Will the LG XD1 external HD work with my MacBook 10.4.11?

[newbie81]

Hi all,

I have a three year old MacBook (the $999 version) running Mac OS 10.4.11 with an 80 GB hard drive. I want to buy an external drive to move everything on my hard drive (photos, iTunes, documents) onto to free up space and have it work faster. I currently live in Korea, the land of Samsung and LG. After much research I've found what I a) know I can buy in Korea, and b) think will work with my dated OS. It's the LG XD1 320GB Xpress Portable Hard Disk Drive. It is both PC and Mac compatible, and everything I've read (on web sites in Korea, the US and UK) say that it's compatible with Mac OS 10.0 and higher.

What I want to know is, is it really compatible? Many of the hard drives I've found aren't compatible with 10.4.11 regardless of make, model or serial number. Does anyone here have experience with this hard drive that they can share? Alternately, if someone could recommend an external drive that will talk with my machine (whether I can get it in Korea or not) that would also be appreciated. I would simply have to wait a while before purchasing it.

Any help is much appreciated. This is my first post, I hope I've done everything right.

Thanks.

 

[spinnerlys]

Any external HDD is compatible with Mac OS X, I bought several, where Mac OS X 10.5 was stated as requirement and I could use them with Mac OS X 10.4 and Mac OS X 10.2.

Look at the following quote for the proper file system:

FAT32

• Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
• No individual file larger than 4GB.

NTFS

• Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
• Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
• To Read/Write NTFS from Leopard: Install MacFUSE and NTFS-3G. You can install both with NTFS-3G for Mac OS X.
• To Read/Write NTFS from Snow Leopard: Guide: Enable native NTFS Read/Write in Snow Leopard
• (Be aware that some are of the opinion that enabling native NTFS in SL is unstable/unreliable, and favor the MacFuse/NTFS-3G method for Snow Leopard)

HFS

• Read/Write HFS from native Mac OS X
• To Read/Write HFS from Windows, Install MacDrive or HFSExplorer

Format Your Hard Drive Using Disk Utility

Partition Your Hard Drive With Disk Utility

 

[newbie81]

spinnerlys, thanks for your response.

So any HDD that I buy I plug in, go to Disk Utility and format it? The HDD will show up in Disk Utility even if its currently formatted for Windows? I read that the recommended file format is Mac OS Extended (Journaled). That is the same format as HFS? Is there a recommended number of volumes a HDD should have?

Sorry if these seem like simple questions, but I'm new at this and would like to know what to expect beforehand. Thanks.

 

[spinnerlys]

spinnerlys, thanks for your response.

So any HDD that I buy I plug in, go to Disk Utility and format it? The HDD will show up in Disk Utility even if its currently formatted for Windows? I read that the recommended file format is Mac OS Extended (Journaled). That is the same format as HFS? Is there a recommended number of volumes a HDD should have?

Sorry if these seem like simple questions, but I'm new at this and would like to know what to expect beforehand. Thanks.

Yes, you can plug the HDD in and format in Disk Utility, even if it is pre-formatted with NTFS. If that is the case, just make sure to select the PARTITION tab instead of the ERASE tab and use GUID as partition scheme (OPTIONS button below the graphical representations of partitions).
Mac OS Extended is the term used in Disk utility for HFS+, but I advise to use the NON-JOURNALED option for an external HDD.

And there is no recommended number of partitions or volumes per HDD, I once had to partition a 1TB HDD with 14 partitions (due having 100,000+ files and the program could only read 10,000 files per partition - Avid Media Composer and using OMFies). I did that partitioning with Mac OS X 10.2.x.

 

[newbie81]

"Yes, you can plug the HDD in and format in Disk Utility, even if it is pre-formatted with NTFS. If that is the case, just make sure to select the PARTITION tab instead of the ERASE tab and use GUID as partition scheme (OPTIONS button below the graphical representations of partitions).
Mac OS Extended is the term used in Disk utility for HFS+, but I advise to use the NON-JOURNALED option for an external HDD."

OK, two things: one, my computer can't partition, just create volumes. I read in one of the links you supplied that partitioning became available in 10.5 and I have 10.4. When I look in Disk Utility "partition" isn't an option, only "first aid" "erase" "raid" and "restore".

Also, the volume formats I have available under the "raid" tab are "Mac OS extended (journaled)" "Mac OS extended" "Mac OS extended (case-sensitive, journaled)" "Mac OS extended (case-sensitive)" "MS Dos file system" and "UNIX file system". I should use the "Mac OS extended" option?

Thanks.

 

[spinnerlys]

Partitioning an HDD in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)

And yes, choose "Mac OS Extended (NOT Journaled)".

Btw, to quote someone, just press the

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[newbie81]

Alright. Bought the hard drive, followed the instructions, clicked "partition". Now, how long does this usually take? I went to bed last night and it was still partitioning, and was still working when I left for work this morning. It's a 1TB hard drive with 10 partitions. I realize that is a lot of space to work with, but I'm wondering where the fine line is between "I'm working on your hard drive, leave me alone" and "I'm overwhelmed and frozen in place, help me!" The screen showed a lot of work was being done in the first hour, but the status bar has been frozen on partitioning the 8th partition for over 12 hours now. Should I just wait this out, or what?

Thanks as always.