How to play music formatted in windows on a mac?

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Hi

I am completely new to Mac machines having only known Windows.

I have an issue with plugging external drives into the mac - the external drive contains music and films formatted on Windows (in MP3 and avi respectively) however when I plugged in the drive and went to search for the drive in finder it found it no problem however in that short time - maybe 20 seconds, it decided to format the drive and remove all the data contained on it.

The mac is basically out of the box, plugged in, switched on and nothing else.

My questions therefore are:

1. Is there a setting that i need to make to stop it deleting and reformatting external drives or memory sticks?
2. Is this normal for the MAC to want to format the drive if it sees another operating system on it - namely windows?
3. How can I be sure if I plug even a memory stick into any of the USB ports it wont wipe that data as well?

Sorry if this sounds odd, but at present I have no confidence in plugging anything in to the MAC if there is the remotest chance that it will be wiped or reformatted as I cannot afford to lose any more data.

Any help on this matter would be most appreciated.

Thanks
 
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chas_m

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Uh, no, this didn't happen as you describe it.

When plugging in a new drive, a dialog box will appear asking you if you want to use it for Time Machine (a backup system). IF YOU SAY YES, *then* it will format and prepare it as a Mac-formatted drive. Otherwise it will simply mount the drive.

Also, Macs do not do anything when taken "out of the box, plugged in, switched on and nothing else" other than as you what language you prefer as a precursor to setting the machine up and creating the user account.

So either you're talking about a Mac that has been previous set up by someone else, and we have no idea how they've set up their machine and you'll need to go ask them, OR you've left out tonnes of crucial detail.

Care to try again?
 
M

MacInWin

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And a Windows formatted drive will mount, as chas_m says, just fine. OS X can READ that drive, but not write to it. If you want to continue to use windows-formatted drives with your iMac, you'll need to get something like ParagonNTFS to be able to write to the drive from your iMac.

But please do tell us "the rest of the story" of what exactly did take place to end up where you are.
 
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OK Here we go.

The MAC is new from a supplier, was removed from box and powered up and I got the prompt to set up an account and a password, the time and language to enter the system. I sorted the picture for the desktop and off I went.

I know from a friend that by plugging MY windows external drive into his MAC via USB that it is all fine, it works fine, plays my (windows) music fine and does not delete it. He has copied many of my files to his machine and IPOD and they all play fine as well as to the built in system in his own car.

I plugged the same drive into my MAC after my initial set up, got no pop up asking anything at all, went to the finder to see the drive, found it and then opened it. All the files had gone from the external drive in that short time. We are talking 30 seconds at the most to use finder, get the drive and open it and it had deleted all files. This is the same drive that less than an hour earlier was working fine via my windows laptop.

OK I have no real ideas about the MAC format however if my drive can be read without deleting by another MAC then why not the new one? That is what I am trying to establish - are there settings I need to make to my MAC to be able to read and not format a drive or what should i look for - nobody where I got it from knew the answer to this issue thus my request from the forum.

I am still within my cooling off time so can always return it as at present I have no confidence in plugging anything into it - driver or memory stick without losing the data on it. I am sure it will be fine but am at a loss to understand if I have done anything wrong at present and why it would have decided to delete my ext. hard drive data within a short time of plugging it in.

You have the facts and cannot give anything additional as there is nothing to give!

Thanks
 

dtravis7


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Have you plugged the drive back into your Windows machine and the files are for sure gone?

Unless the drive picked that moment to fail, and trust me it can happen, I in all the years with Macs and OSX have never once had it erase a drive without asking me first. I am talking probably 50 macs and every OSX from the beginning to todays OSX.
 
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Yep, sure have. All the files and folders have gone - nothing on the ext. drive at all.

It was happily playing on my windows laptop until I plugged it in to the MAC now there is nothing to play on it.

I have tried copying files from my laptop C Drive to it (to verify it has not failed) and they appear no problem on the ext. drive but reluctant to plug it back in to the MAC until i know for certain that it will be Ok and not suffer the same fate!

MAC is a word and system I don't understand but need to get to grips with it going forward thus my concerns as to what happened, if there is a fix, if I have made a glaring error or if it was just one of those things and an unlucky moment!
 

IWT


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@Cider Monkey

How about trying a simple experiment. You have nothing to lose by this. If everything is gone, it's gone; but maybe not...

Let's start by determining how the External Hard Drive (EHD) is actually formatted at this moment. Attach/Mount the EHD.

Now go into Disk Utility (found in Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility). Click on Disk Utility (DU).

This will open a window showing all mounted drives as well as your Mac's HDD on the Left side.

Now click on your EHD (it may have a name if you gave it one or just show as a generic name related to the manufacturer; you are bound to recognise it as it will be the only EHD mounted).

Once you have highlighted it - from the top menu on the right of the window, Select Erase (DON'T WORRY, it will not erase anything at this stage)

After clicking on Erase, it will open a smaller window or box showing Name, and below it, Format. Note what it says in the FORMAT box.

Now hit CANCEL and exit Disk Utility.

Please tell us what appeared in the FORMAT box
. For that is the crucial factor here. Once we know that, we can take it from there.

(in parentheses, I am not only greatly puzzled by what happened like everyone else; but wonder how, if the EHD was somehow really formatted for the Mac, you are able to read it on your Windows PC).

Ian
 
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MacInWin

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Cedar Money, first, thanks for getting back to us. Second, there is simply no way that the drive was "automatically" formatted, or erased by OS X. That's not how the OS is built. In fact, to make a change like that you would have to provide an administrator's password before the changes would be made.

Now, what Ian said to do will work, but an easier way is to simply open Disk Utility in the Appplications/Utilities folder and click on the drive and read what it says about the drive at the bottom of the window. No need to click on erase, or any other action. I suspect the format will be NTFS, the windows standard (That is why you can read/write to it from your Windows machine. As I said earlier, OS X can READ, but not WRITE to NTFS drives.) If it's in FAT format, then both Windows and OS X can read/write, but there are file size limits.

One thing is for certain. OS X did NOT format or erase the drive. Something else may have happened, but not that. One thought, is this external drive powered by the USB port or is does it have its own power connection? If USB powered, is it possible to connect it to an external power supply? I'm wondering if the drive simply isn't getting enough power from the USB port.
 

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Jake you are spot on. I agree with everything you said. The only thing I would say is that when I use DU, it only shows general details unless I click on Erase or Info. Clicking on Info gives a lot more detail whereas clicking on Erase only shows Name & Format.

However, Cedar Monkey may be frightened off the "Erase" option because of unnecessary fears of data loss. Clicking on Info may be the easier option. I think, Jake, that you would agree that getting the Format details of the EHD is crucial in this case.

So, it's over to you Cedar M. Can you do this for us please? And tell us the Format details?

Ian
 
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Guys, thanks for the feedback and assistance. Will look at this later today and come back to you.
 
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I since frustration here with cider monkey:(
 

IWT


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Well Cider Monkey, how is the disk formatted as shown by Disk Utility? We need to know this and we all really want to help you.

Ian
 
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Maybe I missed the suggestion, but Cider Monkey, if the drive indeed works on Windows, just copy some files from Windows to it, then put it back on your Mac. (And it is properly Mac, not MAC, and iPod, not IPOD.) Anyway, you mentioned you were worried that said files might suffer the same fate: So what? If you copied, not moved, the files, they're still over on your PC. Finally, what others said was true: Macs don't just format without the operator specifically telling it to, or, letting Time Machine grab the disk for its backups.
 
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Rod


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This really is an odd situation. Given that I agree completely with what has been stated by the other members ie a windows formatted EHD will simply mount like any drive and be readable like any drive having data dissapear after just plugging it in is an unprecedented event in my 25+ years of using Macs. My first thought then is that there is something wrong with the EHD.
As already asked what format is it? I was assuming FAT32 but I should not assume so we need to know that. Also is it possible that the EHD has been partitioned and you are only seeing one (empty) partition? Is there any security software built in to the drive? Really clutching at straws here but there must be a logical answer.
Cider Monkey, we would all like to get to the bottom of this so don't give up yet and keep the answers coming.
 
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Two thoughts -

1. If you had just copied all the files to your HD and didn't use eject (a common error), the files may not be saved.

2. I seldom hear this mentioned. Install NTFS-3G on to your Mac (free download). This allows you to read and write to the HD in both the Mac and Windows. It also removes the 4 GB restriction when using Fat32. I have used this for years!
 

Slydude

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I can't recommend NTFS - 3G as a solution to this problem for two reasons:

1. At the moment we don't have a good handle on what caused the problem therefore no good reason to suggest NTFS - 3G (or other NTFS driver for that matter) will fix the problem.
2. Most of the so - called free NTFS readers have a long history of read / write issues causing loss of data.

If I were going to recommend such software I'd recommend the Paragon NTFS driver for Mac. Int has a pretty good track record. No I do not work for Paragon in case anyone was thinking of asking.
 

dtravis7


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Paragon has been around for many many years now. I can not remember the exact date but I know I messed with it back in the Leopard days. It was their premier product and now they have other things for sale also. I have been on their mailing list for many years.
 

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