I bought a Seagate Free Agent Go--for pc and i have a mac. My mac will recognize it but i can't use it. I have tried installing it myself and have tried to follow someones instructions but nothing is working. Is it possible to change the format or am i going to have to buy a new one that works for mac? please help-thanks in advance-natalie
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problem installing seagate free agent on mac
- Thread starter natbarrett
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It is probably formatted NTFS, you can do one of two things.
You can Erase it using Disk Utility, and format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Or, you can install NTFS-3G and use it on both Mac and PC. It will be slow on the Mac, but it will work.
You can Erase it using Disk Utility, and format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Or, you can install NTFS-3G and use it on both Mac and PC. It will be slow on the Mac, but it will work.
i don't mind erasing it in disk utility but I wouldn't know how to reformat it for mac. I hate to ask but could you point me in the direction of any tutorials you might know. I am not very good with computers so this is all new stuff to me.
thanks for quick reply
thanks for quick reply
RE:
"i don't mind erasing it in disk utility but I wouldn't know how to reformat it for mac. I hate to ask but could you point me in the direction of any tutorials you might know. I am not very good with computers so this is all new stuff to me."
It's much easier than you might think:
1. Plug the drive into the Mac, turn it on, let it spin up. At this point it doesn't matter if it doesn't mount on the desktop.
2. Launch "Disk Utility" (it's in the "Utilities" folder which is inside your "Applications" folder)
3. You should see the icon for the Seagate drive in the left-hand side of DU's window.
4. Click on the the icon for the Seagate to selet it, then click "erase" to the right.
5. From the choices you are offered, choose "HFS, journaled". You can also give the volume a name if you wish.
6. At this point, you can also partition the drive if you want, but that is not necessary if you only want a single volume/partition.
7. Click down below to begin the re-initialization process.
When it's done, quit DU. The drive should now be on the Mac desktop.
IMPORTANT:
If you choose to use HFS, be aware that the drive will NO LONGER MOUNT on Windows PCs. (at least, not without some addition software on the Windows side, I believe)
- John
"i don't mind erasing it in disk utility but I wouldn't know how to reformat it for mac. I hate to ask but could you point me in the direction of any tutorials you might know. I am not very good with computers so this is all new stuff to me."
It's much easier than you might think:
1. Plug the drive into the Mac, turn it on, let it spin up. At this point it doesn't matter if it doesn't mount on the desktop.
2. Launch "Disk Utility" (it's in the "Utilities" folder which is inside your "Applications" folder)
3. You should see the icon for the Seagate drive in the left-hand side of DU's window.
4. Click on the the icon for the Seagate to selet it, then click "erase" to the right.
5. From the choices you are offered, choose "HFS, journaled". You can also give the volume a name if you wish.
6. At this point, you can also partition the drive if you want, but that is not necessary if you only want a single volume/partition.
7. Click down below to begin the re-initialization process.
When it's done, quit DU. The drive should now be on the Mac desktop.
IMPORTANT:
If you choose to use HFS, be aware that the drive will NO LONGER MOUNT on Windows PCs. (at least, not without some addition software on the Windows side, I believe)
- John
I have a Seagate Freeagent (not sure if its a GO' specifically) working fine on my iMac. Reformatted to GUID / HFS as per above instructions or some variant of.
Good to see you got it working. I have a Free Agent Go as well (which works just fine on a Mac) and the biggest problem with the Mac software is that you can't turn off the annoying yellow light that wraps around the entire drive unless you use the Windows version of the software.
No HFS, journaled
I tried this too, but the only options I had to choose were Mac os Extended and a couple others. Is this the one I should select?
I tried this too, but the only options I had to choose were Mac os Extended and a couple others. Is this the one I should select?
Formatting GoFlex Seagate External Harddrive
Following on from this post. I've done all of the above to format a seagate hard drive but it hasn't worked on my mac. It will allow me to erase using 'zero-out data' option. Is this an ok option to use to format my hard drive? Thanks
Following on from this post. I've done all of the above to format a seagate hard drive but it hasn't worked on my mac. It will allow me to erase using 'zero-out data' option. Is this an ok option to use to format my hard drive? Thanks