Can I use any external hard drive for Mac?

Will hard drives formatted for PC work on a Mac? Generally, yes—for the most part, a hard drive is a hard drive, and any hard drive you buy for a Windows PC should work fine on a Mac as well. Otherwise, any hard drive with a USB connection should have no trouble working on a Mac.

Can I use an old hard drive as external storage?

Simply attach the SATA portion of the cable to your old drive, and the USB end of the cable to your computer, which will allow you to use the drive as you would an external hard drive. As long as it’s connected to your system via USB, you can use it for storage.

How can I use my old hard drive as an external Mac?

To make a Mac act as an external hard disk, you can put it in Target Disk Mode and connect it to another Mac with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable, as follows: Note: Target Disk Mode is available on most recent Macs; however, computers that do not have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports are excluded.

Why can’t I copy from Mac to external hard drive?

If you can’t move or copy a file or folder, you might need to change its permissions settings. You might also need to change permissions settings for the disk, server, or folder where you want to move the item. Change the permissions to either Read & Write or “Read only.” …

Can I use an external hard drive for Mac and Windows?

While Windows and macOS primarily use their respective proprietary file systems, both support other file systems as well. This means that you can take an external hard drive and format it with the exFAT file system and it will then be readable and writable to both you_r Windows PC and your Ma_c.

How do I make my external hard drive my main storage?

How to Make an External Drive Your Main Hard Drive

1. Plug your external drive into your computer and reboot it.
2. Press the appropriate key combination to enter your BIOS.
3. Look for the boot order settings.
4. Set your USB external drive as your first boot device.
5. Save your changes and exit.

How do I get pictures off my old hard drive?

Finder is used for quickly locating any file on your Hard Drive. To use it just click My PC in the file explore or Computer in the windows explorer. You can now go to the “downloads” or “pictures” section for your pictures. You can also enter the command kind:=picture in the search box.

What can I do with my old Macbook hard drive?

You can use it to shuttle documents between home & work. You can use it as a way to use your iTunes library on multiple machines. You can use it as external storage for your iPhoto library. If it’s large enough, you can use it as a backup drive for your new computer.

How do I move files from my Mac to an external hard drive?

Click the Finder icon in the Dock to open a Finder window, then do one of the following to move your files. Move files to the storage device: Select one or more files on the desktop or in a folder, then drag them to the storage device, listed below Locations in the Finder sidebar.

How do I make my external hard drive compatible with Mac without losing data?

Answer: A: Answer: A: Open Disk Utility, select your drive from the left side list, then click on the Enable Journaling icon in the toolbar. This will do what you want without losing anything.

What is the best external hard drive for a Mac?

Best external hard drives for Macs in 2019 1. Western Digital My Passport 4TB external hard drive 2. Buffalo MiniStation Thunderbolt external hard drive 3. G-Technology G-Drive USB 3.0 4TB external hard drive 4. Samsung T3 SSD 5. Buffalo MiniStation Extreme NFC external hard drive 6. Western Digital My Passport Ultra external hard drive

How do you use an external hard drive on a Mac?

Connect an external drive to your Mac via USB, USB-C, or Thunderbolt. Open a new Finder window. Open your external drive in that window. Open a new Finder window. Don’t close your previous window (open to your external drive), as you’ll need it shortly. Click the Go menu and navigate to your Home folder.

Can any external hard drive work with a Mac?

All external hard drives should work with the Mac. If you want this to be guaranteed, buy a hard drive that is certified for the Mac.

How do I format an external hard drive on a Mac?

1) Connect your external hard drive to the Mac. 2) Open Disk Utility. You can do this quickly by pressing CMD and the spacebar at the same time. Then type in “Disk Utility”. 3) Select the drive you want to format. 4) Click the Partition tab. 6) Change the Partition Layout from Current to 1 Partition.