My external hard drive isn't working on my new mac...help!

Sonia989

Hi everyone.

I have a samsung external hard drive which I have been using on my Sony laptop. I got a new mac recently and last night I went to plug in my external drive. It came up fine and I was able to access files on it but it won't let me put files onto it or take out what I have stored on it.

I'm guessing that I have to re-format the drive to my mac but I haven't a clue how to do it. Your guidance would do me the world of good, right now. But in plain english please...I'm no computer wiz

Thanks a million

darraghking22

the drive needs to be formatted to Fat32 file system to be read by both windows and mac.

its defo in NTFS now, mac can see it but cant write to or copy from.(you could watch films on it etc)

you need to attach it to a windows laptop/pc,backup your files, and reformat it to Fat32.

keep in mind though that disconnecting a fat32 drive without ejecting is very bad, ntfs can hande it better.

and also, Fat32 cannot store files bigger thn 4gbs either.


to reformat on mac, go to applications and disk utility.
you will see your drive in the left pane. select it, and then on the top of the utility window choose partition.
on the dropdown menu to the left under volume scheme
choose 1 partition.
click the dropdown menu :format.
choose ms-dos(fat)

name your disc, and click apply.




or in windows, click start, then right click my computer.choose manage.

choose disk management

then in that window right click your disk and choose format, and choose fat32.



PM me if you have any questions.

Sonia989

Thank you so much! I did all that and it is perfect now. I really appreciate your help.

All the best

darraghking22

ah great, glad i could help