External Hard Drive

[Nostradamus1389]

Hello,

I recently transferred over to a MacBook Pro from HP and I love it.

Now I have a question about external hard drives. I used one with my PC and have all my music, photos, etc on there. Is there any way to use it on my MacBook without losing all my files?

I'd appreciate any help.

Thanks.

 

[saberahul]

Hello,

I recently transferred over to a MacBook Pro from HP and I love it.

Now I have a question about external hard drives. I used one with my PC and have all my music, photos, etc on there. Is there any way to use it on my MacBook without losing all my files?

I'd appreciate any help.

Thanks.

I'd suggest formatting it to exFat if you're unable to read it. Most likely it is in NTFS which is readable by some 3rd party solutions (i forgot names). If not, just connect to any PC - copy all your data to that PC - format drive to exFat and copy all that back to your HDD. Now your mac can read it. I bet there is a better solution but I don't know of any. I'm still new and that is how I did it.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Maybe this can help?

FAT32 (File Allocation Table)

• Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
• Maximum file size: 4GB.
• Maximum volume size: 2TB

NTFS (Windows NT File System)

• Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
• Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
  [*]To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X: Install NTFS-3G for Mac OS X (free)
  
• Some have reported problems using Tuxera (approx 33USD).
• Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard, but is not advisable, due to instability.
• AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support NTFS
• Maximum file size: 16 TB
• Maximum volume size: 256TB

HFS+ (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended)

• Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
• Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner backups of Mac internal hard drive.
• To Read/Write HFS+ from Windows, Install MacDrive
• To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer
• Maximum file size: 8EiB
• Maximum volume size: 8EiB

exFAT (FAT64)

• Supported in Mac OS X only in 10.6.5 or later.
• Not all Windows versions support exFAT. See disadvantages.
• exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
• AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support exFAT
• Maximum file size: 16 EiB
• Maximum volume size: 64 ZiB