Files in external drive not showing in M1

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Ferdinando_ Author

Level 1

13 points

Files in external drive not showing in M1

Hello,

new Mac user here, I bought a MacBook Air M1 (8gb/256) a couple of days ago.

I plugged in my 2 TB SEAGATE external drive today only to find out files are not showing up.

I can see some folders but they seem to be empty when I open them. Also, most of files seem gone.

I know the files are there cause I can see them and access them with a PC and even Disk Utility can tell there's used space in the drive but you just can't see them when connected to the Mac.

I even tried to use the cmd+shift+period to see hidden files but nothing seems to work.

anyone knows what's going on?

Help!

MacBook Air

Posted on Feb 12, 2021 6:48 PM

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Answer 1

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Ferdinando_ Author

Level 1

13 points

Feb 18, 2021 3:38 PM in response to HWTech

I tried to install some app to read NTFS to no avail. I couldn't go through the entire process, it was kind of too technical for me. My last option was to wipe the entire external drive and format it as exFAT with Disk Utility, but somehow in order to do it so, I bought a cable USB C to micro-B 3.1 from Amazon Essentials and that was it. As soon as I plug the cable to both the external drive and my computer, I could access, see and modify all the files I had stored.

worked like a charm without third party apps, no need to wipe the drive. Such a simple solution I didn't actually expect to work.

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Answer 2

HWTech

Level 9

60,494 points

Feb 13, 2021 6:19 PM in response to Ferdinando_

Some USB hard drives are not compatible with an M1 Mac because some drives use a USB controller chip that is not compatible (at least some of the JMicron USB controller chips are known to be incompatible). Some versions of other brands may be incompatible as well. Unfortunately I haven't seen any good articles with explicit details just some forum posts which have mentioned the issue in passing.

Make sure macOS is completely up to date. Also check to see if Seagate has any firmware updates for your external Seagate drive. If macOS is up to date and there are no firmware updates available from Seagate, then you need to contact Seagate for support.

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Answer 3

Ferdinando_ Author

Level 1

13 points

Feb 14, 2021 5:15 AM in response to HWTech

Thank you.

From what I could gather, it's because the format of the external drive.

Apparently the ones I have are in NTFS while Mac only supports other formats.

There's some third party apps that can be helpful with this but so far the easiest way I could think of solving this is backing up my drive and then format it Mac-friendly. which is a hassle cause it's a lot of info I have.

Anyway, I don't know why this isn't a bigger issue discussed elsewhere and hopefully as m1 starts to be the default processor for Mac, updates will come out that fix this.

thanks for taking the time to answer.

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Answer 4

HWTech

Level 9

60,494 points

Feb 14, 2021 4:57 PM in response to Ferdinando_

Actually macOS can read NTFS volumes natively, but cannot natively write to an NTFS volume. It is always best to have macOS manage the external drives by using Disk Utility to erase the external drives as GUID partition and either MacOS Extended (Journaled) for use with just macOS or as exFAT if the drive needs to be shared with a Windows system.

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Files in external drive not showing in M1

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