Pete Posted December 18, 2009 Posted December 18, 2009 I bought a Seagate external hard drive for an intel based IMac. How do I set this up? How is is partitioned? Thanks so much! My startup disc is full and I need more storage quickly. Cheers! Edit: When I try and set it up, it says there is no application to open it. What application should I use? Do I need to download one?
Pete Posted December 18, 2009 Author Posted December 18, 2009 seriously- I HATE Macs! so please spare me the Mac jokes. Some help would be greatly appreciated. I have over 20,000 photos and 120 gigs of music I am trying to save. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Dan Posted December 18, 2009 Posted December 18, 2009 seriously- I HATE Macs! so please spare me the Mac jokes. Some help would be greatly appreciated. I have over 20,000 photos and 120 gigs of music I am trying to save. Does anyone have any suggestions? What kind of hardrive is it? Model number?
/dev/null Posted December 18, 2009 Posted December 18, 2009 seriously- I HATE Macs! so please spare me the Mac jokes. Some help would be greatly appreciated. I have over 20,000 photos and 120 gigs of music I am trying to save. Does anyone have any suggestions? Okay, seriously I'm guessing if its a brand new hard drive that it needs to be formatted for Mac OS. I have 0 experience with Macs, but I assume it's kind of similar to any other GUI (*nix or Windows). So from that starting point, how do you browse your hard drive? How do you browse files on a CD/DVD?
Pete Posted December 18, 2009 Author Posted December 18, 2009 What kind of hardrive is it? Model number? No startup disc or info came with the box. Seagate Free Agent Desk external drive. 1 TB Not sure what the serial number was. These 3 are written on the box- ST310005FDA2E1-RK EDA SN: 2GEXGEHZ PN: 9ZB2AG - 572 Thank you for your help Dan!
Pete Posted December 19, 2009 Author Posted December 19, 2009 Okay, seriously I'm guessing if its a brand new hard drive that it needs to be formatted for Mac OS. I have 0 experience with Macs, but I assume it's kind of similar to any other GUI (*nix or Windows). So from that starting point, how do you browse your hard drive? How do you browse files on a CD/DVD? bingo. That is my question. How do I format this hard drive for an intel based Mac?
/dev/null Posted December 19, 2009 Posted December 19, 2009 bingo. That is my question. How do I format this hard drive for an intel based Mac? It's really easy to do in Windows and even in UNIX Maybe you need to consult a genius The Windows analog would be to open My Computer, select the drive, right click it, and choose Format. There's probably something in the Mac OS GUI that performs the same function
Dan Posted December 19, 2009 Posted December 19, 2009 No startup disc or info came with the box. Seagate Free Agent Desk external drive. 1 TB Not sure what the serial number was. These 3 are written on the box- ST310005FDA2E1-RK EDA SN: 2GEXGEHZ PN: 9ZB2AG - 572 Thank you for your help Dan! Unless I'm mistaken, the drive should come already formatted as FAT32. It's a USB connection, correct? If so, you should be able to just plug it in and go. A FAT32 drive should be recognizable on both Mac and Windows computers. However, if you only intend to use it on your Mac, it's' probably best to reformat it for the Mac, specifically. To do that, go to your your "Applications" folder i nthe Finder, then open "Utilities". In their you should see a program called "Disk Utility". Open that, you should see the external drive, click it. Then you'll have the options to Format it, Partion it, scan it, do whatever. But no drivers or anything like that are needed. To remove the drive and take it somewhere, hide it, whatever; just drag it to the Trash and it'll say eject. That'll remove the drive from your desktop; then it's safe to unplug it.
/dev/null Posted December 19, 2009 Posted December 19, 2009 Try this... http://www.techiecorner.com/159/how-to-for...ac-and-windows/ *Note: The file system you select is important. It's what caused the problem you're having now. My guess is that 120GB hard drive was formatted with NTFS and I also guess that Mac doesn't read NTFS. If you think that you may ever connect this external hard drive to a Windows or UNIX based system, I would recommend that you format it as Fat32 (if available). Fat32 can be recognized by most OS's. Fat32 however will require you breaking the 120GB up into 4 partitions as Fat32 can only support up to 32GB partitions.
Dan Posted December 19, 2009 Posted December 19, 2009 Another thing to consider is using Time Machine to back up your computer to the external drive. I've never used it, because I don't have an external HD; however, I've heard its really simple and easy to use.
Fezmid Posted December 19, 2009 Posted December 19, 2009 To remove the drive and take it somewhere, hide it, whatever; just drag it to the Trash and it'll say eject. That'll remove the drive from your desktop; then it's safe to unplug it. For an OS with such a supposedly "easy to understand" interface, who came up with the idea that dragging your drive to the garbage can was the best way to eject the thing?! Wouldn't you think that would delete everything (ie: throw it away)?
Just Jack Posted December 19, 2009 Posted December 19, 2009 For an OS with such a supposedly "easy to understand" interface, who came up with the idea that dragging your drive to the garbage can was the best way to eject the thing?! Wouldn't you think that would delete everything (ie: throw it away)? That'd be my thought also, regarding throwing it away.
Dan Posted December 19, 2009 Posted December 19, 2009 For an OS with such a supposedly "easy to understand" interface, who came up with the idea that dragging your drive to the garbage can was the best way to eject the thing?! Wouldn't you think that would delete everything (ie: throw it away)? It does seem counterintuitive. However, when you click on the drive and begin to drag it, the "Trash" icon changes to an "Eject" icon. So, its somewhat self explanatory. You just have to click on the drive and start to move it first.
EasternOHBillsFan Posted December 19, 2009 Posted December 19, 2009 I would SCRAP the Seagate and get another brand... they have high failure rates that make me say 'pass' every single time. It is a well known problem in the IT community, so I thought I'd pass that on to potentially save you heartache and loss of all of your data in the future. One of the many examples of stories regarding Seagate
Nanker Posted December 19, 2009 Posted December 19, 2009 Pete, if the drive you bought/acquired isn't formatted - you need to use a disk utility to properly format it so the Mac can use it. Think of it as putting up walls in a loft to make rooms to organize your ****. The Apple supplied disk utility is, well... "Disk Utility" which should be in the Utilities folder in the Applications Folder. PM me if you get stuck.
Nanker Posted December 19, 2009 Posted December 19, 2009 For an OS with such a supposedly "easy to understand" interface, who came up with the idea that dragging your drive to the garbage can was the best way to eject the thing?! Wouldn't you think that would delete everything (ie: throw it away)? A good question to ask the folks at Xerox Parc who invented the interface that Jobs and Woz hijacked to fame and fortune.
Fezmid Posted December 19, 2009 Posted December 19, 2009 It does seem counterintuitive. However, when you click on the drive and begin to drag it, the "Trash" icon changes to an "Eject" icon. So, its somewhat self explanatory. You just have to click on the drive and start to move it first. That's fine, but it's still a terrible UI design. The only times I've used a Mac is during a couple of Photoshop classes -- and each time I find the interface very difficult to use and not the "you'll know how to do everything instantly" experience Mac users try to share. Then I read this post about how to eject a disk, and I'm thinking, "What the hell? If the students in the UI class I TA'd for came up with that for their interface, I would've failed them!" In the end, it's just an OS and people generally just like what they're familiar with. No OS is perfect (except OpenBSD ), and I think this thread proves it. I would SCRAP the Seagate and get another brand... they have high failure rates that make me say 'pass' every single time. It is a well known problem in the IT community, so I thought I'd pass that on to potentially save you heartache and loss of all of your data in the future. You should always have at least 2 copies of your data, and if you do I wouldn't worry about drive failures. I've had to RMA (get a replacement from the factory) drives in the past, and Seagate and Western Digital make the process painless (no experience with Maxtor or Samsung). A week later, you're back in business.
Recommended Posts