Why can't I copy to my external HD from my iMac?

[NewJeffCT]

I have no problems copying to & from this external HD with a PC. However, I can only open the files that are currently in the external HD on my iMac. I cannot copy any files from my iMac to this external HD. I get a message that says External cannot be modified.

First off, I have plenty of memory left on the external HD (over 70gb) and I can't even copy over a single JPG file to it.

I can open files that are currently on the external HD with my iMac, and I can copy files from the external HD to my iMac... however, the iMac cannot copy to the external HD.

(I was trying to copy the files from my piece of crap iMac to the external HD just so I can have them somewhere besides on the iMac...)

Is it just that it's not completely compatible with the iMac? But, it seems odd that I can open files from External with my iMac and also copy files from External to the iMac.

[ZombieNixon]

1. Your external is probably NTFS formatted.

A Mac, which works on HFS or HFS+, can usually read but not write to NTFS (as opposed to a PC, which can neither read nor write HFS).

[NewJeffCT]

2. i see

so, no way around it then if I want to copy the files to my external & then to the PC so I have them in 3 locations (the 'on its last legs' iMac, the external and the PC)

[NewJeffCT]

3. i see

so, no way around it then if I want to copy the files to my external & then to the PC so I have them in 3 locations (the 'on its last legs' iMac, the external and the PC)

[ZombieNixon]

4. Well, if you have enough space to copy everything from the external

onto the PC, you could reformat the external as Fat32 (use DIsk Utility on the Mac, choose "Free Space" as the formatting choice). That should be readable and writable by both.

[Benfea]

5. This is why most externals come preformatted with FAT32

Curious that this one wasn't.

[ZombieNixon]

6. Well, sometimes when you plug into a computer, it asks to format the disk.

If you choose to do so, it just does it as the same format at the hard disk, which, if done on a PC, is probably NTFS.

[NewJeffCT]

7. no idea

why it wasn't. is it possible that maybe because I saved from a PC several years ago first, that it made it incompatible with FAT32

[Benfea]

9. Saving something won't change the formatting.

You have to actually re-format the drive, which is a fairly lengthy process.

[NewJeffCT]

8. no idea

why it wasn't. is it possible that maybe because I saved from a PC several years ago first, that it made it incompatible with FAT32