Can't put stuff from hardrive to mac - CNET Mac laptops Forums

Answer Best answer as chosen by user dennis123138

Re: copying files to external hard disk

by Kees_B - 9/8/12 11:59 AM

In Reply to: Can't put stuff from hardrive to mac by dennis123138

- How big are those files?
- In what filesystem is the (partition on) the hard disk formatted?
- What error message do you get?

Kees

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Answer Best answer as chosen by user dennis123138

What's the betting that your external hard drive was

by mrmacfixit - 9/8/12 4:26 PM

In Reply to: Can't put stuff from hardrive to mac by dennis123138

previously used with a Windows machine?

If the answer is "yes it was", then there is a distinct possibility that it is formatted as NTFS, standard for Windows, and as such is readable by the Mac but not writable.

Which means that you can see what is on the external drive and copy it to your Mac but you cannot go the other way.
To get around this, you have a couple of choices.
1. Reformat the external as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) Standard for Mac
2. Download a copy of NTFS for Mac (Not Free)
3. Download a copy of NTFD-3G for Mac (Free)

Using any of those choices will enable your Mac to Read and Write to a disk that is formatted as NTFS

P