Questions tagged [external-disk]
A storage device attached to a computer, but not enclosed within the computer's casing
1,025
questions
3
votes
1answer
39 views
Troubleshooting: 90 seconds to eject external Time Machine drive?
I have a 5TB USB-C drive attached to my 16" MacBook Pro running Big Sur 11.2.3. I use this drive exclusively for Time Machine. When ejecting the drive, it takes anywhere from 90 - 120 seconds ...
0
votes
1answer
43 views
Why are my Mac and Windows machine able to share a flash drive, but they cannot share an external hard drive?
I am recording Zoom meetings with my Windows machine and storing the videos on an external hard drive. I wanted to consolidate the folders by adding videos I have recorded on my Mac, but I realize I ...
0
votes
0answers
36 views
The APFS partition on my external hard drive doesn't mount anymore
I have a WD Elements 1.5Tb external hard drive with two partitions. One is for Windows (that I use with Bootcamp on my mac), the other is for OSX (APFS file system). Usually, OSX can see both WIN and ...
0
votes
1answer
44 views
Is there any MacBook-supported filesystem that will not do a scan every time its underlying external HDD gets unplugged without eject?
Currently, with ExFAT filesystem on an external HDD connected to a MacBook Pro I experience very long scan times (proportional to the size of the HDD, several TBs in this case; MacOS is used here) ...
0
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0answers
17 views
Time Machine Backup Drive Shows Empty Files
I have backed up my MacBook using Time Machine to an external hard drive. Now, when I try to open it on a Mac Mini, it doesn't detect my .backupdb files. I were able to see some of the .backupdb file ...
0
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0answers
22 views
Can't restore Mac from Timemachine on external drive
I am doing time machine backups of my 2 macbooks on one external drive. That drive has 2TB capacity and I have split it to 500GB for my 13 mac and 1.5TB for my 16 mac.
16x - partition for my 16 inch ...
1
vote
1answer
26 views
Prevent external drive from requiring ejection
I have an external that is only used for time machine backups. Is there any setting that would allow the drive to be "hot swapped" (I'm assuming this isn't the correct term, but I'm unsure ...
1
vote
2answers
55 views
Slow transfer between two external drives
Copying data to a USB external drive is much slower than expected.
I have a 6TB external RAID drive that holds my photos, and I'm trying to do an archive copy of this data to another external USB ...
1
vote
0answers
40 views
USB 3.0 hub connecting over USB 2.0; How to correct?
Issue:
I have a couple USB-C 3.0 hubs, and a 2016/2017 MacBook Pro 13" [Fn-Key]. The first hub, everything connected over USB 2.0, so I assumed it was just a shitty hub, so I bought one from ...
0
votes
1answer
14 views
Copying greyed out files between drives
I am trying to copy data from an external NTFS drive to an exFAT drive.
However, some files are greyed out and give me this error when I try to copy them:
One or more items in “IMGP0029.AVI” can’t be ...
9
votes
4answers
690 views
How can I tell if all USB-C ports on a 2020 M1 MacBook Pro are the same speed, or if one or more will be faster than others?
I'm doing some heavy copying of files, and wish to do it via the fastest USB-C connection possible.
I tried holding option and clicking on the apple logo on the very top left, then going to System ...
0
votes
0answers
15 views
External hard drive won't mount or show up
I have tried all sorts of things but still won't mount and I have no idea what to do, I used the ps aux | grep fsck command but no result.
I'd be grateful for any help. Thank you.
1
vote
1answer
47 views
I have an external 1TB Seagate Harddrive but it shows that only 268MB is available. Why?
I tried to erase it with Disk Utility but unsuccessful. It still shows that only 268MB is available, while another utility program (balenaEtcher) used for writing image files, shows 1TB free space. ...
1
vote
1answer
31 views
How to safely eject a volume when the icon has disappeared?
I was using an external hard drive and the icon has disappeared (the program used to mount the volume hung so I stopped the process with diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk3) - so now I do not know how to ...
0
votes
0answers
16 views
Replacing external drive, reuse the drive name?
I want to upgrade my external drive. Due to the small capacity of of my Macbooks HD, the external drive is used to store everything except for applications.
I want to change out the drive and try to ...
1
vote
2answers
34 views
Can i store and access iphotos library on external hard drive (and still have it backup to my cloud network)?
I have two questions regarding Apple photos library.
Can I store my large Photos library on an external HDD?
Is it possible to set this HDD to backup via my computer to the same local network ...
1
vote
0answers
63 views
Uninitialized external hard drive fix
I plugged my hard drive as usual and it does not mount. I go into Disk Utility it tells me that there are 2 parts to my hard drive.
The first part is titled AppleAPFSMedia and is uninitialized. I have ...
0
votes
0answers
18 views
External HDD drive media playback lag
I have MacBook Pro 2014 with Sierra. I use NTFS formatted external HDD, accessing it with Tuxera NTFS. When I play some media directly from the drive, there is a lag, now and then. It all looks like ...
-3
votes
1answer
54 views
Can Big Sur disable external drives?
Been having several seemingly unrelated problems with a new (2019) MacBook Pro (MBP). All of them seem more like software than hardware (as a retired software engineer with ten years as an ...
0
votes
0answers
27 views
two external drives suddenly disabled after connection with macbook pro (big sur)
I purchased two external drives of 5Tb from Western Digital. I formatted the drives using disk utility program (OS with journalling). I connected the first and started to make backups using time ...
2
votes
0answers
49 views
Install macOS onto external drive without rebooting
Do you know if there is a way to install macOS onto an external drive without having to reboot the computer or go into recovery mode?
If this is not possible, is there a way to install macOS in ...
0
votes
0answers
24 views
How to open an external hard drive when its detected by Disk Utility but not in Finder?
I have a microSD card that is working on my dashcam. But not mac. (latest Big Sur)
It's seeable in the Disk Utility but not in Finder.
What should I do?
Update:
aab-MacBook-Pro-2:~ myname$ diskutil ...
0
votes
0answers
87 views
“startosinstall” is stuck on “Preparing to run macOS Installer…”
I have a MacBook Pro early 2015 running macOS Big Sur and am trying to use startosinstall to install macOS Catalina or High Sierra onto an external SSD. I want to be able to distribute macOS to ...
0
votes
1answer
41 views
Renamed external drive still appearing in terminal with both old and new names
I have an external drive connected to my MacBook Air via USB 3.1 Gen 2 through a TB3 hub.
A few weeks ago I changed name of the drive from Mercury 1TB to just Mercury. This was done in the Finder.
I ...
1
vote
1answer
26 views
External Hard Drive Won't Mount on my 2018 MacBook Pro
I have a "G-Technology G-Drive USB External Hard Drive" (8 TB) that I'm using as a backup target for Time Machine. It uses an external brick power supply. I bought it a few years ago and it ...
0
votes
2answers
115 views
Use “startosinstall” to install macOS Catalina on External Drive
I want to use "startosinstall" so that I can install macOS Catalina onto an external hard drive in order to preload MacOS onto multiple SSD's quickly.
I've researched into this and have ...
0
votes
1answer
32 views
How do you perform a proper time machine backup when you have existing data in the hard disk that you have saved
Sorry for the asinine question but I am pretty much paralysed with fear on how to do a proper backup without losing anymore data. My hard disk went blank and I managed to salvage the data with the ...
1
vote
1answer
55 views
Booting from a cloned Windows 10 installation
I have Windows 10 Pro installed on a external flash drive, I tried to install Windows via bootcamp but it is required to have more free space. I succeeded to install Windows 10 with VirtualBox on a ...
0
votes
1answer
58 views
External drive for Time Machine cannot be mounted, formatted or repaired
I just upgraded my MacBook Air to 11.1.
I used to run regular backups on a WD 1TB disk using Time Machine. But for a couple of days, the backup has not completed, issuing a "cannot find disk"...
1
vote
1answer
47 views
Can I back up one external hard drive to a smaller external hard drive via Time Machine?
So I've just had an external hard drive (5TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable) fail on me, the 3rd such time in 5 years. This is not unexpected behaviour in my experience: each of these hard drives has ...
0
votes
1answer
45 views
Moving time machine backup sparsebundle from Time Capsule to USB exFAT disk
I have a Time Machine backup on an Airport Time Capsule (name: computername.sparsebundle). Now I want to access that backup on a USB disk formatted as exFAT.
Several online resources describe the ...
1
vote
1answer
54 views
Old iMac Hard Drive not readable as external
My friend's iMac would not boot. I ran TechTool Protogo using a thumb drive with TTP 9 to test the hard drive. It reported several hundred failed sectors on the drive, so I recommended we replace it....
0
votes
0answers
39 views
How to expand a XIP file to an external drive when having low space on the drive where MacOS is installed?
I am running Xcode from an external drive because now the size ballooned to ~30GB and I don't have that much free space. I'm using 12.3 but as 12.4 got released I would like to upgrade.
I downloaded ...
0
votes
1answer
26 views
External Drive not showing up, light blinking, iMac
External Drive disconnected during backup but now it won't show up again. The light keeps blinking. How do I fix this problem?
What I tried and didn't work:
New USB cable
Connect it to a different ...
0
votes
0answers
52 views
How to clone a MacBook Pro disk into bootable external device
I would like to clone my MacBook Pro (15-inch 2018, macOS Mojave 10.14.6), which I will call "Mac", into an external USB hard drive, which I will call "backup".
I want to do this ...
0
votes
1answer
36 views
Moving iMovie (10) libraries to external hard drive
I have a friend who have a 13" macbook pro from 2014.
The OS is Yosemite 10.10.15.
My friend would like to upgrade her OS to either High Sierra or Mojave or even maybe Catalina or Big Sur, ...
0
votes
1answer
64 views
Using NTFS-3G to write to an external hard drive results in error code 100102
I have an external Seagate hard drive that is recognised and works on Windows computers but not on my MacBook Air which I am currently using. I am able to mount the hard drive in read-only mode but I ...
1
vote
0answers
39 views
External hard drive not recognised on Mac - Problem when using diskutil command on Terminal to eject it
I have an external Seagate hard drive that is recognised and works on Windows computers but not on my MacBook Air which I am currently using. I have looked at a lot of tutorials regarding this, and I ...
4
votes
4answers
688 views
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, ...
2
votes
1answer
401 views
How do I encrypt an external HFS+ drive without erasing it on Big Sur?
I have a Time Machine backup drive, which has to be HFS+ for Time Machine to work on it, and which I don't want to erase since it has a long history of backups. I would like to encrypt it.
What I find ...
0
votes
0answers
13 views
External Monitor set to wrong resolution - can't connect anymore
I set my external monitor to an unsupported resolution after which the monitor immediately crashed. Now, whenever I plug it into my mac, it crashes, reboots, reconnects and then immediately crashes ...
0
votes
0answers
36 views
What are the best practices for moving macOS App(s) to an external drive?
I'd like to free up space on my mac's internal HD. I currently run with no external HDs.
Seems like one option is to selectively move one or more apps (that I don't use very much), along with their ...
0
votes
1answer
76 views
Boot from external drive using rEFInd only if external drive is connected
I'm trying to use an external drive to contain a Windows install and a Big Sur install, but I'm having trouble configuring the boot options on a MacBook Pro 2018.
I partitioned the external drive to ...
1
vote
4answers
318 views
Cannot reformat or unmount external that was used for Time Machine
Trying to reformat a drive that was used for an employee's Time Machine and Data storage. It is a partitioned drive. Disk Utility failed to unmount the Data partition and reported the TM partition was ...
0
votes
0answers
14 views
Random prompts for password for an encrypted time machine drive
Time Machine on my 2018 model Mac Mini is set to use an encrypted external hard drive that is connected directly to a USB port on the back Mac Mini.
From time to time, I am prompted for the password ...
0
votes
1answer
42 views
my macbook does not recognise the hard disk [duplicate]
I have plugged in the hard disk in my macbook, and the hard disk's led has turned on. Nevertheless I cannot see the hard disk anywhere. I tried with df -h and lsusbbut none of them give a difference ...
2
votes
2answers
26 views
How do I erase MacOS from HDD but keep personal files (i.e. convert a bootable disc to a storage disc)?
I have a 2TB Seagate HDD which used to sit in my old Mac Pro. It has both the OS and my personal files on it. I want to sell my Mac but keep the drive and use it as an external HDD for my MacBook Pro. ...
0
votes
0answers
282 views
Mac keeps crashing after installing Big Sur to external SSD
My 2018 macbook pro never used to crash. However it has other problems with the hard drive storage. So I installed Big Sur onto an external SSD. Ever since this my mac crashes at random times, both ...
1
vote
1answer
20 views
How to remove Windows partitions on external HDD?
Hi! I wonder what is the correct procedure to remove all partitions from an external HDD (500GB) that was previously a Windows boot HDD (Extracted from my old PC).
Before the erase, there were 3 ...
1
vote
1answer
112 views
OSX - Not enough disk space to copy file
I've been having issues with my Corsair keyboard and the first step given to me by support was to try updating the firmware. After plugging in the keyboard with the reset button held, it shows up as ...
