External hard drives formatting

I have a new Macbook Pro 15" and am taking my time learning how to use it. I am continuing to use my Windows 7 laptop and that won't change because there are programmes on there which I need and it is working perfectly well.

So that the computer doesn't become cluttered I tend to keep most of my files on two external hard drives (double backup), one being a Seagate expansion drive. One thing that I didn't think about when I bought the Mac is that I would not be able to do anything with the files on these drives. I can view them but that is all. I read that they would have to be reformatted for the Mac to be able to write to them. Obviously this is going to be a fair amount of work which will entail moving all the files onto the computer, reformatting then moving them back.

Please can someone confirm the procedure I have in mind? I believe that the Mac can work with FAT32 so if I reformat them to this file system will I then be able to work with them on my Windows laptop and on the Macbook? Just need a bit of advice and support please.

Apologies if this is in the wrong section but as I newbie I thought it might fit here.

Personally, recommend keeping them as NTFS and spending the $20 to get Paragon's NTFS for Mac - here to enable full read and write support.

Wow - that looks as if it might be a suitable solution. It looks fairly straightforward but although I have managed to install a few programmes, notably Firefox and Libre Office, I am not very familiar with the procedure. Of course there will be instructions, but is this fairly straightforward to install? It looks as if it will be much better than reformatting. Thank you very much for the suggestion.

On the subject of external drives, when I plug them in there is a pop up box asking me if I want to use it for Time Machine. I admit that I did not make disks when I first booted up the Macbook (I would always do that first with Windows). I would like to set up Time Machine but do I need to have a separate external hard drive for this and if so, what size and file type should I look for? It has a SSD drive - I think it is 250GB but very little on it at the moment - just the operating system, a few photographs and the contents of my Dropbox folder (about 2GB).

It's dead simple to install and it works well. As for the TM question, Apple wants us all to use TM for backups because it makes sense to do it. So TM will "nag" until you either tell it to go away or start backups. You don't need a separate hard drive (although that is the best solution), but it does need a dedicated partition that is formatted for OSX. Generally the backup drive/partition should be twice the size of your internal drive, so 500 GB would be the optimum solution. The rationale is that TM makes a FULL backup the first time, then INCREMENTAL backups after that. So as files on the main drive change, they get backed up and the old version archived, which means over time the drive slowly fills up. NOTE: TM drives are NOT bootable, so if the SSD goes south, you'll need something you can boot from in order to restore from the TM backup. The choices for that are to make a bootable USB memory stick (you can search for how to do that here) or to use a third party product like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to make a bootable backup instead of TM.

I use both...TM for the archiving capability and CCC to create a second bootable backup on a separate drive from the TM backup drive. Yes, I am paranoid, but then again, I've had drives fail on me before and have the scars from that.

Thank you for the advice. My in use drives are 250GB and 500GB so there won't be space there for a separate partition. Will look on Amazon or eBay for a new one of 500GB. Will also need to look for a big enough flash drive for booting. I have some spare but they only go up to 4GB - will that be enough? TBH everything is backed up and I use Dropbox so if the OS went down it wouldn't be too much of a disaster. It is just necessary to have reinstalltion media.

You will need a flash drive of at least 8 GB to create the installer. No need to spend more money on a drive larger than that. When you are ready to tackle that task we can give directions for doing that.

I was out and Sly got the answer in first. All you need is an 8GB flash drive. If you go that route, if/when the SSD dies, you replace it, then boot from the USB stick and use the Internet recovery process to re-download OSX from Apple and let it install, or you pre-configure the flash drive with the installer (in which case you can install directly from the flash drive and avoid the download). By not backing up, you'll lose all customization stuff you've done to your MBP, and you may need to do some small gymnastics to gain access to your external drive files again, but that's easy to do.

Running an iMac with Mavericks and a Dell Latitude with Windows 7 64bit Professional have found the easiest way is an external for each machine. No worries with partitions, formats etc. Backup Mavericks to an OCZ Vertex using FW800, and the Dell also to an OCZ Vertex via USB3.

Simplest answer for me.

If you have "double backups" as you say of the data on these drives, then I'm not seeing the problem.

Why not just erase the drives, format them for Mac, then restore the data from the backups?

chas_m, I think the key is in two thing the OP said:

I am continuing to use my Windows 7 laptop and that won't change because there are programmes on there which I need and it is working perfectly well.

Click to expand...

and

TBH everything is backed up and I use Dropbox so if the OS went down it wouldn't be too much of a disaster. It is just necessary to have reinstalltion media.

Click to expand...

Given that the OP is willing to let everything on the internal drive go if it fails and that he is still using the Win7 laptop for the foreseeable future, while he CAN reformat the externals, doing that would mean he would have to get something for Win7 to allow it to read/write to those drives. In either case, he'd have to get something to allow either OSX or Win7 access to the drives. So, the path of least resistance, for now, is to get Paragon NTFS for the MBP to read/write to the NTFS drives and use a flash drive as an emergency boot device if the internal drive fails and has to be restored. Your suggestion of erasing the existing externals, formatting them for OSX and then restoring them, is a good suggestion for when he gets to the point of NOT using the Win7 machine as much. At that point he can reformat/restore the externals to OSX format and get Paragon for Win7 if it's still required for them to be able to read the drives, but he can hold off on that, even, by not formatting them for OSX until he is really ready to abandon Win7 altogether, or run it in a virtual system on the MBP.

Thank you for this most helpful advice. My expectation is that I will use the Mac more than W7 as time goes on but for the time being I will purchase the Paragon software to deal with this. It is the line of least resistance and right now I have enough to cope with just getting the hang of the Mac. I found a 500GB Western Digital external hard drive already formatted for Mac on Amazon yesterday so as soon as funds permit I will get that for Time Machine, plus an 8GB flash drive for boot.

I know that this is off topic and maybe I should have started another thread but I noticed the other day that the firewall was not on. Because I am used to the Windows firewall being on by default I didn't check. I cannot remember why I was prompted to look but when I did (more than a week after purchase) I found that it was off. My friend has an iMac and tells me that hers was on when she set it up. I have a router firewall and it seems no harm was done (I am a careful user) but was just a bit worried by this.

Nothing against the Mac version of the Western Digital drive but you don't necessarily have to use a drive specifically formatted for the Mac (especially if it costs more). Most drives can be easily reformatted for use with the Mac by using Disk Utility.

I personally don't bother to mess with the firewall setting. I too am behind a router firewall. I've never really bothered with a software-based firewall because sometimes it seemed like eons elapsed before it was updated.

I used the firewall when I was traveling. It makes sense when you are using WiFi in public locations. If you are just at home, the risk is minuscule and even lower if using wired ethernet instead of WiFi. It doesn't seem to hurt to leave it on.

I think we are essentially doing the same thing. S should have explained that better.

Thank you for explaining about the firewall. Also about the external drive not needing to be Mac formatted. I was concerned about that because you are right - there are cheaper options. Now I have more choice and might save a bit of money too.

Here's what usually happens when you get a new drive and attach it to a Mac. If the drive is formatted for Mac OS or FAT 32 you will be able to read or write to it with no problems. Remember the FAT 32 format limits individual files to less than 4 GB. If the drive will only be used with Macs use Mac OS extended journaled as the format.

In the drive is formatted to NTFS you will be abled to read what is on the drive and copy files from it. You cannot write to it without some third-party software.

For unformatted drives or drives with filesystems the Mac doesn't recognize you will be able to format it in Disk Utility. There is a thread going in the forum about a drive that was for PC and could not be read but that seems to be a direct to that specific model of drive. Most drive manufacturers have gotten smarter and list there drives as comparable with the Mac OS even if they have not been specifically made for it.

Regarding the firewall: I know for a fact that the software firewall is off by default in all installations of OS X, so your friend is simply misremembering or installed further software that turned it on (a worrying sign, actually).

The reason the software firewall is off by default is because, as you observed, most everyone (even public hotspots) have a hardware firewall, which is much better. The software firewall can be turned on if you are sure you're not being protected by a hardware firewall, but that is an increasingly rare possibility these days. Some people turn it on when using public hotspots, which is fine, but have two firewalls operating can cause "I can connect to some sites but not others" syndrome.

You can usually spot a public wi-fi hotspot that doesn't have a firewall on: it doesn't work (or works VERY sporadically and briefly before going down again).

Also, in a public wi-fi hotspot situation, the hardware firewall is fine for protecting against something come through the ISP link, but doesn't protect the computer from an attack from another computer in that same environment. That's where the software firewall comes in.

Thank you for the clarification re the firewall - it is reassuring. Maybe my friend misremembered. Anyway, my computer won't be going anywhere to use a public wifi - I would be terrified of losing or damaging it. LOL I've left the software firewall on for now though.

I have been reading through the documentation on uninstalling but it is still a bit confusing. I wanted to delete a few apps from the app store so I located them in Finder, right clicked and moved them to trash - is this OK? I did the same for Open Office which I have replaced with Libre. Just need a bit of reassurance as I don't want to leave rubbish behind. In Windows I have been careful to uninstall thoroughly by using Revo Uninstaller which is good at getting all the files off the system so naturally I want to do the same with this computer.

One thing that did puzzle me is that it is not possible to empty individual items from trash without using command prompt. That seems very strange to me and I can't imagine why Apple don't enable this feature. Don't want to offend, but it does seem a bit of a shortcoming to me.

I would just like to thank the members who advised me about Paragon NTFS for Mac. I purchased this from Amazon. Have installed it this morning and it was quite easy to do. Works perfectly.