External drive as storage center

[Chitrakala]

I am using my Macbook Air since last 2 years and it runs smoothly till day but an only thing is that the hard drive of this macbook is not just enough for me to have all of my data on it. So i an looking forward to use an external drive of 40 Gb to store some of the data. The files which i am gonna move are photos and movies which i have captured using my digicam. Now i am thinking to install an operating system on this external drive so that i can modify those files directly. There is only one usb port on my macbook so it won't be flexible to use this external drive as usb stick forever. By the way what is the space required to install Mac OS X.

[Daley]

I think you would be needing only 1.5 or maximum 2 Gb of space to install the Mac OS X on your drive but it is not recommended to install an OS on an external drive as it would be occupying the single usb port of your macbook. I suggest you keep your operating system on the macbook hard drive itself and use an external drive just for data backup and it would be possible to modify the files from an external files itself which should not be a problem for you.

[Owen]

I guess it would be more complex for you to manage your macbook from an external drive as compare to the system which you are using right now. I think you should keep on using your external drive only for data storage so that you can use those data anywhere anytime on any machine so that it won't be headache for you to use those data. And using such an external drive only for data backup is really an useful thing. And if you are having your os on an external drive then it won't be possible to boot your macbook when you are away from it with your external drive.

[Quentin]

I repeatedly use an operation partitioning Mac & PC to an external drive and a USB key: objective, the Mac can write in the best conditions, as well as the PC. To do this with Apple Disk Utility (in Utilities), create 2 partitions: the first should be in MS-DOS, to be able to view the PC and the second in HSF + and used exclusively for Mac. It works very well. Incidentally, the Mac can also write on the PC partition if you want to exchange information between the two platforms.

[Bon-Z]

I also have a problem with my external hard drive. I bought an iMac. Initially I worked with my PC and an external hard drive 320 GB Seagate. My hard drive is recognized by Mac, I can read my files on it there's no worries. The problem is when I want to record or edit a file already stored on my hard drive from the Mac, I can not. Is there something to do?

[Venator]

I bought a macbook it is not long but when I plug my external hard drive, I can not copy files from my mac on my external HDD. I can not do more to change or rename files. But when I do the opposite and bin then it works. When I try to copy files from my external HD to another external HD with my mac, it gives me "Unable to move the item because......can not be modified" (and when I do the reverse, it does not do more)! Can you explain what to do so I can copy files to my external HD with my Mac? By cons, when I plug my HDD on the laptop of my brother who is an HP, I can copy!

[Simond]

I would say it's the same problem as lithium compounds, your data drive can not be formatted in MS-DOS and NTFS but mac can not write to this format, hence the "Can not be changed" . If you have important information above, you transfer them on the PC of your brother, you format your SD MS DOS and worse here.

[Orson]

I just had a similar problem except that I cut the power of my external HD during operation. I could not use the disk utility. I disconnected and reconnected it was not recognized immediately (usually within seconds) but the mac worked with about twenty minutes and then it suddenly reappeared on the desktop. So I advise you to plug it in and wait if you impatient you can always try using Disk Utility and do a check if you can.