Bought this GREAT Toshiba portable hard drive for my MacBook to use to store files, essentially as another drive. I wasn't interested in using it for backups but that is certainly an option.
I have an identical one for my iMac and love the idea that I can just drag and drop files in there outside of my operating system without eating up the internal memory of the machine.
I had forgotten, however, that these ship formatted for Windows 7-- with the detailed explanation "Reformating required for Mac Users". A search of the Toshiba website offers little more than that and in reading some of the reviews Mac Buyers who discover the incompatibility are sending them back for the more expense pre loaded Mac versions-- don't do it! It's actually quite simple to reformat-- ignore the person who wrote that it took him nearly 20 hours to reformat! It took less than a minute and I'm not that tech savy.
1. Plug in the Hard Drive to your USB port. Choose DECIDE LATER regarding time machine-- you can decide this for yourself after all is done.
2. Go to Finder, click on the Icon for the Toshiba and click GET INFO-- you'll see that the format listed is WINDOWS-- that's the problem-- we need to reformat.
3. Go to Disk Utility-- if you don't know where that is type it into the magnifying glass spot at the top right of your screen.
4. In Disk Utility select the Toshiba machine and you'll see the information on it. Click on ERASE-- the option which lists the FORMAT will come up-- it will say either WINDOWS or MS DOS-- change this to MAC OS Extended Case Sensitive and click Erase.
5. Choose DECIDE Later for the time machine option.
6. If there is a second Toshiba Disk listed repeat the same-- this is the sub-folder back up.
7. Go back to Finder, click on the Icon for the Toshiba and click GET INFO-- you'll see that the format listed is now MAC OS X -- you're good to go!
51 comments:
Thanks for the great tip
Thanks for the great tip. I had previously bought a Samsung HD but did not reformat it. Now I think if I had to do it.
Glad to help!
THANK you.
Thank you! Just bought one of these today without even looking to see if it was mac formatted.
Super easy and worked perfectly. :)
Soooooo easy! Thank you very much!!!
i'm glad i found this, BUT i'm nervous about the erase button! i have quite a bit of stuff on my hard drive so i just want to make sure that it won't actually be deleting all the stuff on my hard drive? is this just changing the format so everything will open on my macbook? thanks!!
Follow the directions exactly as written and you should not have a problem. It's actually very easy.
thank you, andy!! it drove me nuts that toshiba decides to send out a product with that tiny disclaimer w/out any other insight. i am not tech savvy, either and was hoping for at least one paragraph in the included manual (or even on their website) to go over the reformatting.
I just reformatted a Toshiba on my mac. What is the difference between case sensitive and case sensitive journaling?
Thank you for posting this! It's so ridiculous that they don't include any instructions at all! When I try to do it though at the end of it all a thing pops up and says "Disk Erase failed with the error:
Could not unmount disk"
Do you know what that means or what I should do?? Thanks.
It worked! I realized I had the pdf of the useless "Quick Start Guide" still open. Once I closed it, I follwed your directions and it worked perfectly. Once again, thank you so much! -Heather
so cant open in window?? any others way can make it open in mac and window?
Thank you!!!! Very clear.
thanks for saving me lots of money and saving me lots of files
This doesn't seem to work for OS X lion. Do you know if there's a problem with it running on lion?
I installed it on one of my other machines using Lion and it's fine. Make sure you go through the instructions step by step.
I saw this post too late so I wasn't able to follow the Decide Later option when the Time Machine message popped up. Now, the hard drive does not power up at all. I'm using a MacBook. Hope you can help. Thanks.
I don't know if you can get it back from that point. If you plug it in to a second computer you should have the option to restore factory settings, and then start from step 1.
You may have to return it.
Awesome help!! Thanks alot :) :)
can i please pay you for this?
can i please pay you for this
Absolutely-- paypal andy@hebsandfish.com I also accept cash, cars and comic books! :)
THANK YOU!!!!!!!
Wow. Thank you so much. I was SO mad until I found your clear and helpful advice! Awesome.
i have the same toshiba external harddrive and was able to reformat it using my imac, but when i plug it into my macbook pro it will not come up. Anyone else running into this problem?
It works on both my iMac and my MacBook-- trying turning off your MacBook-- plug it in and restart. If it still doesn't see it go to Disk Utility and see if it's listed there.
What can I do if the disk does'nt show at all in finder or anywhere else for that matter? Time machine did'nt pop up either.
Go to DISK UTILITY and it should show up there. If it doesn't, unplug the USB, plug it back in and restart and you should detect it.
This may sound dramatic, but you just saved my life. THANK YOU SO MUCH.
You seriously, seriously, seriously just saved my life. THANK YOU SO MUCH.
Perfect. Great instructions. Like I suspected, the process was more involved than the guy at Best Buy made it out to be. "Just right-click and choose reformat!"
HELPPPP!!! I did this and now it's not even registering with my mac. It's saying "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" What do I do??? I followed all instrustions.
Dianna-
It'll work, but it's easy to miss a step.
Unplug the USB, restart your Mac and plug it back in, now go through the steps one by one very carefully.
If that doesn't work go to Disk Utility and if that fails repeat the above.
I reformatted and it erased all of my data on the hard drive. I followed all of the directions that you posted and it happened.
What data? This is information for setting it up for first time use. You shouldn't have any data on there. You are RE-FORMATTING it for use from it's factory settings.
Sorry if you misunderstood the post.
Why can't it read both? If I reformat, will it read OS x 10.6.8 AND windows xp? or will it be just mac?
Also, if it doesnt work on both, what would u recommend I do about it? Thank youu :)
No, it won't read both, at least as far as I know. I don't use Windows. But since it's a matter of formatting I'm going to guess it will only read one or the other.
It will erase anything you have on there though-- keep that in mind. This tutorial is for first time setup for Mac users.
I never post comments.. BUT THANK YOU FOR PUTTING THIS OUT THERE! SO EASY TO DO WITH YOUR STEP BY STEP DIRECTION!
I never post comments either, but your instructions were so easy! Don't worry about the erase issue, it isn't one. It took me about 2 minutes and now I'm downloading things on to it.
There isn't even a Toshiba Icon showing up on my desktop.
Why case-sensitive?
I don't know Andrea- ask HP!
Thanks for this - found your site randomly and just re formatted the HD for my first ever Mac. Thanks again
Thanks so much. It worked perfectly. However, it also erased the entire contents of my other hard drive despite the fact that it was ejected and the only drive selected when I formatted was the new drive. Is there any way I can get my content back. It was a full 1 tb drive and now everything has just vanished. Please help! I'm devastated.
Hey Jonty-
If it was unplugged there's no way it erased. I'm not an IT guy but I'd suggest trying to plug it in again after you've restarted. It should still be there.
Otherwise, I would consult an expert.
I choose the option mac OS extended case sensitive, but when I click on erase it says: Disk Erase failed with the error:
File system formatter failed.
Andy, Could you help me?
Restart-- go through the instructions line by line and if you get the error message again you'll need to return your unit because it's defective.
Thank you so much! Why is it left for people like you to do this when the guys that make the money from producing it can't be bothered!? Crazy!
You made it so easy - thanks :)
Thank you so much for taking the time to write out those detailed, precise instructions. Would've taken forever without this!
THANK YOU, thank you, thank you! I looked at a lot of posts before finding your clear, simple, step by step instructions.
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