External Harddrive MAXTOR HELP PLEASE!

**Iblunt420** · 10-30-2008, 09:35 AM

Ok so, I just switched over to using apple. I am using a macbook pro with 10.4 tiger...soon to be leopard

. I want to use the external hard drive that i used with my PC, But the mac will not let me read or write to the hard drive. Or delete any of the programs off the hard drive. I assume i have to format this to make it compatible with mac? Can you help me and let me know what i need to do to accomplish this? thanks

**z3r01** · 10-30-2008, 09:42 AM

i dont think formatting is the key, but there is something that is happening that is not letting the mac read or write....hmmm....what format is the HDD in? NTFS?

**jtnave23** · 10-30-2008, 09:54 AM

Chances are your external HD is NTFS formatted (If formatted originally on your Windows machine). Macs like FAT32 and the Apple formatted drives. I use FAT32 so that I can use on both Windows and Mac without hassles. Usually though, you can read on NTFS, just not write. There is a program out for Macs that will help with NTFS, but cannot remember the name. Google NTFS Mac and see what comes up.

**pncntigger** · 10-30-2008, 10:22 AM

You should be able to at least read that NTFS partition.

Try this if you still want to keep that hard drive as a NTFS partition.

If you are not working with a lot of large files you should just format your drive as fat32

**Iblunt420** · 10-30-2008, 10:37 AM

Ok your right, Sorry I can read, but i cannot write to the drive. How is your experience with FAT32? I read that you cannot use all of the memory on the hard drive? It is a 500 gig NTFS hard drive. I want to be able to use all of the space...Thanks

I have about 200 gigs worth of music and movies. I don't have any really big single files, i think movies are about 800mb. These are my largest individual files

**pncntigger** · 10-30-2008, 10:59 AM

You should be fine with fat32 then. If I remember correctly, there is a 4gb file limit in fat32, so if you're not doing any video editing or anything requiring huge files then you should be good with fat32.

I use fat32 on one of my external drives when I need to share files with a windows box.

**mrsidewayzz** · 11-10-2008, 08:36 PM

Originally Posted by jtnave23

Chances are your external HD is NTFS formatted (If formatted originally on your Windows machine). Macs like FAT32 and the Apple formatted drives. I use FAT32 so that I can use on both Windows and Mac without hassles. Usually though, you can read on NTFS, just not write. There is a program out for Macs that will help with NTFS, but cannot remember the name. Google NTFS Mac and see what comes up.

he's right. format it to FAT, since macs arent NTFS frendly...

**dman112** · 03-03-2009, 09:10 PM

Yeah it should work if you format it to FAT.Good luck

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Thread: External Harddrive MAXTOR HELP PLEASE!

Tiger 10.4.X and Older

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Ok so, I just switched over to using apple. I am using a macbook pro with 10.4 tiger...soon to be leopard . I want to use the external hard drive

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