Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

External harddrives....going from pc to mac?

Options
  • 21-03-2011 7:58pm
    #1
    s.a.man
    Registered Users Posts: 242 ✭✭


    I currently have 2 seagate external harddrives that is formatted in ntfs and I know for a fact that it wont work on the mac straight out the box, I am looking to go for a macbook pro and am afraid of losing all my data on the harddrives as a result....

    What is the best way to go about this and hopefully not to have it formatted in a way so it will than work on the mac?

    Thank you


Comments

  • Options
    #2
    Sad Professor
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,671 CMod ✭✭✭✭Sad Professor


    Are both of these drives full that you can't backup and reformat?

    The Mac will be able to read them, just not write to them. You could use a third party solution such as NTFS-3G or MacFUSE to get around this. I've never used them myself though so I'm not sure how well they work.

    Will you be using both drives exclusively with the Mac in future, or will you be using them back and forth with a Windows machine?


  • Options
    #3
    s.a.man
    Registered Users Posts: 242 ✭✭s.a.man


    Sad Professor wrote: »
    Are both of these drives full that you can't backup and reformat?

    The Mac will be able to read them, just not write to them. You could use a third party solution such as NTFS-3G or MacFUSE to get around this. I've never used them myself though so I'm not sure how well they work.

    Will you be using both drives exclusively with the Mac in future, or will you be using them back and forth with a Windows machine?

    They are not full but there are some things on it that I want to keep, also I am getting rid of my windows machine and planning on only using the mac, so yes I will only use it on the mac.


  • Options
    #4
    Sad Professor
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,671 CMod ✭✭✭✭Sad Professor


    In that case I would recommend formatting them so they will work fully with Mac OS X. Either backup all the data from both drives onto the Mac when you get it (or one at a time if there's not enough space), then reformat the external drive in HFS+ and transfer everything back... or just get a new external drive and use that to transfer everything onto.

    If the data is that important you should probably have a backup anyway.


  • Options
    #5
    s.a.man
    Registered Users Posts: 242 ✭✭s.a.man


    Sad Professor wrote: »
    In that case I would recommend formatting them so they will work fully with Mac OS X. Either backup all the data from both drives onto the Mac when you get it (or one at a time if there's not enough space), then reformat the external drive in HFS+ and transfer everything back... or just get a new external drive and use that to transfer everything onto.

    If the data is that important you should probably have a backup anyway.

    Can I format it in fat32?? As I heard it will work on mac??


  • Options
    #6
    PeakOutput
    Registered Users Posts: 7,639 ✭✭✭PeakOutput


    s.a.man wrote: »
    Can I format it in fat32?? As I heard it will work on mac??

    You can but fat32 only supports files up to 4gb in size and while at the time I didnt think that would be an issue it is a real effin pain

    edit: the only real reason to go with fat32 is if you think you are going to be using them with a windows machine at all


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #7
    formatman
    Registered Users Posts: 794 ✭✭✭formatman


    The Macupdate spring bundle (https://www.mupromo.com/) includes Parallels 6 , install windows through boot camp on the mac and then access in a virtual machine

    Access the seagates info easily , read and write , or format one seagate and use the other as is etc


  • Options
    #8
    barryj
    Registered Users Posts: 185 ✭✭barryj


    s.a.man wrote: »
    Can I format it in fat32?? As I heard it will work on mac??

    FAT32 will be read/write by both Windows and Mac. But it's an old file system with limitations such as maximum of 4GB file size. Not recommended unless you really must.

    FAT64/exFAT is newer and supported on Windows from Vista SP1 onwards. Supported fully on Mac since 10.6.5. If you must share between Windows and Mac, this may be best option.

    HFS+ is the Mac native file system. If you only need to use with a Mac, then this is your best option. It's the only option that will support Time Machine backups.

    - barry


  • Options
    #9
    smtdos
    Registered Users Posts: 135 ✭✭smtdos


    I use NTFS-3g + MacFuse on my Macbook Air with no problems.

    Can read/write to NTFS drives without any issues.

    Had same issue as OP with previous hard drives used with windows machines and then bought a MBA. With NTFS-3g installed you can plug your existing NFTS formatted hard drives into windows and mac computers without any hassle.

    Read this:

    http://hem.bredband.net/catacombae/ntfs-3g/macntfs-3g_userguide.pdf

    Tuxera have a new product out that you have to pay for but the NTFS-3g is a free download so google that.


Advertisement