External Hard Drive Read Only

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Level 1

10 points

External Hard Drive Read Only

I have a Macbook Pro Mid2012 and a Macbook Mid2010, I can connect my External to the Macbook Pro and Copy to and from the External, but when I connect it to my Macbook I can't Copy to or from the External.

The format is Windows NT Filesystem and I've read that I need to format the External in order for it to work on a Macbook. But why does it work on the Macbook Pro but not the Macbook?

Please help, I don't want to format the External in order for it to work on the Macbook.

Thanks

MacBook, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Mar 2, 2018 10:53 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Kappy

Level 10

361,879 points

Mar 2, 2018 10:58 AM in response to frans89db

A Mac can read from an NTFS disk but cannot write to it without third-party software. The computer that, you stated, can read from and write to the same disk either has the third-party software installed or the drive is not formatted NTFS.

To format the drive for use on a Mac, exclusively, then see the following:

Drive Partition and Format - El Capitan or Later

Open Disk Utility in the Utilities' folder.
After Disk Utility loads select the drive (out-dented entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the side list.
Click on the Erase tab in the Disk Utility toolbar. A panel should drop down.
In the drop down panel set the partition scheme to GUID. Set the Format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)
Click on the Apply button and click on the Done button when it is activated.
Quit Disk Utility.

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Answer 2

frans89db Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 2, 2018 10:30 PM in response to Tesserax

These are the Apps that are installed on the MacBook Pro, are any of these a Third Party app that I can install on the MacBook.

I can read and write on when the external is connected to the MacBook Pro but not the MacBook.

When I purchased the External I made sure it was formatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) because I only use Apple Products, I have however connected it to Windows Devices in the past but I've never had any problems.

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Answer 3

frans89db Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 2, 2018 10:36 PM in response to Kappy

Thanks for the reply Kappy.

That I know, thus when I purchased the External I formatted it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) because I only use Apple Products, I have however connected it to a Windows device in the past with no problems.

The external works on the MacBook Pro, I can read and write when the external is connected to the MacBook Pro but not the MacBook.

Tesserax mentioned that a third part app on the MacBook Pro allows me to do that. Do you agree, and if so can you tell me which app it is that I have on my MacBook Pro that I can install on the MacBook.

Attached a photo of installed apps on my MacBook Pro (Which is the Mac that allows me to read and write from the external)

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Answer 4

Tesserax

Level 10

152,720 points

Mar 2, 2018 10:57 AM in response to frans89db

In general, OS X or macOS can read from drives formatted in NTFS (a common Windows format), but can't write to them natively. You would need to use a third-party app to do so. This should not be the case if the drive is formatted in exFAT/FAT16/FAT32, which are other common DOS/Windows formats.

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