LaCie External Hard Drive + New Mac

[MumiMonster]

I have a LaCie Rugged USB 3.0 that I used to make backups on my old PC laptop. I recently switched to a MacBook Pro, and used my hard drive successfully to transfer my files/iTunes/etc to my new mac. However, I tried to make a backup now of my mac onto the hard drive and it is not letting me. No "paste" option and the drag and drop feature doesn't work. I assume it is a formatting issue on my hard drive, but otherwise know nothing. Can someone please explain to me in kindergarten-level what I must do to be able to make backups onto my hard drive from my mac please?

 

[RadDave]

I have a LaCie Rugged USB 3.0 that I used to make backups on my old PC laptop. I recently switched to a MacBook Pro, and used my hard drive successfully to transfer my files/iTunes/etc to my new mac. However, I tried to make a backup now of my mac onto the hard drive and it is not letting me. No "paste" option and the drag and drop feature doesn't work. I assume it is a formatting issue on my hard drive, but otherwise know nothing. Can someone please explain to me in kindergarten-level what I must do to be able to make backups onto my hard drive from my mac please?

Hello and welcome to the forum! Please provide information about your MBPro's model (year) and the OS X installed. Below is a brief summary of drive formats - your LaCie external HD is likely formatted w/ NTFS or FAT32; if the latter you should be able to write to the drive using Mac OS X - to check, plug in the LaCie and open 'Disk Utility' (in Apps) - see my attached screen capture - one of my Time Machine (TM) external HDs is attached to my laptop; I've highlighted the drive (1 TB WD) and the formatting is shown - what is the format on you external drive?

As to trying to make a backup, are you using TM or just attempting to drag files between the drives - if TM is being used, then the LaCie HD has to be formatted as Mac OS Extended; if you want to use the drive w/ both your MBPro and your older PC, then FAT32 would be a better choice. Dave

Hard Drive File Systems

HFS+ (Hierarchical File System), a.k.a. Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
File system used by Mac OS and needed for Time Machine
Windows requires additional software to use the Mac OS

NTFS (Windows NT File System)
Read/Write NTFS from native Windows
Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
OS X needs additional software for interaction

FAT32 (File Allocation Table)
Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS
Maximum file size: 4GB
Use this format if you share the drive between Mac OS X and Windows computers and have no files larger than 4GB

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