Mac OS X Mountain Lion | Copy & Paste

Hi everyone,

I'm new to Mac as I have just moved from Windows. I am just getting used to shortcuts and know the basics. However, I have one problem; I cannot copy a file from my USB & Mac to my external hard drive. It simply does not give me the option. How do I overcome this barrier?

If someone can answer this it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, EnvyJack.

First, tell us which format your external hard drive is using? If the drive is formatted to NTFS, your Mac will be unable to write to it without the use of a special driver. Your Mac can only read a drive formatted to NTFS.

I don't know how to tell if it is NTFS? If you can help me to work that out I would appreciate that.

Thanks,
EnvyJack

Open Disk Utility on your Mac: Applications, Utilities, Disk Utility. Highlight the external drive and read what it tells you. Another way would be to right click on the external drive and select "Get Info". What does it say?

I suppose this is not good then as it says: "Format: Windows NT File System (NTFS)". What's next?

OK, thanks for posting back that information. Basically, you have two choices to resolve it:

1. Reformat the drive to FAT-32 or Mac HFS+ (that will destroy all data, however) If you can somehow copy the data off that drive to another drive also formatted to NTFS, then you could format that one.

2. Download and install a driver which will allow your Mac to read and write to the drive. We recommend "Paragon NTFS" from Paragon software. $19.95.
Download LINK

Thank you so much for your help, I like the look of Paragon NTFS.
Another quick question, if I get Parallels to run some Windows programs would I be able to access my NTFS hard drive that way and transfer the data to my virtual machine and then to my Mac?

EnvyJack.

Yes, if you install Parallels or VMWare Fusion and install Windows from their provided virtual machine, you would be able to read and write to that external drive after making it available within the VM.

So this would mean that using Parallels to run side by side inside of Mac, I would be able to view my external hard drive and read & write to it?

I think you're misunderstanding what Parallels can and can't do. In order to read that external drive from Parallels, you will need to install a copy of Windows as a virtual machine and then mount the drive. Only then will it be able to be read.

Considering that Parallels costs $79.98 and Paragon NTFS is only $19.95, I know which I would choose. Unless of course you were planning on using Parallels anyway....