External Hard Recognition, Problems with Mac Usage

Hello, unlike the familiar Windows that I've been using since I was a kid, Mac's operating system is like stepping into a foreign-language, unfamiliar country. So, you can see a lot of people around you who install windows soon after using Mac. However, if you do so, Mac's appearance often feels like a native Seoul person spitting out an awkward Busan dialect.

One of the problems with Mac use is external hard drive problems. In the case of Mac, I would like to buy a product with a large capacity, but I often buy a product with a small capacity due to the high price. That's why we often use external drives or hard drives. But even with an external hard drive connected, Mac's desktop as well as Finder's app is often not exposed. It's often confusing whether you need to buy a new external hard drive or if it's a Mac issue.

 

Windows computers expose external drives that are not compatible with the Mac because they might not be failed, but because they might be formatted as incompatible files. Of course, it could be a cable problem, so you should look at the cable itself to see if there is any problem. One of the most common external hard drives is the power problem.

Older cable USB -A type can be difficult to supply enough power for the external drive. The power provided by the Mac can be relatively low, especially if it is older. Therefore, if you have a USB cable with two ends of the cable, you need to plug both of them in rather than just one, so that the external drive will have the proper power to operate.

 

Mac problems do not occur frequently when connecting external drives, but it is recommended that you set them up in advance just in case. Of course, the Mac has an external drive on it, but it may be turned off. You must first use the Finder app, then click Finder in the menu bar and select Preferences to make sure that your external hard disk is selected as a check box. If a problem occurs when selected, you should look at the following methods:

 

If you can connect in Windows but not in Mac, it's a good idea to format your external hard drive. And if Windows doesn't recognize it, you need to recover the drive. This is because the external hard drive itself is highly likely to be damaged. This can also be fixed by Apple's disk utility.

There is a way to run the Disk Utility app and then search for the disk utility. If you select the external drive on the left side of the app that has a problem with the external drive, and it does not appear here, select the check/recovery icon that you have connected to the Mac, and check for drive errors to fix it immediately.

 

 

If the external hard drive is recognized in Windows but not in Mac, it may not be compatible with the Mac operating system. At this point, you should look at the characteristics of the formet. For NTFS, the Windows PC default file is incompatible with Mac.

Extended MAC OS is a pre-Siera Mac file that is not compatible with Windows PCs. For APFS, the file format initially introduced by the Mac operating system Sira is not compatible with Windows. FAT/FAT32 is an out-of-date format and has a limited file size of up to 4GB. But it's also compatible with Windows PC and Mac and Linux.

If the external drive is detected in Windows but not in Mac, it is highly likely that the format of the external drive is NTFS. Of course, it's easy to change the format, but formatting will delete all the files stored on the drive. So before you format it, you need to move all the files on the external hard drive to Windows PC.

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To prepare for the drive format, connect the external drive to the Mac, delete all, enter the new drive name, and set the new format. If you want to use both PC and Mac here, it's best to choose ExFAT. If you want to use Mac only, you'd better choose Mac expansion, and APFS is only available on fast SSDs. If you want to use the external hard drive safely, you need to remove it safely when you remove it. Some people shut down the USB cable immediately, which is not desirable.