Accessing my Windows external hard drive on my new Mac

Question

VenusSouth Author

Level 1

2 points

Accessing my Windows external hard drive on my new Mac

Hi Everyone

I'm a new Mac Yosemite user, recently moved from Windows and I'm a keen photographer

All my pictures are backed up on two external hard drives from the Windows laptop

Is it possible to access the external hard drive and it's data on the Mac

I keep reading stuff about partitioning and FAT32 or running disk utilities to reformat, but I'll lose all the images on the external hard drive

I feel like I'm missing something here

What do I need to do to be able to view my images on the Mac, which I will then load into Lightroom to retouch [the Lightroom bit I'm fine with]

Thanks .... Venus

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch,Early 2015)

Posted on Jan 9, 2016 8:50 AM

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Answer 1

VenusSouth Author

Level 1

2 points

Jan 9, 2016 9:08 AM in response to VenusSouth

nothing on the screen, its black just looks off

when I push the on button [top right] the keyboard lights up, no other lights

no sounds

the charge cable shows a red light

it's been on charge for maybe 40 minutes now

when I closed the lid last night it was 65% charged

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Answer 2

Niel

Level 10

726,749 points

Jan 9, 2016 8:51 AM in response to VenusSouth

Just plug the drive in and open the files. Unless you need to write to the drive, you don't need to do anything else.

(138184)

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Answer 3

Jan 9, 2016 8:53 AM in response to VenusSouth

OSX can read NTFS formatted drives. OSX can not write to NTFS drives. If you want to read/write to the same drive format it ExFat since both OSX and Windows can read/write to ExFat formatted drives.

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Answer 4

FoxFifth

Level 10

468,747 points

Jan 9, 2016 8:54 AM in response to VenusSouth

According to the following a Mac can read from a drive in any of the 3 formats: http://www.cnet.com/how-to/the-best-ways-to-format-an-external-drive-for-windows -and-mac/

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Answer 5

Jan 9, 2016 9:11 AM in response to VenusSouth

Is the light on the charging cable red or orange?

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Answer 6

Jan 9, 2016 9:28 AM in response to VenusSouth

Yes, if you reformat that will wipe all the data on the disk drive.

How is the disk drive currently formatted?

Since it was used with Windows, it will most likely be formatted as NTFS. The Mac should be able to read files from that disk if it is NTFS. You would need third party software on the Mac to be able to write to it.

Personally my suggestion would be to get another disk drive and format it as HFS+ for the Mac. Copy all of your photos over to the new disk drive. Once you do that you can reformat the old disk drive to HFS+ and use it to store your Time Machine backup of both the internal and external disk drives there provided it is large enough to do that.

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Answer 7

VenusSouth Author

Level 1

2 points

Jan 9, 2016 9:02 AM in response to VenusSouth

Thanks Everyone

OK - I see, so I can read the old external hard drive, but I can not write to it

So, should I get a new external drive, format it and then copy all my old pictures to the new external drive

and any new pictures save them directly to the Mac formatted external drive via the Mac + save them to the old external drive via the laptop

I have a bigger problem now .... my Mac will not turn on, it was fine last night

I've only had it two months and used it a handful of times to surf the web, nothing more

Now I'm worried

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Answer 8

Jan 9, 2016 9:05 AM in response to VenusSouth

When you say will not "turn on" exactly what do you mean by that?

Do you get a startup chime?

Any lights anywhere?

Anything on the screen?

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Answer 9

VenusSouth Author

Level 1

2 points

Jan 9, 2016 9:05 AM in response to VenusSouth

Fantastic, thanks Alan - it looks like we were writing at the same time, I like your answer too

But, the Mac still won't turn on

The charging cable has a red light on it, is that right

When I closed the lid last night it was 65% charged, I remember looking at it and thinking, how well the Mac holds charge ... that could be because I've hardly used it

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Answer 10

Jan 9, 2016 9:05 AM in response to VenusSouth

I suggest you start a new thread for your power on issue.

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