External HD read only

[vramos11]

I am the proud owner of a flawless Macbook Pro; my first lapper.

My (Older) Seagate 75 gig Usb cabled external drive is a 'read only' and the directions and website don't address this issue. 'Mac OS standard' is in info file. It has no firewire port. It is older, maybe four years.

Upon boot I get a non-repairable prompt indicating limited functionality.


"Item cannot be modified", happens upon dragging a file to it.
"Unexpected error... 61", when I try to dump file from drive.

This drive is still writable and editable from my '01 G4. Everything is backed up on disc but I'd like to use the drive.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Everything is backed up on disc but I'd like to use the drive.

 

[vorkorsigan]

Sounds like reformatting time, as everything is copied off reformat in something that will work with the machines you need. FAT is most compatible I think.

 

[vramos11]

Thank You

That is what I suspected. I'll investigate further; thank you.

 

[ViViDboarder]

FAT doesn't support large files (>4gb) so if you're doing DVD's it won't be a good fit. If you're just using it with your Mac, then do the MacOS Extended (Journaled)

 

[pdxflint]

If you want to use the external drive cross-platform with any windows machine to transfer files between them and your Mac, use FAT32. It will work just fine. Otherwise, use the MacOS Extended (journaled) as mentioned.