Using my external hard disk with my Mac Mini

[paulpmp4]

I have a Seagte 300gb external hard disk. I also have a Mac Mini. when I plug the Segate into the Mac via USB it will not recognise. I assume it is because the file systems are different. How do I partition part of this disk to use with the Mac?

[robknowles]

It's not neccessarily because of the file systems, I have a MAC and external hdd and it can see NTFS File Partitions as well as FAT32 etc. I did have a problem with an old external USB HDD because the enclosure wasn't MAC compatible (i.e. the drivers) but any MAC Compatible USB HDD should work.

Rob

[Rozzer]

If you go to the applications folder then utilites then select disk utiltie you can partition it with that.

Ross

[paulpmp4]

I already have loads of files on this drive. If I split the disk will I loose all the data on the first partition? also what fils system should I choose? Oh and thank you for your help!

[GrumbleDook]

I use Boot Camp on my Mac and so I have numerous external drives that are NTFS that I need to read from.

here is a good introduction to NTFS on the Mac.

I am slowly moving these drives over to HFS+ though because I picked up a family copy of MacDrive 7 (3 licences ... one for the MacBook Pro, one for my Mac Mini and one for my wife's Mac Mini).

I have used MacDrive for a few years now and it has been a life saver on many occasions.

NTFS For Mac OS X is another option I have heard people use ... I have not touched it and would suggest you carefully read the discussions about it on sourceforge first.