My dad is a Windows user and I have a MacBooc Pro 13". He upgraded his My Passport to the 4 TB and passed down his 2 TB to me. Unfortunately his was formatted with NTFS and it is set to Read only. Does anybody know anyway that I can 1) Reformat it to a Mac format or 2) at least make it so I can edit Movies/ TV Shows and rename the Hard Drive itself?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Format Change My Passport 2 TB
- Thread starter Ceradona
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Ceradona, a Mac can only READ NTFS natively, it can't write to it hence the read-only status. Use disk utility to reformat it, but this is a destructive process so if you care about the data make sure you have another copy (now you can't say I didn't warn you). For compatibility back to Windows, use ExFAT so both systems can read and write to the disk, if you're going to use Time Machine, use OS X Extended.
Alright that help's half of my problem, now do you know a way to do it so that I do not lose the files on the External?
You can't... you'll need to transfer the files off the external drive first and then format it... otherwise you will lose everything. You can just drag and drop whatever you need to your Mac and it will copy over.