can i partition a ntfs formatted external drive to HFS without loosing data?

Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
los angeles
Your Mac's Specs
2.16 intel dual, 120 gb with maxtor wack A$% ext hd, 1 gb ram
i appreciate any help i can get on this: i bought a 500gb crapxtor, i mean Maxtor external. When i first bouth the ext., I plugged it into pc and didn't think i'd ever come to my senses to get a mac, so i formatted ntfs. i have 200 gbs of music on it and tried to view the files and add to macbook and itunes....drive is not showing up. it does show up under disk utilties. Is there a way to partition part of the drive as HFS or FAT32 without loosing the contents on it? i don't have the current data backed up anywhere. please help.
 

bobtomay

,
Retired Staff
Joined
Dec 22, 2006
Messages
26,561
Reaction score
677
Points
113
Location
Texas, where else?
Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
The drive should show up fine on your MacBook. If it is not, there is another reason. OS X has the capability of reading NTFS, just not writing to it.

Formatting a drive erases everything on the drive - do not do that unless you want to lose it all.

I would verify all your connections - try a different USB port on the Mac also.
Can also try installing the beta 2 software from this thread (link in post #36) which will allow OS X not only to read, but also to write to NTFS.
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top