Plug new NTFS 3TB USB HD into Mac, says "can't be modified"

[Muse]

I'm at a volunteer job I do and brought my brand new Seagate 3TB Backup Plus USB HD in order to back up some important files. I go to copy a folder to the HD and am told that it can't be modified. I do see folders and files on the HD. Last week I tried something similar (different HD, same model) and it said the drive was read only. Same thing happened the week before witha WD 3TB HD. That happened after I answered yes to the question of whether I wanted to use the HD for backing up. So, I reasoned this week I'd say no and see what happens. But this week I wasn't asked that question.

What's up with this? Thanks for help.

 

[ViviTheMage]

I am thinking OS X is the key here ...

http://superuser.com/questions/371235/how-do-i-read-and-write-to-ntfs-drive-on-mac-os-lion

does it work on windows?

 

[Muse]

I am thinking OS X is the key here ...

http://superuser.com/questions/371235/how-do-i-read-and-write-to-ntfs-drive-on-mac-os-lion

does it work on windows?

I'm 99+% sure I can write to those HD's from my Windows machines. Haven't actually used the Seagate HD's with Windows, but the WD HD, yes.

I'll check out that link, thanks. I'm of the opinion that it has to do with OS X, or the specific implementation on the machine I'm working on. However, the part time engineer whose support I tried to enlist today is more of a Windows guy and doesn't want to be helpful in any case, so I figured I'd go here for help. I'll check the link.

 

[TheStu]

OS X doesn't have NTFS write support by default. It is read only.

If it's brand new, and there's nothing else on there, then you can format it exFAT in Disk Utility, that will be read/write compatible for both Windows Vista/7/8 and OS X

 

[SKORPI0]

I use NTFS for Mac® OS X with my Hackint0sh to read and write on Seagate 3TB USB3.0 external drive. HDD used in both Windows and OSX systems.
Not sure which OS X version already natively recognizes NTFS formatted drives without any other software.
Probably starting with 10.6 (Snow Leopard)?
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090913140023382

 

[Zaap]

Last Toshiba external I bought came with the NTFS driver install for OSX.

I'd check and see if there's an OSX driver partition or if it came with a disc.

Makes sense to ship new drives with NTFS rather than the old FAT32 format that's too limited. (And exFAT is probably considered too much of a hack for shipping a drive with.)

 

[Eug]

Yes, NTFS is read-only on the Mac. Either you install a 3rd party driver, or else you use exFAT. FAT32 is not recommended due to the 4 GB file size limit, etc.

One other alternative is you can format it HFS+ and install HFS+ drivers on the Windows machines, but I wouldn't recommend that either.

 

[vailr]

Another alternative: use a bootable Ubuntu 14 CD/USB thumb drive (or other current release Linux distro). That should allow copying content from the Mac's HFS formatted internal drive to the NTFS formatted external USB drive.

 

[Eug]

Another alternative: use a bootable Ubuntu 14 CD/USB thumb drive (or other current release Linux distro). That should allow copying content from the Mac's HFS formatted internal drive to the NTFS formatted external USB drive.

I guess that could work, but that seems like too much of a pain.

 

[Muse]

OS X doesn't have NTFS write support by default. It is read only.

If it's brand new, and there's nothing else on there, then you can format it exFAT in Disk Utility, that will be read/write compatible for both Windows Vista/7/8 and OS X

Well, there are things on there, including (I believe) the Backup Plus software. The engineer did make a remark about formatting the drive (seemed like a crack), and I dismissed that, not knowing if it would be a good idea, and figuring it would take more time than I had to give to that part of my work yesterday. It was tough enough just accessing this forum, the machine in question doesn't give me internet access, I had to remove to another room with PITA really old/weak/"sick" Macs with one button mice, where I could fire up Safari.

Thanks, everyone, for the ideas, I think I'm on the right track now.

 

[StinkyPinky]

At work I run into this annoying limitation often so have simply formatted my external drive as exFat.

Or you can pay the $20 for an application from the app store if you don't mind paying.

 

[Muse]

At work I run into this annoying limitation often so have simply formatted my external drive as exFat.

Or you can pay the $20 for an application from the app store if you don't mind paying.

I'm wondering if I can copy off all the stuff on the HD, format it in exFat and then copy back all that stuff and retain the functionality of the utilities, etc. that Seagate provided in the Backup Plus drive. If so, I see no reason not to do that. Even so, I might do it so I can use the drive to get a whole lot of stuff backed up. We already lost some stuff that's absolutely irreplaceable, don't want that to happen again. The administrators just don't have the ambition to back it up on site, and I don't want to argue with them.

 

[dawks]

As already suggested you'll want to format with ExFAT as NTFS is not writable in Mac OS. And if you want to use the drive on both Windows and Mac, you'll need to format it in Windows via the command line. It wouldn't work for me in Windows when I formatted the drive in Mac's Disc Utility.

 

[Muse]

As already suggested you'll want to format with ExFAT as NTFS is not writable in Mac OS. And if you want to use the drive on both Windows and Mac, you'll need to format it in Windows via the command line. It wouldn't work for me in Windows when I formatted the drive in Mac's Disc Utility.

Good to know! Can I then write back the utilities that came on the NTFS formatted disk and expect them to work? This, assuming I copy the contents of the disk as shipped out to a folder on one of my Windows machine before reformatting to exFat.

 

[dawks]

If the utilities support ExFAT it should work ok. There's a slight chance they may only work with NTFS

 

[Muse]

If the utilities support ExFAT it should work ok. There's a slight chance they may only work with NTFS

It's not a big deal. I actually have 3 of those HDs. Going to press a couple of my 3TB USB HD's into service for offsite data backups. Don't know if I will find the included utilities helpful, am going to get a Synology 2 disk NAS shortly that will have 2 WD 3TB red HD's installed, will backup the mirrored drives for off site storage periodically.

 

[vailr]

It wouldn't work for me in Windows when I formatted the drive in Mac's Disc Utility.

When was that?
See: http://www.mactip.net/guide-how-to-...th-macs-and-pcs-without-third-party-software/

Update: At the time of the original posting in 2011, there were some problems getting a Mac formatted exFAT drive working with Windows, it had trouble recognizing those drives. It appears the issue has since been fixed and disks formatted exFAT on OS X 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion) are working with Windows.

 

[Muse]

If the utilities support ExFAT it should work ok. There's a slight chance they may only work with NTFS

Will see, I copied everything on the untouched Seagate HD off to another USB HD, to be copied back after the exFat reformat.

When I go to reformat the 3TB Seagate Backup Plus USB HD, the default allocation unit size changes from 4096kb for NTFS to 1024kb for exFat. Should I change that to 4096kb before proceding with the reformat?

The default is Quick Format. Should I change that to full format? I figured it doesn't matter, but thought I'd ask that too.

 

[dawks]

Leave the defaults. Quick format is adequate.

That was maybe back with 10.8(or 10.7). Not sure if its been resolved in 10.9.

 

[Muse]

Leave the defaults. Quick format is adequate.

That was maybe back with 10.8(or 10.7). Not sure if its been resolved in 10.9.

So, have allocation units at 1024kb in exFat even though the current (I assume) allocation units is 4096kb in NTFS?

 

[Muse]

I just brought the HD in, recently Quick formatted on my Windows 7 machine to exFAT, plugged it into the just-booted Mac and a message pops up:


The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.

The Mac is running OSX, version 10.5.8

I go to "initialize" and then "Repair" is greyed out. I see no way I can get past this. Ideas?

 

[TheStu]

I just brought the HD in, recently Quick formatted on my Windows 7 machine to exFAT, plugged it into the just-booted Mac and a message pops up:


The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.

The Mac is running OSX, version 10.5.8

I go to "initialize" and then "Repair" is greyed out. I see no way I can get past this. Ideas?

exFAT is supported in OS 10.6.5 and later. You'll need to update your Macs.

 

[SKORPI0]

I just brought the HD in, recently Quick formatted on my Windows 7 machine to exFAT, plugged it into the just-booted Mac and a message pops up:


The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.

The Mac is running OSX, version 10.5.8

I go to "initialize" and then "Repair" is greyed out. I see no way I can get past this. Ideas?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exfat

exFAT is only supported from OS X 10.6.5 (Snow Leopard) or later.

 

[Muse]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exfat

exFAT is only supported from OS X 10.6.5 (Snow Leopard) or later.

OK, well that explains that, thanks. So, Fat32? The machine reads my Kingston 16GB flash drive and it seems to think it's in Fat32. Is there a good reason not to format in Fat32? I think someone here said 4GB file size limit. I don't think that's an issue here.

 

[Muse]

exFAT is supported in OS 10.6.5 and later. You'll need to update your Macs.

I can suggest it to the engineer. But I won't hold my breath. That's they way things are there in many many cases.

What I think I'll do is either format to Fat32 with one of my Windows XP machines or bring in one of my portable HD devices, an iRiver H140 with 40GB, which is already Fat32 and use that, maybe more than once if I can't get all I want the first time. The other day I used one of my 16GB flash drives for some of it.