Making external HDD alias shortcut - problem

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Hi Everyone,

iMac NOOB here.

I recently purchased my first Apple computer less than a week ago. I have always been a PC guy and consider myself fairly computer savvy. However this one really has me stumped

I have a couple of Western Digital My Book Essentials. They are both almost full so formatting is no an option. Both came from my win7 PC that is no longer with us (god rest its soul) so they are formatted NTFS

What i want to do is create a shortcut on my desktop of my iMac to one of these HDD's or more specifically to a folder on one of the drives for faster access.

From what i can tell it looks like i should just be able to right click on the drive or folder and select "Make Alias" but when I do, i an error message saying that i don't have the correct permissions to do so.

I am logged in as the account administrator, and i have sharing enabled (or at least i think i do)

I am hoping that one of you people might be able to help me with this.

Thanks
 
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It may be that you dont have permission to create an alias on the WD drives

An alternative is to select the folder and hold down the command (cmd) and alt keys. Then drag the folder to the desktop - you should see an arrow appear on the folder icon as you drag.

That will create an alias on the desktop of your mac, where you obviously have write permissions
 
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ok, so i bought a new WD external HDD. 2TB.

My plan is to use it to transfer each of my old HDD so they can be reformatted one by one.. Then transfer the info back.

I have searched around and cant seem to find the exact answer i am looking for but, what do i format this drive as? I need it to have read/write ability.

I followed some online directions to create 1 partition, then formatted to journaled extended i believe.

Is this correct?
 
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If its that format then that is fine. If you right click on the drive and select get info it will tell you what format the drive is in
 
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ok so the one i am using for transferring files is Mac OS Extended (journaled)

so when i get the info off my other external HDDs i should format them the same way for future usage?
 
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Mine too! Rosie in New Zealand



Welcome to the mac-forums Rosalene.

But psssst, in case you didn't notice, this thread you posted two is almost 7 years old.

Actually I'm a bit surprised you actually found the threadIn order to reply to it. :Smirk:





- Patrick
======
 
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Thanks Patrick - how kind of you to reply. Just shows that good advice never diminishes!
 

chscag

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Welcome to our forums Rosie!

It will soon be Summer in New Zealand and Winter here in Texas. Hope you enjoy your Summer...

Do not hesitate to ask questions about your Mac and/or macOS. Our forum members are friendly and always available to answer. :)
 

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