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NEW MacBook Air will not write to External Harddrive

Hello


I've just upgraded to a new MacBook Air, from an old MacBook Air. The external hard drive that I used with my old MacBook Air to store all my work allows me to read the files on my new MacBook Air, but not save anything to it. That is, I can drag files off the drive and use them, but cannot save anything TO the external hard drive when plugged into my new MacBook Air.


I tried clicking on the drive on BOTH old & new computer (Get Info) and see if I can change the permissions somehow but nothing is working.


If I can't access and update my work files the new computer is redundant and I have to revert to using the old one, which is dying.


Can anyone suggest a solution? So frustrating that it doesn't just work....


Thank you so much.

Posted on Aug 13, 2020 9:58 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 15, 2020 2:22 AM

Hey!


Mostly, Your External Hard disk is not formatted in the correct file system.

To check that, Connect your external drive, then Press the "COMMAND" key and the "SPACE BAR" at the same time to open spotlight search.

Then in the search box, the in "Disk Utility" and double-click Disk Utility.

Select the external hard drive from the list of drives, under the hard drive name, It will show which File system the drive is formatted in. If it is NTFS ( Or any other which is not supported my MacOS ), then it will not work with your Mac.

You will have to re-format your drive. To do so, follow these steps:


WARNING: You will lose all data if you format your drive. Backup any important information before continuing.


  1. If you have any files you want to save, copy them to another storage device.
  2. Open the Disk Utility app  on your Mac using one of the following methods, depending on the type of disk or volume you want to erase:
    • If you want to erase your startup disk or startup volume: Start up from macOS Recovery, then choose Disk Utility from the macOS Utilities window.
    • If you want to erase any other type of disk or volume: Double-click Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities folder.
  1. Choose View > Show All Devices.
  2. In the sidebar, select the storage device you want to erase, then click the Erase button .
  3. Click the Scheme pop-up menu, then choose GUID Partition Map.
  4. Click the Format pop-up menu, then choose a EXFAT if you want to use it with Windows and Mac or choose MACOS EXTENDED if you want to use it with Mac only.
  5. Enter a name.
  6. Click ERASE.
  7. This will take some time. After it is done, you should be able to write to your external drive.


More help: https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/erase-and-reformat-a-storage-device-dskutl14079/mac

https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/file-system-formats-available-in-disk-utility-dsku19ed921c/19.0/mac/10.15


Hope this helped.


Similar questions

7 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 15, 2020 2:22 AM in response to dorota210

Hey!


Mostly, Your External Hard disk is not formatted in the correct file system.

To check that, Connect your external drive, then Press the "COMMAND" key and the "SPACE BAR" at the same time to open spotlight search.

Then in the search box, the in "Disk Utility" and double-click Disk Utility.

Select the external hard drive from the list of drives, under the hard drive name, It will show which File system the drive is formatted in. If it is NTFS ( Or any other which is not supported my MacOS ), then it will not work with your Mac.

You will have to re-format your drive. To do so, follow these steps:


WARNING: You will lose all data if you format your drive. Backup any important information before continuing.


  1. If you have any files you want to save, copy them to another storage device.
  2. Open the Disk Utility app  on your Mac using one of the following methods, depending on the type of disk or volume you want to erase:
    • If you want to erase your startup disk or startup volume: Start up from macOS Recovery, then choose Disk Utility from the macOS Utilities window.
    • If you want to erase any other type of disk or volume: Double-click Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities folder.
  1. Choose View > Show All Devices.
  2. In the sidebar, select the storage device you want to erase, then click the Erase button .
  3. Click the Scheme pop-up menu, then choose GUID Partition Map.
  4. Click the Format pop-up menu, then choose a EXFAT if you want to use it with Windows and Mac or choose MACOS EXTENDED if you want to use it with Mac only.
  5. Enter a name.
  6. Click ERASE.
  7. This will take some time. After it is done, you should be able to write to your external drive.


More help: https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/erase-and-reformat-a-storage-device-dskutl14079/mac

https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/file-system-formats-available-in-disk-utility-dsku19ed921c/19.0/mac/10.15


Hope this helped.


Aug 16, 2020 6:07 PM in response to dorota210

Are you saying that you only have Windows installed? Any Mac comes with mac OS installed (that is usually why you get a mac so you can use Mac OS). Did you use Bootcamp to install Windows or exactly how did you install it?


And, Mac OS cannot write to NTFS - it can only read.


So you will need to let us know exactly what you have on your new Mac - partitions with Mac OS, Windows or ??


If you have a separate partition for Windows and are booted from that, you should be able to read/write to NTFS as far as I know.


Since this appears to be all about Windows, it may be best to have your question in a Windows forum where people who run MS hang out; please take a look at the link and let us know if you'd like it moved.

That can be done very quickly.


https://discussions.apple.com/community/windows_software

Aug 16, 2020 5:34 PM in response to Vivek_Support

Thank you.


I am on Windows NT Filesystem. It worked with my older MacBook Air and was formatted using my old Mac as they were bought together.

Can I ask, what is MacOS? Do you mean Mac Operating System? I have windows installed for both Mac's (old & new) and all my files are in either Word, Excel or PowerPoint.


It's a little confusing as the older MacBook Air is able to read and write onto the drive, while the newer MacBook Air can only read but not write, although both have windows installed.



Aug 20, 2020 9:20 PM in response to babowa

Thank you so much for the response. As you can see I'm not tech savvy so I appreciate the help.


So, my old Macbook Air uses MAC OS X and my new one is running macOS Catalina.... I'm assuming that means that macOS Catalina does not support the way that the hard drive was 'formatted' when I first bought my old Macbook Air& used it to format the hard drive, because macOS Catalina is a newer operating system - ? Have I understood that correctly?


Thank you again.... I just wish it was easy to buy a new Mac and plug in everything that you used on the previous one and it would all just work....


NEW MacBook Air will not write to External Harddrive

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