How to Format an External Hard Drive
Getting Started with Hard Drive Formats
I use external hard drives to store all of my photos and for my backups. External hard drives are great, but they must be formatted properly before you start filling them up with important information. Here’s a link to an article that I recently wrote on my image storage system and an article on my Professional-Grade Backup Plans.
Sometimes the dumbest problems seem to last forever. To this day, a PC cannot read from a hard drive that has been formatted for the Mac without additional software. Likewise, the Mac OS X Operating System can read from, but cannot write to, an external drive that has been formatted for a PC using the NTFS file system without additional software. Regardless of brand or model, the very first thing that you must do when you buy a brand new external hard drive is to format it properly for your system. Format and partition your new disk immediately, before you start using it for backup or for additional file storage. It is essential that you do this right away, before you start using the drive, because the formatting process erases everything on the external disk.
Most photographers will want to format their new external hard drives using their operating system’s optimal style. NTFS is the standard for Windows users and OS X Extended (Journaled) is the standard for Mac folks.
How to format an external drive (Windows):
Hard Drive Formatting – PC from ASMP dpBestflow on Vimeo.
PC users might also want to follow these links for tutorials on drive formatting.
- http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/tips/advanced/ntfs.mspx
- http://reviews.ebay.com/Formatting-an-external-hard-drive-using-Windows_W0QQugidZ10000000004054118
How to format an external drive (Mac):
How to Format an External Hard Drive on a Mac from David Marx on Vimeo.
Hard Drive Formatting – Mac from ASMP dpBestflow on Vimeo.
Getting Fancy: Going Cross-Platform
What if you need to use the same external hard drives with both types of computers? If you set the external drive up using NTFS then the Mac can’t write files onto it. Rats. If you set the drive up using OS X Extended then the PC won’t even recognize it. Double-rats. So what to do?
The best solution that I have found to this dilemma requires an additional piece of software. PC users who face this problem should look into a super cool program called MacDrive 7
Options for Formatting a Hard Drive
Mac users who find themselves in a similar position should look into a program called Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X. Like MacDrive, this inexpensive utility gives a Mac the ability to both read and write to an NTFS hard drive. Once I have MacDrive installed on my PC, I can use an external hard drive that has been formatted using either the NTFS or OS X Extended system. Likewise, with Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X installed, my Mac suddenly works with either drive format. Problem solved!
For more advice on selecting the appropriate drive format I urge you to read this article from the American Society of Media Photographers fantastic dpbestflow.org project.
Filed Under: (04) Computer Hardware Advice • (12) FAQ
About the Author: David Marx is a digital photography instructor whose engaging teaching style inspires photographers of all skill levels. David is an Adobe Certified Photoshop and Photoshop Lightroom Expert. David has led Adobe Photoshop / Photoshop Lightroom seminars and digital photography field workshops for The Rocky Mountain School of Photography, FirstLight Workshops, The American Society of Media Photographers, and the world-renowned Blackberry Farm Resort. To learn more about David's software seminars and field photography workshops, please visit 
Thanks so much, David. Your info on backing up data with two external drives has helped me immensely. Needless to say I am not so much a photographer as a videographer, but the idea still stands: many large files that need to be backed up, but would be disastrous if lost.
I do have on question though: I have had one backup external drive for a long time, and I am only now getting my second one. You talk here about formatting your drive before you start backing up…could this be a problem with the drive I am already using? I don’t know if I formatted it correctly when I first began using it, but I have been backing up fine with it…what benefit is the ‘proper’ formatting? Is there a way to see what the format of my first hard drive is so I know for sure? Thanks for any help in clearing this up.
Dear Jake Huddleston,
“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it….” Since your current backup drive has been working properly for years we can assume that it was formatted in a usable way for you at the factory. It was most likely shipped out formatted FAT32 which is adequate. You could easily check on it’s file structure by right-clicking on the drive icon and checking its properties. Again though its working, and reformatting it now would wipe it completely clean. So what’s the harm and where is the benefit?
You might not be so luck though with your next external drive. My Mac, for example, cannot natively write to a drive that is formatted using the Windows NTFS system. If I buy a new external disk, and it ships out from the factory with the NTFS structure built in, then I must format the disk to make it usable with my Mac. The same is true in the PC world.
There is a simple rule here. Always format a brand new hard drive so that uses the optimal file structure for your operating system!
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David Marx
Hello,
Using Windows XP
I have a Samsung external hardrive I am trying to format the drive using NFTS but it keeps failing. Initially I used FAT32 which worked but afterwards when trying to open the auto backup…..the message said “The backup settings wizard is now in progress and so the process has been terminated”
Do you have any ideas>
Regards
Nina Bagnall
Dear Nina Bagnall,
I am completely guessing at your troubles since a: I am a Mac user and b: I have no idea what backup software you are using. My guess though is that your backup software runs continuously in the background. The software–I am guessing some program that came from Samsung–is running all the time and that it is keeping the external drive occupied. XP will not let you reformat the drive since the software is keeping the disk busy.
If I am anywhere near correct in my guesses then there are two easy solutions. Option 1: Turn the software off and then reformat the disk. Option 2: Connect this drive to another PC, one without the Samsung software, and then reformat it.
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David Marx
Superb tutorial. Enjoyed it and took the first step in getting on with my much delayed backup of my pc to an external drive!
thanks,it helps a lot
David – thank you so much for publishing this info. I recently switched to a MacBook Pro for home but have to work on a PC at work. I bring my work back and forth with me on a hard drive formatted for a PC. I was very frustrated when I couldn’t save my excel files edited on my Mac on my portable hard drive. Thanx!!!!
I have new, unformatted, external hard drives that I have in a 4 bay enclosure (usb). I can’t seem to get disk utility to recognize the new drives. How do you format with a MacBook Pro a new hard drive that has not been previously formatted? I have NTFS drives in the bay, so I know the system works… I just can’t seem to ‘see’ the new drives on my new Mac. Thank you – Dan
Dear Dan,
Using the Mac Disk Utility can you repartition the disks? If so then you should also be able to reformat them so that they use the Mac OS X Journaled file structure. (Sometimes called HFS+). See http://www.macworld.com/article/51199/2006/06/julyworkingmac.html
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David Marx
I have a WD 500gb external drive that I have used with a Dish TV receiver to store movies. The receiver reformatted the drive when it was plugged. I now want to move the drive back to my Windows 7 laptop for backups, however the system will not recognize the drive so that I can reformat it back to NTFS. Any suggestions on how I can do this?? Thanks
Dear Randy,
Have you tried using the Disk Managment controls that are hidden under the Administrative Tools tab in Windows? See http://ancillotti.hubpages.com/hub/Using-Disk-Management-in-Windows-7-Vista
My guess is that you need to make the disk active, re-partition it, and then reformat it.
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David Marx
My wife has low vision. She uses a storage cartridge that holds books that can be played on her digital player (talking book).
The books are downloaded and dragged to the storage cartridge. I was losing available space on the cartridge and didn’t know why. Apparently, it has to be formatted. I’m trying to find out how to do that. I have a MacBook Pro. Can anyone help me?
Thank you! GAB
Dear GAB,
On the Mac you can use the Disk Utility panel to format the cartridge. Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Click on the cartridge and format…. The question is what format does the digital player use? My guess is that it uses Fat32 with the Windows byte order. Use the erase option, pick fat32, and then in the advanced options pick the one that says for windows.
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David Marx
This is great, thank you so much! Now I have to free up some time to actually do this. I’m pretty nervous about moving over to a non Apple language program but I’ve read a ton of reviews online and they recommend Lightroom over iPhoto and even Apreature. I hope I am not making a mistake by switching to Lightroom from iPhoto. I have just over 90K photos in my iPhoto and it’s chugging like there’s no tomorrow. I run it off an external hard drive so it’s quite SLOW. Again this for this info I will come back for more info.
Hello there, I’m switching from iPhoto to Lightroom and I’m a bit confused. Does Lightroom support an external drive as it’s main hard drive like iPhoto? Currently I have an external hard drive that I connect to my computer before I launch iPhoto and then I connect my camera or iPhone to import photos. Is it the same with Lightroom? Do I designate an external drive and use it as it’s main drive to store photos etc? I’m a bit confused. Any help would be appreciated. A link to info is great too! Of course I’m on a Mac!
Thanks in advance.
Dear Sebastian,
Good questions. See http://thelightroomlab.com/2011/03/where-should-i-keep-my-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-catalog/ and http://thelightroomlab.com/2009/05/my-photo-storage-system-two-external-hard-drives/ for more help with these questions.
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David Marx
Hi, what do you when you have a 500gb Samsung external hard drive that refuses to be formatted by the standard windows formatting tool? This one is a drive I was using for backups. I now have a new 2TB drive and wanted to copy everything off the old 500gb drive and onto the new chinky 2TB drive, which I just about managed (way too many duplicates because windows back up software doesn’t do differential backups and all the files seem to be called the same thing until you rootle through endless file trees to find out what’s really in there, but that’s another story! Anyway, I was copying to the 2TBm, then deleting from the 500gb, got stuck with the ox80070570 error – corrupted files that couldn’t be deleted, changed the formnat with the windows tool from NTFS to ex-FAT (the only other option showing), which successfully got rid of the pesky files that didn’t want to be deleted. Tried to re-format it back to NTFS, and windows keeps telling me it couldn’t complete the format. The drive is totally empty, one big blue circle in properties, but I want it to be NTFS, so what do I do now?
Hope someone has an answer!
Angel x
Dear Angel153,
If you go into the Windows disk management utility you might be able to completely remove the partitions from the disk. Building a new primary partition and then reformatting might work. If you are feeling super dorky you might try attacking this at the DOS level too… The bigger question is really do you are enough to bother now that you have the big new drive for backup?
Best of luck,
David Marx
Great article. Thanks!
I did notice a couple of things though:
You said, “Likewise, the Mac OS X Operating System can read from, but cannot write to, an external drive that has been formatted for a PC using the NTFS file system without additional software.” However, the chart says that Mac OS X can neither read from nor write to an NTFS formatted HD.
You also said, “If you set the drive up using OS X Extended then the PC won’t even recognize it.” However, the chart says that the PC CAN recognize an OS X formatted HD.
Dear Brandon,
You are right! I messed up my chart. There should be a checkmark in the read from NTFS from the Mac. Mac’s can read NTFS files but cannot write them without additional software. Looks like I will have to redraw this one! Thanks.
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David Marx
Cliche, but you just saved me a bunch of frustration. I’ve been looking everywhere for this info and I was fortunate enough to find this site. I’ve used this software before but I completly forgot about it!!! thanks brother.
Thanks, David. I thought I was following the video exactly, but I guess I added an extra step somehow.
Hello, David. I have successfully formatted a few hard drives using your instructions for the Mac. One thing I find odd is that zeroing out the data takes about 7 hours, vs. the 30 minutes your video tutorial shows for your drive. Just curious why my drives take so much longer? I am using LaCie 1T drives. Thank you for all your wonderful tutorials. This is a great resource.
Dear Slack,
Formatting my drive was much faster, I think, because I did not zero anything out! In PC language, I did a “quick format” and didn’t worry about the security that zeroing out the drive adds.
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David Marx
Thank you for the excellent tutorial on formatting a PC drive. It was professional in every way!
Thank you so much. I was trying difficulty finding ways to use the new external hard drive I bought today. It was ironic that the programs were messing my computer up, almost crashing it- hence the reason why I got the stupid thing. After I watched this video, I am grateful.
BTW- rod- Mine is a 1TB and it says 7 hours. It is just because we both have VERY BIG hard drives, so the one in the video only took 30 minutes because his was only 100 GB. Hope that helps.
I have an iMac 27 and purchased a 2TB external hard drive….. I am trying your process above….. after selecting zeros… where your example stated 31 minutes… mine came back at 14 hours …… wow … did I do something wrong…
Dear Rod,
I think you chose Erase rather than Partition. Zeroing out the drive is a security measure which is good but has nothing to do with establishing the drive’s data structure. Partition is the button I suggest using to set your drive to the OS X Journaled (HFS +) format.
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David Marx
Thank you so much for your advice David. I have read the whole thread and this advice have cleared up the questions i still had after that.
Thank you for helping the community!
Rykie
Hi
I recently purchased a macbook and had all my pc stuff backed up on my ext hd. when i tried importing it to mac some of the videos wouldn’t work but i found that if i change the extensions to .flv it works on a certain program on my mac, so that’s sorted. Then, documents woudn’t work but i took them back to pc and saved them as an older version, windows 97 or 93 (can’t remember now exactly). This worked, it could be opened on my Pages iwork software.
so for me the video and document issues have been sorted but now i’m trying to sort out my ext hd, getting rid of unwanted stuff, but as you have mentioned – i can’t erase old stuff from the ext hd’s memory.
So here’s my 3 questions:
1. I have found the following link on the web. it’s for sd cards but i was wondering if it could work for formatting the ext hd
http://www.ehow.com/how_4794433_format-sd-card-mac.html
2. If i choose MS-DOS (FAT) as a format, will it read AND Write? they just say ‘for use on both pc and mac’.
3. I am aware that i need to backup everything first. is it okay to back it up on my mac and then just transfer it back to the formatted ext hd afterwards?
I know you have mentioned software above to deal with formatting but this just seemed like an easier way. The hard work converting everything is already done, so will this way of formatting be okay?
Thank you for your time!
Rykie
Dear Rykie R,
You should really get an Apple expert to help you out with this transition. Formatting your existing external hard drive will wipe everything out. If you were to copy all of your files over to the Mac first then reformat it then copy everything back then this would not be a disaster. If you skip this crucial step though reformatting now would be a major problem!
Let’s say though that you don’t need to worry about the files. Formatting an external drive with the FAT 32 file structure would make it cross-platform ready. Formatting with the new exFAT will also achieve this goal though you may have to update your Windows computers. The trouble though is that both of these formats are only minimally supported on the Mac and both are less than ideal for a large external hard drive. Formatting the disk for mac (OS X Extended) or for Windows (NTFS) is a much better solution but it will require that you add some software to one of your computers to keep the drive working with both platforms.
Best of luck and again I would seek professional help to ease the whole transition from the old machine to the new one.
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David Marx
This was so helpful, thank you!
There is a pretty good guide to performing a complete format on a drive with DBAN right here:
ByteLearn: Formatting Your Computer
Hi,
I bought a new BuffaloTech 500 GB external drive and formatted it with NTFS (an option that appeared when I plugged the USB cable first time). Then I transferred all the data to the hard drive of my computer which has a Windows 7 as OS.
Now I want to transfer all the data to my laptop which also has a Windows 7 OS. I can see all the files and folders in the local drive when I attach the external hard drive to the laptop but unable to open any of it. All the folders show a shortcut sign arrow.
Now after reading in this forum I think I’ve to format my external hard drive to be used on my laptop but I am reluctant to do so, in case I lose all my data and files.
Please help ! What should I do ?
Thanks
Malik
Dear Malik,
I don’t think that you need to reformat the new drive. It’s easy to confirm that it is indeed formatted NTFS. Just right-click on the drive’s icon / name and check out its properties. If it is indeed setup NTFS then that’s not the problem. I think that the trouble is in how you “copied” all of the data onto the new disk. My guess is that you didn’t copy anything! I am guessing that instead of copying you actually just created shortcuts to every file. These shortcuts, of course, lead to files that are still on the old drive. My suspicion is that you need to delete all of these shortcuts and start the copy from old disk to external drive over again.
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David Marx
hello David,
I’ve got an external hard drive from my teacher, he’d been using it with a mac. when I connect it to my pc, it does not appear in my computer as a hard drive. However, when I check the “device manager >> disk drives”, I can see it.
Please tell me how can I make it usable with my pc?
sam
Dear Sam,
You need to initialize and re-format that external hard drive so that it can be read on a PC. You could install software to let the PC understand the Mac file format instead but it’s probably not worth the money or the hassle is the disk was a gift.
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David Marx
I have just purchased a WD 640 portable hard drive and it says that if you have Snow Leopard (which I do) you need to reformat it. Any advice on what I need to refomat it to would be appreciated …….
Dear Kelly,
If the drives will be used only on a Mac then format them using the OS X Extended (Journaled) option. If you are going to use them with both a Mac and a Windows computer then format them exFAT.
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David Marx
Oh yea! I only have Windows XP I don’t have a Mac.
Hey! I just got a WD 250GB I was told I needed to format it to Fat32 so i can use it on my car USB. Will this work if i do this? Can you help me in any way…Thanks!
Dear godspeed777,
We are Adobe Photoshop Lightroom experts not car stereo experts. Formatting your new external hard drive using the FAT32 data structure should make it readable with any device but my truck still rocks a tape deck so I have no way to test this out. Best of luck.
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David Marx
I just recently bought a portable hard drive and was successful formatting it from my laptop using Windows XP. Will I be able to use the same portable hard drive with my desktop using Windows Vista? The box that it came with says that the drive must be reformatted for use. Does this mean that I have to reformat it again? Please advise. Or is there another type out there that I can purchase to allow me to use same external hard drive for multiple PC/laptop without reformatting it all the time?
Dear Gee,
If your disk is formatted using the NTFS file structure then it will work fine with any version of Windows. exFAT will also work with XP and Vista but you will need to install this Microsoft update for XP. Personally, I would format the disk NTFS and then start using it with no fear.
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David Marx
UPDATE: I ended up formatting my 1 TB external using exFAT, after updating my XP desktop and laptops (free) from Microsoft. I understand Apple has paid a licensing fee to MS for the rights to use exFAT, and now Mac users can download that functionality for read/write in exFAT. This makes exFAT works cross platforms and prevents Mac users from having to buy another utility to allow them to write to NTFS.
Dear SteveL227,
Good choice and thanks for pointing out the advantages of this new option. Guess I’ll have to rewrite the blog post. The wonderful, and terrible, part of trying to teach about digital photography technology is that everything changes every year. :>
–David Marx
just want to say thanks! i also did a “wipe” from glarys utilities to completely remove everything.
Also, if I format in NTFS or exFAT, and then want to change, other than data loss will I be able to do this?
I was planning on adding the exFAT update anyway from the MS site, just to give myself the formatting flexibility. But what do you think about that FAT32format.exe utility? This seems like something good because it has FAT32 format but without 32GB volume limits and 4GB file size maximums.
I have an XP desktop and ax XP laptop, and a family member has a Macbook. Also, expect to replace the XP laptop with a Win7 laptop. I just bought a 1 TB external (LaCie Quatra) HDD for backups. No data on it yet, but want to use it for my regular desk/laptop backups, plus occasional Macbook backups. Mostly pictures, doc and xls files, music files. Not many movie files, but that could come later.
So which format should I use? NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, a form of FAT32 without the 32GB volume limit (using FAT32format.exe), other? Maybe use NTFS, but add the ability to read/write to NTFS to Macbook? exFAT seems promising, but there must be some compromise. The FAT32format.exe seems like a good route, but am not sure.
Help???
Thanks.
Steve
Dear SteveL227,
You have choices. One choice is to go exFAT and then install the required updates for XP. The updates from Microsoft and Apple. The updates are free and should install easily. The other choice would be to go NTFS and then add MacDrive to the Mac so that it can read and write to the NTFS formatted disk. Option one (exFAT) will cost you less money but may require a bit more setup. Option two (MacDrive) will cost you a little bit more but requires virtually no additional setup time.
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David Marx
I am havin issues with my portable hard drive. All my pics r on there, and its tellin me, 2 format it. If i format it, wont i lose all my pics?
Dear Rebekah,
Stop. Reformatting the drive will wipe it clean! If I were you I would take this drive to someone right away and have them clone all your images onto another disk before reformatting.
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David Marx
Hi David,
I have a new hard drive that I’ve been using to move footage between friends’ Macs. I now want to use the drive on my own PC. I don’t mind losing all the stuff currently stored on the hard drive. Do I need to get Macdrive7, or can I reformat the drive on a friend’s Mac to fat32?
Thanks a million.
Dear Miki,
You could reformat the drive to Fat32 and then it would work with both the Mac and the PC operating systems. That is the simplest solution but there are real advantages to the Windows NTFS file system especially for someone who is working with big video files. To format the drive using the NTFS system you must connect it to a PC and then reformat.
Warning: If you format the disk NTFS then the drive is readable on a Mac but the Mac cannot write to it. For some silly reason Apple only allows their server operating system to read and write from NTFS drives. The MacDrive software overcomes this limitation for folks like you and me who are not running Apple’s server level operating system.
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David Marx
Hey David.
I got an old 120gb laptop drive that I’m now using as an external hard drive. It is currently formatted using NTFS, but I’m looking at using it with both my PC, an Xbox 360, and a Playstation 3. Would it be better to format it using FAT32 instead? What are the limitations of FAT32?
Dear Dave,
Thank you for your reply. What a bad coincidence it was, to have it happen exactly when I have bought a second hard drive to use for back up. I am so frustrated by all of this. So do you think I can go to a computer specialist and see what data they can retrieve from the currently malfunctioning hard drive?
Dear Ndukuyakhe,
You could try and do the data restoration work yourself but it might be easier to seek help from a professional. There is no reason why you can’t do the backup part though assuming they can get the data back for you.
Best of luck,
David Marx
I have an external hard drive, 1 TB WD, which I have been using for a year now. It has been working fine all along. When I tried to use it recently, my PC wants me to format it. I am scarred of doing so as I may lose all my data. I have just bought another 1 TB WD which I want to use as back-up. What can I do to not lose my information?
Dear Ndukuyakhe,
I think that you are in trouble. You really need a backup before the first drive got messed up. Not to scare you but the data that it used to maintain may already be lost. If nothing else, I would use the second drive to make an exact sector-by-sector copy of the first and then see what data recovery software can do to restore the first drive. This could be time-consuming, expensive, and there is no guarantee that the data is retrievable at all. I am not saying that it is hopeless but a backup before things went wrong would have been better. Sorry!
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David Marx
Thanks for the video instructions on formatting an external hard drive
Thanks for all your help. Looking at your video it seems you have partitioned your drive into 2 partitions although I haven’t seen it mentioned yet. Is this what I should be doing while formatting my drive at the beginning? One for photos and one for LR? Thanks!!
Karin
Dear Karin Kelly Burns,
I can’t think of any reason why you would want to use one partition for your catalog and a separate one for your images on the same external hard drive. We want to separate them using folders but I think that making them into separate partitions is overkill.
This article about how I store my images and my Lightroom catalog might help. You might also find this article on Getting Started Right: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Setup and Catalog Creation useful though I suspect that its a little too late!
Best of luck,
David Marx
if you want to cross platform, format the drive to fat32 and both mac os and windows can read and write just fine without any additional programs.
Thanks for the post it helped me get my new os installed.
thanks David, appreciate your answer
Dave, if you’re starting from scratch with this (you will use your PC as much as your Mac and need a networked hard drive to accommodate both computers equally) which formatting system would you recommend?
ie. native Mac formatting with MacDrive running on the PC or native PC formatting with Paragon running on the Mac?
Thanks.
Dear dfmb,
I have to warn you that you cannot store your Lightroom catalog on a network drive. You can store your images on a network disk but not the index. If I were going to do this then I would format the drive for the network servers operating system. Basically, if its a PC server then I would format the drive NTFS but I am not a network expert.
Best of luck on this project,
David Marx
David, thank you for your follow up reply. I have another question. How do you feel about off-site back-up services such as Mozy? In the event of theft or a house fire, this is the one option that I can think of that would protect my files against that sort of thing. Does it work for LR backups?
Dear Slack,
I love the idea of offsite backup services like Mozy, Jungle Disk, and Amazon S3. You can find a great discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of online backup from the ASMP Digital Photography BestFlow project here. The good folks over at X-Equals recently posted this great article on cloud backup that might also interest you.
Online backup is definitely the wave of the future, but unfortunately I don’t have enough bandwidth yet to make uploading thousands of images to my storage site efficient. I currently use JungleDisk to backup precious business documents because these files are small and they don’t change all that often. Some of my best images are being backed up online since I use Photoshelter for my own personal site (http://www.davidmarx.com) but until I get more upload speed the majority of my work is protected locally using multiple external hard drives and cheap DVD disks. As soon as I can get a faster connection though it’s all going online….
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David
Thank you so much for your thorough response, David. Makes perfect sense. One more thing, though, that I should have asked with my other question. Since I’ll be moving my LR backups and original photos to the new LaCie, do I need to be concerned about anything in LR? I assume I’ll get those little question marks in LR, I’ll tell LR where to locate the files and that’s that? This is the part that has me a bit nervous.
Dear Slack,
Good follow up question. The secret to making this easy is to right-click on one of your folder names within the folders panel inside of the Library module.
1. Click on the “Add Parent Folder” button. In my world, this adds the “Photos Go Here” folder that I created as the container for all of my image sub-folders. For you this might add something like “Pictures” or “My Pictures” to the top of the folder hierarchy.
2. Now right-click on the top-level folder (the one that we just added) and then use the “Update folder location” button. When the dialog window pops up browse to this folder on the external drive. If you update the top-level folders location so that the path now leads to the LaCie then Lightroom will automatically update the path for all of your sub-folders. Easy!
In my workshops I often preach that “all of the secrets to success in life are in the right-click!”
-
David
David, I just started following your site as I began researching about making a mirror image backup of my external HD (which holds all of my photo files and LR backups). My current external HD is a 1T WD which I formatted as MS-DOS (FAT32) — at the time I purchased the drive I was working on a PC, then I purchased my iMac and have been able to work off the drive just fine.
Following your recommendation, I purchased a Lacie d2 quadra as my backup — which I formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) — which I believe is the same as HFS+ (is that correct?). Using CCC, I tried sourcing from the WD and I get a message saying that CCC requires that the source and target volumes are formatted as HFS+.
Forgive my lack of experience and fear of anything “technical” but I’m confused about what I should do. Obviously I cannot now reformat my WD drive as I’d lose all my info. — so, how can I get these two drives to work together? Should I save all the data on the WD drive to the desktop, reformat the WD drive and then re-save the data to the WD drive or is there a better way to deal with this? I’d appreciate any advice you can offer. Big thanks in advance.
Dear Slack,
Sorry about the delay. You are right that Carbon Copy Cloner is designed to copy one HFS+ (OS X Extended) drive to another and in your case you can’t just reformat the old disk because it has precious stuff on it! I like your solution of copying from the old FAT-32 disk to the desktop and then onto the new Lacie, but you could just go from old disk to new. Plug both in and then just drag and drop each folder from the old disk onto the new one. Your computer will copy everything from one external to the other without filling up your internal drive. My only other advice is to use the fastest drive connections that you have since this is going to take a while.
Once everything is safely copied over you can reformat the old disk and then use it with Carbon Copy Cloner. Personally, I would probably copy everything to the new Lacie and then use it as my primary storage. I would turn the old Western Digital into the backup and let Carbon Copy Cloner do the rest.
best of luck,
David
Before any format you should have in mind that you have to backup your data in order to keep your important files and keep them in a safe place.
As a addition at this tutorial i must say that you can use for backup a software called http://www.dmailer.com/dmailer-backup.html , is free to use and also it has some cool features and also you will be able to store the database online on their server
[...] video tutorial is all about our initial Lightroom setup. In this movie, I start from square one by formatting a brand new external hard drive and then forcing Lightroom to put my Catalog, the index of my [...]
Hello Kathy E.,
I’m flattered that you follow this site! When your run Bootcamp your computer truly loads Windows and thus NTFS is the format of choice. An OS X formated drive (Mac) is not usable with Bootcamp without additional software.
If you have some reason to use the same drive with your Windows Partition (Bootcamp) and with the Mac Partition then I suggest formatting it NTFS and adding NTFS for OS X.
Hope this helps,
David