Problems with external HD

Discussion in 'Macintosh Computers' started by willyhunt, Mar 15, 2005.

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  1. willyhunt, Mar 15, 2005

    willyhunt macrumors member

    willyhunt

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2004
    Location:
    Exeter, UK
    #1
    Okay, Hi just got my Mac Mini today (not a bad piece of kit). Anway my problem is my external USB HD. It has all my junk on it so to speak and while I can transfer data from it to the Mac it wont allow me to delete or add anything to it. Now I have just come from Windows and the HD is formatted as NTFS (If this means anything?) Also I clicked the properties and it says I can read and write and I have unlocked it but it still wont work.
    So how would I go about being able to write and delete stuff on it?
    Sorry if I am being thick. Cheers.
     
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  2. Blue Velvet, Mar 15, 2005

    Blue Velvet Moderator emeritus

    Joined:
    Jul 4, 2004
    #2
    Your Mac will only read from NTFS-formatted disks, not write to it.

    You need to copy everything off that disk, erase & reformat it to OS X journaled using Disk Utility and then copy everything back.

    Disk Utility is in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder.
     
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  3. willyhunt, Mar 15, 2005

    willyhunt thread starter macrumors member

    willyhunt

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2004
    Location:
    Exeter, UK
    #3
    I was hoping you would'nt say that but thanks.

     
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  4. Crikey, Mar 15, 2005

    Crikey macrumors 6502

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    Location:
    Spencer's Butte, Oregon
    #4
    Or if you still want to use your external hard disk with Windows machines you could format FAT32 as a kind of lowest-common-denominator.


    Crikey
     
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  5. chrisa107, Mar 15, 2005

    chrisa107 macrumors member

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    Feb 14, 2005
    #5
    If you have Partition Magic or some similiar program for windows, you can format the drive to FAT32 without losing any data - I did that for my former NTFS external drive, and now it works perfectly with both OSX and Windows as a FAT32 drive.
     
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