Questions tagged [external-disk]
A storage device attached to a computer, but not enclosed within the computer's casing
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Is it possible to use Boot Camp with Windows 10 from an external HDD?
I need to run Visual Studio on my MacBook Pro and I need Windows to do that. The easiest and well known way to install Windows on a Mac is by running the Boot Camp app on the Mac and let it do what's ...
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Drivers not working on Windows 10 installed (CLI process) on external SSD running on MacBook Air 2018
I have a problem with the installation of Windows 10 (November 2019) on my MacBook Air 2018. I tried to use a virtual machine the first time, but some drivers did not work (trackpad, audio and ...
2
votes
1
answer
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External Hard Drive no longer working
I am on a MacBook Pro 13 running latest Sierra. I have an external Seagate solid state hard drive that was working and out of the blue stopped working. The only thing on it was my Adobe Lightroom ...
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What is the best way to clone a disk between two Macs?
What is the best way to clone a disk between two Macs? I ask this every couple years or so and every time I get the same answer. "Use Carbon Copy Cloner", they say. But the unfortunate fact is that ...
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How do I disable this message: "the disk was not ejected properly"?
Is there any way to disable the "the disk was not ejected properly" message?
I use a KVM and need to switch between two systems and have a memory stick that is in the KVM. The problem is that it's ...
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15
answers
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How can I repair a disk that Disk Utility says it can't repair?
I have an external hard-disk with a single Mac OS Extended partition. This disk stopped working couple of days ago. I tried to repair the partition with disk utility but no luck. The error message is ...
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9
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External drive does not mount after plug off without eject
I accidentally unplugged my hard drive without properly ejecting it, and now the drive does not mount when plugged in.
What can I do to make it work again?
I can see the disk in lsusb and diskutil ...
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54
votes
13
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Can't mount exFAT external drive in macOS
I have a Western Digital MyBook (25EE) 8TB External Drive. It is formatted with exFAT. I can't recall exactly how it was formatted, but I believe it was done with Synology's DiskStation for my ...
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Can you make OSX mount just certain partitions when you connect an external HDD?
I have an external HDD with 4 partitions.
My question is the following: is there a way of telling the OS to mount just two of them (One FAT and one HFS+) when I connect the HDD? It is rather annoying ...
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5
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Enabling Time Machine for a USB HDD with NTFS
When I've plugged in my USB HDD (WD Passort Elite) for the first time, the system had asked me whether I want to use this HDD as time machine drive. I've chosen smth like 'decide later' and continued ...
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Accidentally ejected External drive while downloading file, now having problems reading
I'm hoping someone can help! I recently downloaded a torrent directly onto an external hard drive, (using a 2009 MacBook Pro and 1TB Seagate Expansion portable Drive) somehow during the download the ...
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How to view progress when encrypting a disk?
Mountain Lion allows one to encrypt any disk by right-clicking on the disk in the Finder and selecting Encrypt from the contextual menu.
Is there anyway to check on the progress of this encryption ...
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9
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Limit Time Machine size in Big Sur
In setting up a new Time Machine, how can I limit how much disk space Time Machine has access to? I am only interested in answers relevant to Big Sur's change to AFPS for Time Machine.
Before 10.13, ...
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Time machine restore to new external drive
As you read through this post, for reference, the machine on which I'm trying all of this is running Big Sur.
I was using Time Machine to back up an external drive that failed. Having purchased a new ...
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Fixing my external hard drive's partition map
Okay, so something really strange has happened, and it's a doozy, so please bear with me.
Problem: I need to fix my hard drive's partition map
So let me fill you in on what happened here.
I have an ...
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Disk ejected but still show up in Disk Utility?
I have this external (USB) drive that can't seem to be disconnected correctly. Whenever I eject the drive, it won't disappear from Disk Utility. Afterwards when the drive gets re-connected again, it ...
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After update, now I'm getting "Disk not ejected properly" every time my Mac sleeps
Been running El Capitan since it was officially released. Updated to 10.11.4 a few days ago. I have a WD Elements USB 3.0 drive connected to my Mac mini (directly to the rear ports, not via a hub). ...
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3
answers
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Is there an easy way to automatically schedule a move of files matching a certain pattern from a user directory to a USB drive?
I'm looking to automate a backup process that involves transporting backup files (with names in the form "*.savf") first onto a Mac Mini (running Yosemite), and then, once they're on the ...
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9
answers
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How can I skip the Trash when deleting a file?
I frequently connect different external USB hard drives and flash drives to my computer and I would like to facilitate deleting files and regaining disk space from them.
If I simply delete the file, ...
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5
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Prevent Spotlight from indexing external drive
Sometimes I use an external drive with macOS on it. This is in conjunction to my current internal drive which also is running macOS.
I find it annoying that, whenever I search for something (such as ...
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Relocating /Users folder in MacOS 10.15 (Catalina)?
In the past when we wanted to offload the /Users folder from the internal disk we simply created a symbolic link for /Users that pointed to /Volumes/External_Drive_Name/Users. The Mac in question is a ...
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Is it possible to backup iOS devices to an external drive?
I have a new Mac Pro with a small 256GB SSD. I have a larger 2TB drive that I run backups to.
My girlfriend has a MacBook Air with a tiny 128GB SSD.
Our problem is our iPhones have 50GB of music, ...
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2
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iTunes videos on a different harddrive?
since the TED HD podcast and iTunesU my iTunes library is getting bigger and bigger and thus free space on my MacBook HD smaller and smaller. I'm getting an iPad2 soon and would like to sync my TV ...
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How to enable NTFS 3G? [duplicate]
It is a common issue Mac users, when you try open NTFS external storage you allowed only read mode. And of course there are some solution. One of them it is NTFS 3G - free alternative.
I followed ...
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Shortcut to eject all external hard drives but not MobileBackups
So far I've been using the following AppleScript to eject all external drives at once conveniently using a shortcut:
tell application "Finder"
eject (every disk)
end tell
This script is ...
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votes
1
answer
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Using an external HD as my applications folder
I need to install more applications - can I use my external HD (samsung T5) and add an additional applications folder? I have loads of space on it and it the speeds are great.
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Partition on HFS+ external drive: "Invalid number of allocation blocks", file system check exit code 8. Unable to repair, even in recovery mode
As the title says, I'm getting the error "Invalid number of allocation blocks" on a particular HFS+ partition of an external drive. I am unable to repair, even in recovery mode.
Log results when I ...
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1
answer
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External SSD not being recognized by newer (retina) MacBooks
So I'm in a rather strange situation. I have an SSD, and I am using a SATA to USB 3 adapter (basically an enclosure, as it is called) to connect it to my laptop. This worked fine with a mid-2012 ...
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How do I replace my smaller Time Machine Drive with a New Drive on macOS Ventura (Encrypted)
How do I format my New Drive and Move the old backups from my Old Time Machine?...
Now it would seem straight forward at first with a simple drag and drop from old to new drive, but my old drive is ...
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Installing & running OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion from an external hard drive onto my Snow Leopard Macbook Pro?
I am currently running Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard on my late 2010 Macbook Pro. I am perfectly fine with running Snow Leopard at present, but I feel I may be missing out on features or indeed updates ...
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votes
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answers
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The volume can't be ejected because it's currently in use
After working with an external USB backup disk I want to cleanly unmount the drive. When pressing the 'eject' button Finder warns me with the message:
"The volume can't be ejected because it's ...
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57
votes
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answers
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How to eject my external drive when my Mac refuses because of Spotlight?
I have plugged an external disk to my Mac. Now, I want to eject it. But my Mac stubbornly refuses and says that an application may be using the disk.
I have not launched any app neither opened any ...
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APFS on external drive missing from Disk Utility
When I use Disk Utility app in macOS Mojave to format an external drive, I do not see the new Apple File System (APFS) offered as a choice of format.
Does it matter that my external drive is a ...
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7
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What format for my external drive allows use with Mac and Windows?
How can I use my external hard drive on Mac OS so I can modify/edit files on both OS's: Mac and Windows? How should I format it?
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Force mounting an external disk that is not recognized
I recently bought a 4 TB naked (no enclosure) external hard drive that I mount via a Newer Tech dock (the ones where you insert the naked drive like bread in a toaster) and is connected to my MacBook ...
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6
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How do I make Spotlight stop indexing my Backup drive?
I have a 2TB external drive I use for Time Machine. At random intervals, it will decide to spin up and my entire UI freezes until it's finished. This is incredibly annoying.
It appears that this is ...
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13
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How to Eject All External Partitions Quickly?
I have an external disk with two partitions on it that I keep plugged into my MacBook Pro when I'm at my desk. (One is for Time Machine, the other just for extra storage.) Sometimes I need to grab my ...
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How can I write-protect (make read-only) a USB drive in OS X?
I have a USB drive with some archive data on it that I'd like to access from a Mac running Snow Leopard. However, I want to ensure that the data on the drive is preserved and no modifications are made ...
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Can I disable any macOS filesystem cache for USB devices so I can eject them without potential damage to the data?
When I have a USB device like a SD card, USB drive or external hard drive, I always need to unmount it, otherwise OS X complains about the device not being ejected properly. (It’s possible to disable ...
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Is it unusual for "Verify Disk" on Disk Utilities to take so long on a Time Machine drive?
I have an external 3TB FW800 drive set up to be my Time Machine drive. I noticed some unusually high drive activity, and opened up Time Machine to see if it was backing up. Nope, TM showed previous ...
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How to run Applescript on Disk mount
I want to run an Applescript when I mount a specific disk. It isn't if the script is located on the disk or not, it should just run when OS X mounts the disk.
I tried to accomplish this with folder ...
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APFS with external hard drives (non SSD)
I bought a new external hard drive for my Mac. What is the best file system in 2021 to format the external hard drive?
I would like to encrypt the hard drive and I only use it with Macs so I don't ...
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Is it possible to disable auto mount of external devices? [duplicate]
How can I disable the auto mount of usb/firewire devices or basically any external disk in MacOSX?
My motivation for this is that in Windows there have been possible attacks via USB trojans that ...
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votes
2
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Move macos user home folders on external drive
I got a shiny new Mac Mini but couldn't afford a 1TB internal SSD to hold all my stuff, so I'm testing ways to leverage an external disk for user storage. I know I can point Photos and iTunes to ...
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How can I use my iPod touch as an external disk?
I have a 2nd generation iPod touch (8GB), but I don't know how to make it work as an external disk. I think I saw a checkbox somewhere but I can't find it anymore.
I've searched the Web, but the way ...
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Setting up iPhoto library on external HDD
Is there any way to set iPhoto library on external HDD instead of main HDD. I have a lot of photos and am running out of space on my MBP.
I was thinking to achieve it by symlinks or something. It ...
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External hard drive very slow to load after dropping it and can't be repaired with Disk Utility
Today as I was using my WD HDD, it fell off my corner. After I fixed the thing, I plugged it into the Mac and it loads the HDD but it's very very very very slow. It also does not work sometimes. The ...
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What's the fastest way to get data off Time Capsule and onto an external drive?
I plugged an external drive into Time Capsule using the USB input on the back.
Then I used Finder to move data from the Time Capsule's drive to the USB drive.
Finder says it'll take over 24 hours to ...
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0
answers
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Disable "The disk you attached was not readable by this computer" for disk [duplicate]
When I enter a USB drive that is encrypted with veracrypt, I get an error message:
The disk you attached was not readable by this computer
Eject - Ignore - Initialize
Which I select "Ignore&...
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Can Time Machine back up an external hard drive in addition to internal one?
I have two external hard drives connected to my Mac with OS X El Capitan. I am using one of the external hard drives with Time Machine as the back up hard drive only. The second external hard drive ...
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