I'm working in NeoOffice because I can't afford MS Office for Mac right now and it's killing me. I don't use it much, but still...I can't even make a new folder when saving to my EHD? I'm trying to save the document I worked on and have navigated to the proper place on the EHD, but the new folder button is grayed out. I guess the honeymoon is just over for me now that I'm having to do some real work on it. Navigating to the folder was slower on this machine, even opening photos in iPhoto seems slower than it was on my PC. Is this normal? Is this what I should be expecting from the Mac? I have the 1.66 gHz mini, but I bumped it up to 2GB of RAM. I can say that at this point, it isn't as fast as my old PC was after a good cleanup. Help?!? Am I expecting too much?
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Tell me again why I did this...
- Thread starter twomiracles
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Yes, I just keep talking to myself. It won't let me make any new folders on the EHD at all! What is the deal? I'm trying to move photos from my camera to the EHD because I don't want to fill up my Mac internal drive. What a pain this is to do! I'm sorry, I'm probably offending you guys, but really, this is not making me want to keep this machine. Please tell me what I'm doing wrong?!?! Please?!?!?!? I can't browse to one of my EHDs, it has disappeared and I can't get it back, I can't move my photos to the EHD, I have to import them into iPhoto and I don't want them on my IHD, really, why is everything so difficult?
How is your external drive formatted? If you want to write to it, it has to be either HFS+ or FAT32. If it's an old one that you used to use with your PC and it's NTFS, then that's why the Mac can't write to it; NTFS isn't an open format.
As a hint to avoid talking to yourself in future, make the thread topic more specific so 'I can't write to my external hard drive' - and don't use random abbreviations. EHD might seem obvious to you but it might not to others.
As a hint to avoid talking to yourself in future, make the thread topic more specific so 'I can't write to my external hard drive' - and don't use random abbreviations. EHD might seem obvious to you but it might not to others.
Thanks for your response. I'm sorry for the vague intro, I am really frustrated right now. Nothing I am familiar with on my PC is working on this machine. The shortcuts I know like the back of my hand for Photoshop don't work on the Mac. The external hard drives aren't that old, but I don't know for sure what the formats are. However, if I can't write to them with the Mac, I can't use it. I only got a 60 gb hard drive thinking I could use my EHDs and no one at the Apple store ever mentioned the possibility of file format issues. I am just afraid that I know PCs too well to try to learn something else. I'm a digital scrapper and it is kind of like when I tried to learn to do paper scrapbooking...the whole time I'd sit there with paper, I'd be telling myself it would be so much easier to do this digitally. It seems that most of the time I try to do anything except surf the web on this mac, I'm telling myself it was much easier on my PC.
Again, don't mean to offend or bash Macs, I just am not sure I'm ready for a change this big.
Again, don't mean to offend or bash Macs, I just am not sure I'm ready for a change this big.
So far as Photoshop goes, you are using Command X etc rather than Control X to cut etc? Most of shortcuts are similar - just the modifier key changes from Control to Command (the Apple key).
Your drives, even if they're NTFS, will still work - you'll just have to reformat them to HFS+ or FAT32 although that does mean you'll lose what's currently on them. HFS+ is the better format and there is an program you can get to run on PCs to allow them to still have read/write access to them.
The Mac is different to Windows and there will be a slight learning curve. Many of us have worked through it... and come through quite happily using OS X.
There's a very useful guide on Apple's support site called Switch 101 that talks you through the Mac/Windows differences in various applications.
Your drives, even if they're NTFS, will still work - you'll just have to reformat them to HFS+ or FAT32 although that does mean you'll lose what's currently on them. HFS+ is the better format and there is an program you can get to run on PCs to allow them to still have read/write access to them.
The Mac is different to Windows and there will be a slight learning curve. Many of us have worked through it... and come through quite happily using OS X.
There's a very useful guide on Apple's support site called Switch 101 that talks you through the Mac/Windows differences in various applications.
Sometimes it comes down to comfort level. You may want to go back to a PC. I love macs and swear by them, but they aren't for everyone.
In the short term, to format your external drive for mac, go to Applications->Utilities->Disk Utility. Select your external disk on the left, and click on the "Erase" tab. It should default to "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" Uncheck the "install Mac OS 9 Disk Driver" if it is checked, and click on erase. That should make it work for a mac external.
In the short term, to format your external drive for mac, go to Applications->Utilities->Disk Utility. Select your external disk on the left, and click on the "Erase" tab. It should default to "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" Uncheck the "install Mac OS 9 Disk Driver" if it is checked, and click on erase. That should make it work for a mac external.
Thanks, all. The thing is, I NEED to be able to go between computers with the EHDs. I don't have Photoshop on here, yet, I'm not planning to buy the Mac version until CS3 comes out. I already moved alot of stuff over to the brand new WD EHD last night and the second one is full of my photos. I have nowhere to put them. What really gets me is that in all the conversations I had before buying the Mac, here and at my digiscrapping forum and even in the Apple store, no one ever said I'd have an issue with my EHDs and I said over and over I'd be using them.
I have figured out that the windows key is the apple key, but for example, alt+delete fills the non-transparent pixels in a photoshop layer in Windows. It doesn't work on the Mac. That's the first one I found, but I use that so often, I can't imagine having to go up and get the paint bucket every time I need to do that.
I just think I may have made a bad decision. I'm in school pursuing a degree in Information Systems and everything I do there is on a PC. Everything I've ever done anywhere else has been on a PC. I hate that it slows down every six months and has to be cleaned up or the OS has to be reloaded. But, it is what I know and I'm just not sure that I have time to learn to use a computer all over again.
Thanks for letting me vent and understanding that it's nothing against a Mac, just my own questioning whether this was the right choice for me personally.
I have figured out that the windows key is the apple key, but for example, alt+delete fills the non-transparent pixels in a photoshop layer in Windows. It doesn't work on the Mac. That's the first one I found, but I use that so often, I can't imagine having to go up and get the paint bucket every time I need to do that.
I just think I may have made a bad decision. I'm in school pursuing a degree in Information Systems and everything I do there is on a PC. Everything I've ever done anywhere else has been on a PC. I hate that it slows down every six months and has to be cleaned up or the OS has to be reloaded. But, it is what I know and I'm just not sure that I have time to learn to use a computer all over again.
Thanks for letting me vent and understanding that it's nothing against a Mac, just my own questioning whether this was the right choice for me personally.
Don't worry. The feeling of disorientation is not unusual and will pass quickly
The hard drive issue is a big one. What I'd suggest (if you don't need really high speed from these drives) is that you attach them to a Windows machine (if you still have one) and share them using Windows File Sharing. Then you connect to them with your Mac machine over your home network (I'm assuming you have one). Reading and writing will be fine. Performance won't be great, but it shouldn't be terrible unless you were using these disks for scratch disks or anything.
Will that work? I can help you with any questions you might have about that procedure.
The hard drive issue is a big one. What I'd suggest (if you don't need really high speed from these drives) is that you attach them to a Windows machine (if you still have one) and share them using Windows File Sharing. Then you connect to them with your Mac machine over your home network (I'm assuming you have one). Reading and writing will be fine. Performance won't be great, but it shouldn't be terrible unless you were using these disks for scratch disks or anything.
Will that work? I can help you with any questions you might have about that procedure.
If you format it as FAT32, then you'll be able to read and write to the HD with both Macs and PCs.
Well, I don't use them for scratch disks, but I do want to store all my photos, music and digital scrapbooking kits on them, so I don't really want to have to do that over a network. I've had to do that before from my house to my office (which is literally just down the hill) and it takes forever to load the thumbnails of my photos and/or kits, etc... when trying to browse them. I did check and the first and oldest one is NTFS, but the second, well, heck, it won't even show up on the Mac now, so I can't tell you what it is !
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If you need to use the external HD (or "EHD" as you put it...) between PCs and Macs, then FAT32 is your answer.
Don't buzz over the fact that "omgz my Mac can't write to my "EHD"!!!". Macs, like Linux and other non-Windows OSes cannot write to NTFS. It's a fact. Period. Either change the format of the "EHD" or get over it.
FAT32, my friend. What will suck for you, however, is that FAT32 cannot handle more than 32 GB, or so I hear. So you gotta partition your "EHD". Heh. Sucks, huh?
Don't buzz over the fact that "omgz my Mac can't write to my "EHD"!!!". Macs, like Linux and other non-Windows OSes cannot write to NTFS. It's a fact. Period. Either change the format of the "EHD" or get over it.
FAT32, my friend. What will suck for you, however, is that FAT32 cannot handle more than 32 GB, or so I hear. So you gotta partition your "EHD". Heh. Sucks, huh?
What do you mean by "can't handle more that 32MB"? I'm not sure I understand what you mean. It can't handle a file bigger than that or what? I did find out that one of my two is actually already formatted FAT32, so that's good...I think . It's a 250GB drive, though, so does that mean it can handle more than 32MB? A little more confused now...
. It's a 250GB drive, though, so does that mean it can handle more than 32MB? A little more confused now...
What do you mean by "can't handle more that 32MB"? I'm not sure I understand what you mean. It can't handle a file bigger than that or what? I did find out that one of my two is actually already formatted FAT32, so that's good...I think
No no, what I hear is that FAT32 cannot handle a harddrive that's bigger than 32 GB. That's just what I heard, don't mind me if you got a 250 GB drive that works in FAT32, I obviously heard wrong.
Cool, then we both learned something today, LOL. Guess I'll be moving everything off of the old NTFS one and onto the FAT32 one...and I'll have to hook them both up to the old PC, I guess, to do it. Oh, well, at least I'm moving in the right direction now...thanks everyone!
Well the mac can read NTFS just not write to it. MS never released how to write to this format.
There's also MacDrive, which will allow you to read/write the contents of a Mac-formatted drive under Windows. That's the easiest thing to do, although it takes a little cash.
The speed of a networked hard drive, provided that it's in your house, is nothing to sneeze at. As soon as you get out of your house, then the speed is not particularly great. If both computers are at your house (at least while you're accessing those files), this is the best situation.
Another option is to download GIMPshop for OS X, which is a free (as in "freedom", as well as in "free beer") alternative to PhotoShop. You probably won't be crazy about it, but it offers about 90% of PS's functionality at 0% of the cost.
Still another option is to reformat your hard drives as ext3, which is a Linux formatting. If I remember correctly, there are free drivers for both OS X and Windows. I'm not sure how difficult that would be, but it would likely be free.
The speed of a networked hard drive, provided that it's in your house, is nothing to sneeze at. As soon as you get out of your house, then the speed is not particularly great. If both computers are at your house (at least while you're accessing those files), this is the best situation.
Another option is to download GIMPshop for OS X, which is a free (as in "freedom", as well as in "free beer") alternative to PhotoShop. You probably won't be crazy about it, but it offers about 90% of PS's functionality at 0% of the cost.
Still another option is to reformat your hard drives as ext3, which is a Linux formatting. If I remember correctly, there are free drivers for both OS X and Windows. I'm not sure how difficult that would be, but it would likely be free.
IMO, if you plan on a career in IS after your degree, one of the *best* things you can do for yourself now is to get as much non-PC experience as you can. Sometimes when you learn a lesson that affects you personally (like why no other OS can write to a NTFS partition), it'll stick with you a lot longer than if you just read it out of a book.
"I've only ever used a PC" IS folks are a dime-a-dozen to find.
Well, did you try the obvious alternative? The Option key is generally the equivalent of Windows' "alt" (Apple even prints "alt" right on the Option key). Option-Delete appears to do what you describe.
As has already been pointed out, for common keyboard shortcuts, you can generally exchange the Control key (Windows) for the Command key (MacOS) to get the same results, like Cmd-Z for undo, etc. If you look in the Menubar for any given app, every item that has a keyboard shortcut will have it listed right next to it in the menu (for example, next you "Quit" you see "⌘Q").
In System Preferences under Keyboard, there are settings for changing Keyboard Shortcuts. You can add any app to the list and customize them to your liking. I wouldn't use this to change existing ones, but I have used it to add keyboard shortcuts when none existed.
The people who told you you'd have no problems with "EHDs" (that's an interesting abbreviation) were right. There's nothing inherent with external HDDs that makes them platform specific, and OS X can read all the common formats. It's all about how they're formatted. You need it to be HFS+ or FAT32 if you want write access. FAT32 does have size limitations, but obviously it's possible to get up to 250GB since you said you had one like that. "Normally" it's restricted to 32GB.
Oh, the saga continues. I know I brought it all on myself, but I might as well tell you what happened. I have downloaded the PSCS2 trial three times and can't install it. I keep getting an error, some stupid generic error that doesn't help me a dang bit and so I can't even install it. I have only PSCS for Windows, Adobe won't give me the Mac version of it, they want me to upgrade to PSCS2 which is stupid at this point because PSCS3 will be out in a few months and I'll just buy it with my student discount.
I am the most unlucky person in the world when it comes to this stuff, perhaps I've chosen the wrong career!
Sorry, I'll stop whining and leave you guys alone now.
I am the most unlucky person in the world when it comes to this stuff, perhaps I've chosen the wrong career!
Sorry, I'll stop whining and leave you guys alone now.
Oh, and apfhex, I am using my wireless keyboard, not an apple one, so I don't know which key that is, but I'm going to google that now and see if I can find out. Thanks!
What? That is what the Mac experience is all about, so everybody can use them. Geez, my kids have been on Macs since they could sit up, I've been using them since 1992, my wife since 1994. Sorry dude, but PCs are for people who like to suffer great pain.
Sorry, Jack, "There was an error during installation." Adobe tech support finally had me try to install in safe mode and it worked. Sounds alot like a bandage instead of an actual solution, but it worked. Just wish I knew why it wouldn't install in the first place.
Anyway, thanks for trying!
Anyway, thanks for trying!