finder and prestige key combination ⌘I (for File > Get Info). The Info panel will show the format of the drive in the "general" section of the panel.

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Answer 5

May 4, 2015 3:49 AM in response to léonie

Thanks everyone. I was using the latest version of iPhoto, so that should have checked the file system on my drive was OK. I mentioned the problems in the Apple Store, but no mention of the formatting on the drive. Very simple response; "you should not be experiencing problems. Now you can set up new libraries, create your new libraries and it will work fine!! " I have now checked my drive and the operating system is indeed Windows rather than the version I need. If I move the files to another drive, reformat the drive and put them back will they still work ? We now have two iPhones, two iMacs and an iPad because the integration works well. I also asked about Apple TV when I visited the Apple Store to try and resolve the problem I was facing, but came away having been persuaded not to buy. My desktop is connected to my router by ethernet. Apple TV would need to connect to my IMac wirelessly to access my photos, so Apple TV would not be able to see photos on my iMac. I had established that Apple TV has an ethernet cable to connect to my router, but was told it would only mirror screens wirelessly. Only if I kept all my photo libraries on the cloud could I view on Apple TV photos from my IOS devices. Hence my paranoia. Turns out it was just incompetence from two people - Me: the firewire drive kept second backups of the now dead windows laptop as well as my iPhoto libraries, so the disc used Windows file system and the latest version of iPhoto didn't tell me it was a problem. Apple Store person by not asking the obvious question about disc system. But the real message is about benefits to me. Thanks to the posts I now know that iPhoto is still available. So "dumping" Photo on me along with the OS X upgrade provided me with problems and no benefit. I tried Apple help before the Support Community and failed to get any clues, so came to you. Thanks for your help. Looks like real expertise rests with the users. Thanks again to everyone who replied to me.

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Answer 6

léonie

Level 10

194,743 points

May 4, 2015 6:44 AM in response to old but not grey

If I move the files to another drive, reformat the drive and put them back will they still work ?

Moving the photo library to another drive and reformatting is what you should do, yes.

This document explains how to reformat a drive to be used with Apple's photo programs: Format external drives to Mac OS Extended before using with Aperture

However, you might encounter I/O errors (error -36), when you try to copy from a drive with an incompatible filesystem to a correctly formatted drive. If that should happen, post back.

But the real message is about benefits to me.

See: Photos - Is it worth the hassle?

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Answer 7

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,308 points

May 4, 2015 4:01 AM in response to old but not grey

If I move the files to another drive, reformat the drive and put them back will they still work ?

The short answer is: probably. We just cannot be sure that there is not some underlying damage. But what you have is unsustainable, so you need to change anyway.

Apple TV would need to connect to my IMac wirelessly to access my photos, so Apple TV would not be able to see photos on my iMac.

I'm not sure of the exact context here, but sure it would.

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Answer 8

May 4, 2015 7:09 AM in response to léonie

Thanks Leonie - especially with the offer to call back if I wreck my existing iPhoto libraries. My priority is to keep my existing libraries working as I have loads of irreplaceable photos in them. Easiest way is to do nothing. Were there any danger, I would keep my existing drive as formatted and buy a new one to format correctly when eventually I have to move to Photo. Despite what currently happens, advice seems to be that the latest version of iPhoto might cause problems with drive as currently formatted. I think I have read that in order to copy an iPhoto library I should only copy the iphtolibrary that is currently open, IS that correct? If that is true, copying to a new drive would mean a bigger job than just copy from Finder and paste into the new drive. Is that true? Thanks for "is Photo worth it" I have just hd a look and the major difference is the loss of photo location. I use it for many different purposes - from tagging a holiday slideshow to specifying a point on a map where the photo was taken when doing surveys. I'm aware of the limitations, but my camera and separate GPS give me the ore precise locations should I need them. So I look like I shall be using iphoto for a while. I have two other Seagate network drives Seagate Central and GOFlexHome. I cannot get them to tell me what format they are using. Central shows as Mac and Goflex Home as server but keep on spinning as they fetch more info Both are set up for automatic backups following advice about multiple backups. I do need them to backup Windows files because my wife's iMac has Bootcamp so we can use the several applications we have that will not work on OS X. I do not have sufficient space to copy files to my iMac. So question; Does copying iPhoto photolibaries to another drive change their format when copying ?.

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Answer 9

May 4, 2015 7:16 AM in response to Yer_Man

Thank Terence. Your "probably" prompted my response to Leonie. As for Apple TV, I still cannot find an answer to what happens if I connect my apple TV and iMac to my router via ethernet cable. I didn't buy at the Apple store because I was told I could only use wifi to mirror my iMac screen. Despite a powerful router - Asus DSL A68U- my house creates wifi problems that make streaming difficult from one end to the other. For that reason I use ethernet. I get decent speeds on 5GHz to second iMac, but the limitations of 5GHz reduce signal strength, so only share devices on 2.4GHz. Thanks.

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Answer 10

léonie

Level 10

194,743 points

May 4, 2015 7:38 AM in response to old but not grey

Does copying iPhoto photolibaries to another drive change their format when copying ?.

To copy, don't copy and paste, just drag and drop from one drive to the other. This will always create a copy on the other drive. So the original will be left untouched.

The format does not change, when you copy libraries. But you should be aware, that an iPhoto Library is a bundled package of several nested and linked files and folders. Some of the filenames and links inside this package may become ambigious, if you move such a package to a drive with a different filesystem, some of the links might get broken, but this can probably be fixed by repairing the library.

But as Terence Devlin pointed out, you cannot continue to use the library on a drive with the wrong format. There is no choice. It can only get worse, if you do not relocate the library.

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Answer 11

léonie

Level 10

194,743 points

May 4, 2015 7:41 AM in response to old but not grey

I think I have read that in order to copy an iPhoto library I should only copy the iphtolibrary that is currently open, IS that correct? If that is true, copying to a new drive would mean a bigger job than just copy from Finder and paste into the new drive. Is that true?

That was a recommendation, to help iPhoto to keep track of the libraries in older iPhoto versions, but you can move all libraries around, no problem. In iPhoto '11 you can select the library to open from the File menu in iPhoto.

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