Tag: hard drive

How to Back Up Your Data on Your Mac

Here’s a great little wiki article in the How To section of Wired.com. It talks about backing up your data as a Mac user. It’s extremely important to back up all your data, but most of us don’t learn this or follow through and actually do it until we’ve learned the hard way. The hardest … Continue reading “How to Back Up Your Data on Your Mac”

Here’s a great little wiki article in the How To section of Wired.com. It talks about backing up your data as a Mac user. It’s extremely important to back up all your data, but most of us don’t learn this or follow through and actually do it until we’ve learned the hard way. The hardest part is purchasing an external hard drive with tons of space on it – at least the same capacity as the drive you’re backing up. Next you’ll need back up software. Time Machine is probably the easiest option because it comes with the Mac operating systems as long as your Mac has Leopard 10.5 or later. Check out the article for the details. They also list several alternatives to Time Machine and they also mention some online options for backing up your data.

NMC Tip: How to format your hard drive so it is Mac compatible… and why

Hi New Media Center patrons, if you plan to work often in the NMC, strongly consider reformatting your hard drives so they are Mac compatible. Drives that are not Mac-formatted may experience issues reading and writing to and from the drive. Note that reformatting the drive erases it, so patrons are advised to back up … Continue reading “NMC Tip: How to format your hard drive so it is Mac compatible… and why”

Hi New Media Center patrons, if you plan to work often in the NMC, strongly consider reformatting your hard drives so they are Mac compatible. Drives that are not Mac-formatted may experience issues reading and writing to and from the drive. Note that reformatting the drive erases it, so patrons are advised to back up their footage before doing this (or ideally formatting the drive before saving anything to it). Also note that reformatting it for Mac may make it incompatible with a PC. If you need the drive to work on both, consult an NMC staff member.


To reformat the drive:

  1. Plug the drive into any Mac computer. In the upper right corner, click the magnifying glass, then type “disk utility” (note that ‘disk’ has a k).
  2. When the Disk Utility window pops up, you will see your drive in the list in the left hand window. Select the drive.
  3. In the main window on the right, you will see several options across the top. Click on “erase.” Then under “format,” choose “Mac OS (journaled).”
  4. Rename the drive if you wish.
  5. Click “erase.”

Todd’s Tips: External Hard Drive Suddenly Not-Writeable on a Mac?

This is a problem that comes up in the DMS from time to time. Patrons come in and say, “I’ve been using this external hard drive on a mac for a long time and suddenly it won’t work; I can’t put files on it.” My first question is always the same: “Did you use it … Continue reading “Todd’s Tips: External Hard Drive Suddenly Not-Writeable on a Mac?”

This is a problem that comes up in the DMS from time to time. Patrons come in and say, “I’ve been using this external hard drive on a mac for a long time and suddenly it won’t work; I can’t put files on it.” My first question is always the same: “Did you use it on a PC?” They usually shrug and look at the floor, “yes.”
This is a problem and it can create some misleading assumptions. Flash drives (thumb drives) can move fairly effortlessly between Mac and PC since they are basically solid-state memory. External hard drives, on the other hand, are an entity unto themselves. As such, they live by different rules.
When a Mac-formatted external hard drive is plugged into a PC, the Windows OS can sometimes attempt to appropriate the drive’s file system for its own. Then, when the hard drive is plugged back into a Mac the Mac is unable to write to the disk. There are two solutions to this problem:
1) Prevention – DON’T use your Mac external hard drive on a PC. Just don’t. There’s a very low chance that your disk will become unwritable if you do this.
2) Cure – If it comes to the point where your Mac-formatted hard drive has become unwritable on a Mac your only option is to reformat the drive. Some folks will tell you that you can “repair the permissions,” but this is almost never possible. BEFORE you do this make sure you backup all your data; once you tell a Mac to reformat there’s NO WAY to recover any data left on the drive. Here’s a video tutorial on how to format an external hard drive on a Mac.
One option you have, if you insist on your drive being useable on both systems, is to partition the drive with some percentage reserved for Mac and some percentage reserved for PC. Here’s a video tutorial on how to partition a drive.
If you decide to take this route, make sure that you set the formats as follows:
Mac partition – Mac OS Journaled (extended)
PC partition – NTFS
DO NOT USE Fat32 for any reason. This file system was intended to be a cross-platform solution. Unfortunately it will not allow the transfer of files larger than 4Gb. If you’re doing video work or some other heavy multimedia lifting Fat32 will only complicate your life.