Otherwise, use an external hard drive formatted with FAT32 or exFAT file systems. A Mac running macOS can read drives formatted with FAT32 or exFAT, as can Windows PCs. A FAT32 drive can only. In order for your external device to function as a startup disk, it must be formatted as Mac OS Extended and employ a GUID partition map. To check what format your drive is using (and change it), you'll need to launch your Mac's Disk Utility. Disk Utility can be found in the Applications Utilities folder or by searching for it using. The LaCie Porsche Design is one of the best external hard drives for Macs on sale today, and comes with both USB Type-C to Type-A and USB Type-C to Type-C connectors, making it a versatile way to expand the storage space of your Mac, regardless of what ports it has. External 3D Blu Ray DVD Drive Burner, Wihool Ultra Slim USB 3.0 and Type-C Blu Ray BD CD DVD Burner Player Writer Reader Disk for Mac OS, Windows xp/7/8/10, Laptop PC (Black) 4.1 out of 5 stars 267 $89.99 $ 89.
External Disk Drive For Imac
How To Transfer Files from Mac to External Hard Drive Without Formatting.
Mac OS X one of the best operating system for Apple computers there are lots of series of computer available in Apple Stores. But sometimes performing several tasks on mac are very difficult in this article we went show you how to migrate folders and files of mac to external hard drive.
So, first of all, you've to select the best external hard drives for mac backup from which you can easily restore important documents in case of the reboot of mac. Generate a backup on mac of videos, photos, and files on an external drive.
How To Migrate Files From Mac To Hard Drive
It was easy to move files from mac to mac but moving files from Mac to external hard drive is kinda hard which also relate to recovering files from the external hard drive.
However, sometimes due to the virus and some other error the data stored in external hard drive corporate and to recover the files from external hard drive recovery software for mac.
Now focus on, given below steps by steps guides let you know how to transfer files from mac to external hard drive.
Move Files To External Hard Drive (Drag and Drop)
Step 1
Connect the external hard drive to your mac using a USB cable and wait until the hard drive successfully connected to your computer. (Name of the drive should appear on your Mac screen).
Step 2 :
Open 'Finder', then locate the files to move to external hard drive.
Step 3 :
Create a New Folder in hard drive, then drag each file you want to backup from Mac system to external hard drive. How to create an iso on mac.
Step 4 :
Close the external hard drive once all files moved to from mac to external hard drive.
Using Disk Utility To Transfer Files Mac To External Hard Drive
Sometimes your external hard drive doesn't allow you to transfer files from Mac. Because it's your hard drive may be formatted with NTFS which is normal in a windows environment.
While OS X is able to READ from a drive that is formatted at NTFS, it cannot WRITE to one. You will get a warning saying that the drive cannot be modified. To fix this error you've to use Disk Utility. Remember to save everything to Mac before formatting the apple external hard drives.
How To Formatted External Hard Drive In Mac OS X
Step 1 :
Plug-In external hard drive to Mac using the USB cable. Wait until the hard drive name appears on Mac Desktop screen.
Step 2 :
In Mac OS X disc into your mac and restart your computer. Continue pressing the 'C' key when the system is started.
Step 3 :
Choose the language and then select Disk Utility from Utilities menu. Now select the disk which you want to connect to your mac and click on 'Verify Disk'.
Step 4 :
Click on 'Repair Disk' button to repair the external hard drive. Click on 'New Image' and named your hard drive then select '128-bit' or '256-bit AES' from the encryption menu to add security to the backup.
Step 5 :
Click on the 'Save' button and type the administration password, Conform it. (Wait till process to begin ).
Step 6 :
Now choose the new backup from the device. After completing the imaging process, select 'Image' and then Click on 'Scan Image for Restore'.
Step 7 :
Press 'Command Q' when the scan completes and then again press the same key to quit Mac OS X Installer window.
Reformat The External Hard Drive In Mac OS X
In my research. I've found that lots of Mac users how to purchase a new hard drive for mac. When they connected that hard drive to the Mac OS X system. The external Mac hard drive successfully connected to mac but files can't transfer.
To resolve this issue, you've to reformat your external hard drive using Mac OS Extended option.
Step 1 :
Connect hard drive to Mac via USB slots.
Step 2 :
Now go to Utilities Folder > Disk Utility. Select the external hard drive.
Step 3 :
As long as you don't have any important files in the external hard drive, choose 'Ease' Tab and then select 'Mac OS Extended(Journaled)'.
Step 4 :
Enter the new named of drive and Click Erase.
I hope any of these methods will work for you to transfer files from mac to external hard drives with or without formatting the drive. Give your feedback via comment box.
Dec 21, 2020 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions
Nowadays, several people who are using the external hard drive, having trouble while connecting them with Mac. Even a few days ago, I got the same issue while attaching an external hard drive with my mac book pro, such as 'the disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.'
Before discussing the solutions, I would like to put some light on why is this problem occurring?
Why does my external hard drive keep disconnecting?
If you connected your external hard drive with your Mac, and it's not responding like discussed above, definitely there is a kind of particular problem behind the scene, that you didn't recognize yet. I evaluated some possible cusses that are going to mention below.
- The hard drive didn't plug-in properly
- Data cable is damaged or exposed( try different cable)
- USB cable connector got damage.
- Hardware or software issue.
- A USB port( Thunderbolt port) is damaged, it might be a hardware problem of your Mac, so try a different port.
- Your Mac might be working slow.
- If your external drive connected through a wall outlet, use a different wall outlet
- This problem might because of your mac or USB port( thunder-bolt), so try different Mac to assurance.
- Test your external hard drive on different Mac or pc; sometimes, this problem occurs due to hard drive damaged.
Whenever these kinds of problems occur, your external hard drive doesn't show on your Mac. It is incredibly annoying when you are transferring data between two devices. Furthermore, the risk of data corruption can be increase while transferring data from the external drive to Mac.
For preventing this kind of risk and problems, There is numerous website which are providing not-effective methods. Still, I have some experimented solutions that work for such type of problem.
Solution 1: Make sure your Mac distinguish the external hard drive
This kind of approach makes you able to check whether your mac port or hard drive is physically damaged. If your mac book/ pc port or external drive is damaged, your Mac will not identify the external hard drive. And you will get the same dialogue on-screen as I showed above. You must have to check the Mac to recognize the external hard drive through the following steps:
Step 1: Click on the apple icon on the upper-left corner of your screen.
Step 2: Click on About this Mac.
Step 3: Click on the Overview button, and after that, select the system Report option. Through this action, a screen will appear, system information window.
Step 4: After displaying the system information window, double-click on the hardware option to expand the system information category.
Step 5: Select the storage if the hard drive you inserted is displaying in the right of the panel, which means there is no issue with your Mac's port or connected hard drive, so you just need to move on the following method. If it didn't display in the right panel, that means there is a problem with your Mac's port or drive for considering this issue; you can do the following things:
Attach the external hard drive to a different computer to check whether it is working or not. If it is not working or displaying on another computer, then your external hard drive has a software or hardware problem. The only option to resolve this problem is to replace your external hard drive with a new one.
Use a new hard drive on your Mac's USB port to check whether the device is working on it or not. If it does not work, there is a severe problem with your Mac hardware. Try another available port of your Mac, or take it to repair workshop for further inspection.
Solution 2. Resolve this issue by using Disk Utility
Sometimes, this kind of problem can because of missing of the disk partition table. You can even utilize the Disk utility function, which is a built-in Mac to repair your external hard drive. It is advantageous to fix numerous hard drive problems such as external hard drives to keep disconnecting issues on your computer or laptop.
Here is instruction, how you can repair your external hard drive by using Disk utility.
Step 1: Click on the initialize button when the error message dialogue appears. After that Disk utility window will open.
Step 2: Click on the view option in the menu bar, and choose Show all devices.
Step 3: the left pane of the display screen, click on the external device. After that, click on the First Aid tab option.
Step 4: Click on the Repair Disk in the in the bottom window for a start repairing process.
Step 5: This step will take several minutes for processing. After done repairing. Check back your external hard drive with connecting it again.
Solution 3.Change finder settings in your Mac
There is one of the most common methods that people usually use to resolve external drive issues. Change the finder settings make your external drive recognize on your Mac. It is also a well-knowing cause that makes your mac system unable to understand the external devices. For fixing this issue, you need to follow some instructions to resolve it by changing the finder settings.
Step 1: First, open your Finder window in your Mac. Go to the finder preference.
Step 2: When finder preference got open, now click on general settings option.
Step 3: In the last phase, you must have to assure that the external disk option enabled or not. If it is allowed, then the process got to end here, but if it does not, then make it let instantly and save all the changes.
Solution 4. Recover or backup your drive data before format
Sometimes, corrupted files can be a significant cause of such type of error on your Mac. File corruption can cause by a malicious virus, improper shut down your Mac, or forceful restart. To resolve such kind of issue, you need to recover your data first and, after that, perform hard drive format. But the question is rising on this point that how can we repair and recover our corrupted, lost data.
For dealing with this problem, you will need to contact third party software because Mac does not have such features to make it recover your drive data. If you are still sticking with; what kind of software you need to recover your data, I will recommend you Recoverit software.
Recoverit data recovery software makes you able to recover more than 1000 formats of files from a variety of modern storage devices and operating system such as Mac OS, MS Windows( all version), digital cam, USB drive, Drone cam, SSD drive, CF or SD card, etc.
Furthermore, you can repair and recover the various type of files like video, audio, photos, documents, emails, and many others.
Recoverit will take several seconds to initiate on your Mac to start itself when it got launched. Now you are three steps far from your lost data.
Step 1: Select your device
First, make it launch Recoverit data recovery software on your Mac.
To recover your specific data from your external hard drive, you need to select the partition or hard drive by clicking on your external hard drive. And then click on the 'Start' button to initiate the recovery process.
Step 2: Scan the location
On this step, Recoverit software will start scanning your files all around the drive. Using an advancing search algorithm will find out all your lost, corrupted, encrypted, deleted, or formatted data.
During the scan, if you get your specific data, then you can pause scanning at the spot.
Step 3: Preview and Recover Files
Recoverit software allows you to preview all the recoverable data or files before recovering them. You can simply select all targeted files such as video, audio, documents, etc. manually by clicking on the 'Select' option to recover all those files chosen by click on the Recover button. After click on it, you will retrieve all your recoverable selected data will back.
Furthermore, it will recommend you to save it on another location rather than original locate to prevent overwriting data.
Solution 5. Change the format of your external hard drive
This type of issue usually occurs due to the external hard drive's format, especially if it is NTFS. Mac does not support NTFS format officially. If your external hard drive is NTFS formatted, it might be readable for you but not writeable. And it might be possible that you get such type of external drive disability error usually occurs when you insert your external hard drive in Mac. You can fix this problem by, change the format of your external hard drive from NTFS to exFAT, that supported by both Windows and OS X.
Note: Keep in mind that changing the format of your external hard drive can erase all the data permanently. You must have to make a backup of all data of your external drive. For doing this, you will need a windows computer who can easily support NTFS format to save you all data in it.
For ensuring the drive format, follow some steps:
Step 1: Click on the search option in the upper right corner of your mac screen. After then, a spotlight search window will appear
Step 2: Type the Disk utility in your keyboards and press enter. Disk Utility window will open.
Step 3: Select your external disk drive and then select on the info tab of Disk Utility function.
Step 4: Check whether the file system is exFAT or NTFS. If NTFS, then follow some steps below to change its format.
There are four steps you will follow to change the format of your external drive from NTFS to exFAT.
Step 1: Open Disk Utility.
Step 2: Again, select the disk drive from the sidebar and click on the erase option.
Step 3: Choose the format EXFAT and click on the Erase button. This process will take several seconds to format all your drive data. You need to be patient for this procedure completes.
Step 4: Now, you can check if your Mac can read external hard disk drive.
If the concerning problem persists, then try the next following method.
Solution 6. Fix error with terminal
if your external hard drive is disconnecting you on Mac, you can even check and resolve this error through USB and with the terminal. For solving this issue, you need a few steps to follow that discuss below:
Step 1: The very first, you need to open Terminal application in utilities, then type:
Step 2: And then you will find the number of your external hard drive or USB by type: diskutil info disk2 and press return.
Important: Here, you need to replace 2 with your external disk number.
Step 3: And now you will type: diskutil eject disk2 and press return.
Step 4: Type the diskutil list on the keyboard and press return. When the USB drive gets disappear in the Terminal list, you will close the window instantly.
Step 5: You will simply shut down your mac Terminal application and then open the console to evaluate the drive errors.
Step 6: At last just, click on 'Faults and Error' to make sure whether there is still any problem or not.
Performs all the steps we discussed above; you will plug in your external drive in Mac again. If the error shows again after reconnecting the external hard drive, then it is pretty sure that your external drive is entirely secure. So, now you can connect it with another mac to ensure its visibility.
Essential Suggestions to Reconnect External Hard Drive
1. The right way to connect External Hard Drive on Mac
Usually, when you connect external hard drive on mac port quickly, it ruins the external hard drive cable and sometimes ports also and make it disabled on your Mac. That is why whenever you connect your external hard drive on Mac, you should do it in a very decent way so that the usability age of cable and port might extend, and also your Mac will be able to recognize it frequently.
2. Right Way to Prevent External Hard Drive Disconnecting Randomly
Disk Drive For Mac
Simply just click on the finder, at the left bottom of the screen. Click on the eject external icon by selecting your external hard drive name.
3. Right Ways to Prevent External Hard Drive Lost on Mac
- Keep you mac ports clean and dust-free
- If your Mac is getting heat up during connecting or disabling, you must take it to repair shop to assure about motherboard problem issues.
- Keep making your files backup on a regular base on multiple locations.
- Install antivirus application on Mac and update it monthly.
Conclusion
In final words, I hope you got to fix your mac error 'the disk you inserted was not readable by a computer.' There are several other ways to resolves this issue, but recommend methods are highly workable. If you are still having this issue, you can feel free to comment below. We will love to help you to resolve this issue with multiple solutions.
What's Wrong with Mac
- Recover Your Mac
- Fix Your Mac
- Delete Your Mac
- Learn Mac Hacks
