Unable to mount NTFS external HDD on MacBook

[Atticus]

Right now I own a 320gb USB external HDD that works very well on Windows laptop and as well works very well on top of my housemates iMac (running OS X Tiger). When I connect or mount the same hard drive into my brand new MacBook that i have bought to put back the older computer, it doesn't work at all. However the good or maybe the strange thing is I can see it beneath disk utilities. Has anybody stumble upon this trouble before?

[HALLBJORN]

A mac can read NTFS except not write. NTFS volumes are read natively within Mac OS X seeing as at any rate Panther (10.3). For writing, you have to install an extra driver like NTFS-3G. Paragon ntfs can as well write, in my eyes a quite conflicting solution. I am of the estimation: what an OS cannot by home-made, must not be forced. Goes at least if not to file systems as well as AllocationTables.

[Dritan]

Yes, any hard drive is compatible with Mac OS or Windows. The only restrictions relate to some Western Digital drives. And yet this restriction applies only being able to use some of these disks as a boot disk such old Mac, which is equipped with a Power PC processor. For Intel-based Mac, there is no restriction on the fact of using them as boot disks. For use as a storage drive, even on older Macs, all existing drives are compatible Mac or Windows. In addition, it is useful to know that Mac OS 10.6, using NTFS-3G is no longer necessary to use the Windows NTFS. Indeed, it is sufficient to enable the capabilities of Mac OS 10.6 with a command line in Terminal, or to make easier to use NTFS Mounter, who will do it for you.

[Aashirya]

It may be that you have the hard drive formatted in NTFS format called. This file system is not compatible with Mac PC's. The easiest way would be if you call in your Applications folder under Utilities Disk Utility. There you can then select your external hard drive and reformat. But you should first back up your files you have on your hard disk. Would recommend to the FAT file system. That is also compatible with Windows. However, you must note that you can only move at a maximum of 4GB FAT large files. This means that if for example you have a file that is 4.1GB in size, not on it then goes to, then I get an error message. But of course you can move a lot of small files over 4GB

[Savannah87]

MacFuse is the adaptation of Fuse for Mac OS X. MacFUSE is a complementary application to the explorer Finder in MacOSX. MacFuse is an open-source project led by Google which allows the Macintosh to manage a huge numeral of file systems (NTFS, FTP, wdfs, cryptofs,). Its major reason is to create the files companionable through the Linux operating system Mac.

[@bLERINA@]

NTFS mounter is a simple utility Designed to mount NTFS volume within read / write mode. Although not authoritatively Supported, Snow Leopard Is currently capable to mount NTFS volumes with read and writes mutually supports. Simply NTFS Mounter uses this aptitude, and offers an easy user interface to the mount command in support of NTFS volumes. User interface IS extremely similar to AirPort: simply click on top of the icon to show a menu with NTFS volume name and choose the volume you would like to write it.’

[KennedII]

The current NTFS from the Windows world is unfortunately bound to copyrights that Microsoft does not release. HFS + are Windows PCs still do not need to pay for additional software. Therefore, only the middle remains an external hard drive as a FAT32 partition to. Understand both the Mac and PC. However, this file system has the disadvantage that you can to save any files that are larger than 4 gigabytes. However, this should be serious in most cases, unless you want to back up an image of an entire DVD on it.