# Quick MAC question,  not relavent to LR



## lyzha81 (Feb 21, 2013)

I just bought a MAC a week ago, and I am starting to get used to it, and love it... well parts of it.. lol
But I am so used to windows, that I get so mad at the littlest things that I can not do like before.

When I edit my pictures from LR, I put them in a folder on my desktop.... then when I am all done with them, I transfer them to my external harddrive....
Well, I cant do that anymore????
I have a file folder on my desktop with the most recent edited picture shoot, I want to transfer the whole folder to my external harddrive that is plugged in, and it wont let me.
It gives the circle with the line through it.
Anyone know what I can do to solve this?


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## clee01l (Feb 21, 2013)

Most likely your EHD is formatted using the NTFS secure filesystem common to modern WIndows Operating systems. While OSX can read to this fil system, it can't natively write to the filesystem. OSX can read and write to it own file system (HFS+) and to the system used originally with DOS (FAT or exFAT)  ExFAT can be used by both OSX and Windows.  The other file systems are not so commonly manage by foreign OS.


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## lyzha81 (Feb 21, 2013)

Ok, please use Terms that I can understand.  Being a new MAC user, I have no idea what you are talking about....


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## clee01l (Feb 21, 2013)

When you format a HD in Windows you have two choices of File System to use,  The default is one called NTFS. This has built in security access controlled by Windows XP, Vista Win7 or Win8. You need authorization from the Windows operating system to be able to read or write to the HD,  The EHD is "owned" by the computer that formatted it.  Thumb drives and SD cards use a different file system that does not have security built in. Any computer can read and write to the drive. This was first developed for DOS. It is called FAT (File AllocationTables).  Later this file system was extended to handle larger capacity HDs and the latest iteration is called exFAT. 

OSX uses a different filesystem and secure read and write user access is permitted by the computer running OSX. The name for this filesystem is HFS+.  Your Mac controls who has access to read and write to the drives owned by OSX.  OSX has a built in capability to read and write to the unsecure exFAT drives that might  be attached to it. OSX can read but not write to drives that use the NTFS file system.  OSX can read and write to HDs formatted as exFAT since no security is necessary or available. 

Your EHD is probably a hold over from your Windows PC. If so you probably fomatted it using the default filesystem NTFS. If you had formatted it using exFAT, your OSX would be able to write to it. 

If I have correctly guessed the source of your problem, you may want to take advantage of one of the solutions that I offer below.

There are third parties that offer (for a price) software that sits between your Operating system (OSX) and the NTFS formatted HD.
Installing this will allow your OSX computer to write to the NTFS HD.
This adds a layer of complexity and some overhead to the OSX setup that you now run.
I would only recommend this option if you need the NTFS drive in a Windows system _and_ need the Windows security for the drive.

You can reformat the EHD as exFAT
*Unless you copy the data to another drive first, you will lose all existing data during format*
This will allow you to read and write to the drive from OSX or Windows so that the drive can be used on different Operating Systems.

You can reformat the EHD as HFS+
*Unless you copy the data to another drive first, you will lose all existing data during format*
This will allow you complete secure access to the EHD using OSX exclusively.

I recommend either of the last two options.


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## DianeK (May 15, 2013)

Cletus, I was just perusing some older posts and read this.  I have to say that was an excellent explanation of hard drive formatting.  It's a shame you never got a thank you for your efforts so I'll give you a thanks-by-proxy.
Diane


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## Tony Jay (May 15, 2013)

DianeK said:


> Cletus, I was just perusing some older posts and read this.  I have to say that was an excellent explanation of hard drive formatting.  It's a shame you never got a thank you for your efforts so I'll give you a thanks-by-proxy.
> Diane


We should give Cletus a round of applause anyway!

Tony Jay


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## ST-EOS (May 15, 2013)

Tony Jay said:


> We should give Cletus a round of applause anyway!
> 
> Tony Jay



I'll start the round then


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