The External Conundrum (Hard Times with Hard Drives)

[aCondor]

My Fellow Mac Fans,

I have a problem that needs solving. This problem has been a problem for many problem-filled days and to this day continues to be a problem.

My problem is related to my WD 750 GB external hard drive. I've had it for several years, and used it with my PC. It's about half-full.

Now, I've been playing around with my 2011 Macbook Pro for several months and its 300 GB hard drive is full. I want to do a clean install of the OSX to get rid of some of the unnecessary files and apps.

Here's where the problem comes in. There's a large amount of music, movies, and apps that I would like to save from my MBP. There's a large amount of data that I would also like to save from my WD external hard drive. However, the WD is formatted in NTFS - I cannot transfer any files from my Mac to the WD.

I've been mulling purchasing another external hard drive, but was hoping there were other suggestions that could save me the $100. My goal is to have all my data saved and the WD external drive formatted to be able to interact with Macs.

Sincerely,

Perpetually Perplexed Person

 

[awer25]

Paragon's NTFS for Mac - $20. Works well for me (although I got it when it was free a few weeks ago). It lets you format and write to NTFS drives and adds more options in Disk Utility (see attached pic).