I have a 2TB USB NTFS formatted hdd which I use for storing videos to watch on my Asus O!play media player. My Windows computer and the Oplay recognize everything fine but when I plug it into my 2006 MacBook some of the files and folders have different names. They seem to be of files that have been deleted months before. It usually just changes the file name, but sometimes changes the extension or even turns a file into a folder! These misnamed files cannot be opened it changed, only deleted, but plugging the drive into the windows comp or the Oplay everything is as it should be. Any ideas how to make the MacBook work with it properly?
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OSX misnames files/folders on NTFS drive.
- Thread starter Benhermies
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Assuming you didn't mess with drivers or anything, OS X has no capacity to rename any files on an NTFS formatted drive. It mounts them as read-only. It's hard to know what you're talking about without specifics, but sometimes certain files are seen on one OS as a file, and on another as a folder. As for the other issues, I think it's likely some of what you're seeing are Windows hidden files, that you're just not meant to see, and normally you wouldn't, but Mac OS didn't get the memo.
Also, sometimes certain characters can be used in filenames on one OS, but not in another. Generally these things are only up to the filesystem and are not OS-dependant, but one example is the colon and the slash on Mac OS. Traditionally the colon was used as a path separator such as "Macintosh HD:Users:[User Name]: Documents" etc. If Mac OS sees a file with that character, it converts it to a slash to compensate. Why a slash? Because that's the path separator for its UNIX underpinnings. It just swaps back and forth between the two characters as needed. Confusing for power users, but most regular users only deal with the more tradition-keeping part of Mac OS and see slashes instead of colons.
If you have no idea what I just said, just think: Pie.
Also, sometimes certain characters can be used in filenames on one OS, but not in another. Generally these things are only up to the filesystem and are not OS-dependant, but one example is the colon and the slash on Mac OS. Traditionally the colon was used as a path separator such as "Macintosh HD:Users:[User Name]: Documents" etc. If Mac OS sees a file with that character, it converts it to a slash to compensate. Why a slash? Because that's the path separator for its UNIX underpinnings. It just swaps back and forth between the two characters as needed. Confusing for power users, but most regular users only deal with the more tradition-keeping part of Mac OS and see slashes instead of colons.
If you have no idea what I just said, just think: Pie.
Hi ConCat. Thanks for the tip, but the colon/slash issue doesn't seem to be the case for me. When I look at those files/folders on Windows/O!Play there's nothing special about them. Some are just plain letters, some have a number, but as far as I can tell there are no special characters or anything else that would set them apart. The file names are even similar in length to non-affected files.
I did forget to mention I have Paragon NTFS for Mac installed which allows me to read and write to NTFS drives. I guess it could be a bug in that software. Any recommendations for an alternative?
I did forget to mention I have Paragon NTFS for Mac installed which allows me to read and write to NTFS drives. I guess it could be a bug in that software. Any recommendations for an alternative?