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How to copy an external hdd to mac then to a diff ext hdd?
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<blockquote data-quote="nabl" data-source="post: 960151" data-attributes="member: 43512"><p>Thanks for the clarification and detailed responses; it really makes the difference between getting accurate help and guesswork.</p><p></p><p>It sounds like you do indeed have a valid .dmg of your old disk, so all that's left to do is write it to the new disk. Here are <a href="http://help:anchor='dskutl14078'%20bookID='com.apple.DiskUtility.help'" target="_blank">instructions from Disk Utility's</a> help. Using that method (and selecting Erase Destination), you shouldn't have to worry about how the disk is formatted beforehand; although I'm not positive, I believe it will copy the image back exactly, including the formatting information. However, if you are curious about which format the old drive used, just click on it in Disk Utility's left pane and look at the Format field at the bottom of the window.</p><p></p><p>And yes, OS X provides read-only access to NTFS drives, as you already discovered. So you will need something like NTFS-3G in the case that you do need to write to an NTFS drive. (Also, in Snow Leopard you can <a href="http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20090913140023382" target="_blank">enable built-in-but-hidden write support</a>.)</p><p></p><p>As for a format that works across all three platforms, I'm afraid you might be stuck with FAT if you want native support. However, if you're planning on using it with only your own Macs and Linux systems (where you can personally install the necessary software), NTFS would work too. You'll just need to enable NTFS write-support on the iMac either way I mentioned above and install NTFS-3G on the Linux machine (it's probably in Ubuntu's Software Center if you're using 9.10; Synaptic otherwise). That's actually probably the simplest route, as you would have to tediously copy the files from the disk image (rather than directly writing it) to the new drive if you formatted the new drive differently. The choice is up to you, though.</p><p></p><p>I hope that's all comprehensible; I'm the tired one now, so hopefully I'm not too confusing. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> Let me know if you need any better explanations (or if that simply doesn't work—I could be outright wrong).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="nabl, post: 960151, member: 43512"] Thanks for the clarification and detailed responses; it really makes the difference between getting accurate help and guesswork. It sounds like you do indeed have a valid .dmg of your old disk, so all that's left to do is write it to the new disk. Here are [URL="help:anchor='dskutl14078'%20bookID='com.apple.DiskUtility.help'"]instructions from Disk Utility's[/URL] help. Using that method (and selecting Erase Destination), you shouldn't have to worry about how the disk is formatted beforehand; although I'm not positive, I believe it will copy the image back exactly, including the formatting information. However, if you are curious about which format the old drive used, just click on it in Disk Utility's left pane and look at the Format field at the bottom of the window. And yes, OS X provides read-only access to NTFS drives, as you already discovered. So you will need something like NTFS-3G in the case that you do need to write to an NTFS drive. (Also, in Snow Leopard you can [URL="http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20090913140023382"]enable built-in-but-hidden write support[/URL].) As for a format that works across all three platforms, I'm afraid you might be stuck with FAT if you want native support. However, if you're planning on using it with only your own Macs and Linux systems (where you can personally install the necessary software), NTFS would work too. You'll just need to enable NTFS write-support on the iMac either way I mentioned above and install NTFS-3G on the Linux machine (it's probably in Ubuntu's Software Center if you're using 9.10; Synaptic otherwise). That's actually probably the simplest route, as you would have to tediously copy the files from the disk image (rather than directly writing it) to the new drive if you formatted the new drive differently. The choice is up to you, though. I hope that's all comprehensible; I'm the tired one now, so hopefully I'm not too confusing. ;) Let me know if you need any better explanations (or if that simply doesn't work—I could be outright wrong). [/QUOTE]
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How to copy an external hdd to mac then to a diff ext hdd?
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