Feb 7, 2011 - I bought the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 2T few months ago. [*]To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X, here are some alternatives. I had used my Seagate GoFlex drive on a Mac machine and decided I would use it on my Windows Vista machine. Windows didn't recognize Mac's Disk Format since it wasn't FAT or FAT32. To get it to be read as a drive letter, I had to go to Windows Disk Management.

• Seagate Freeagent Goflex Usb 3.0

I have purchased two 2TB Seagate goflex drives to move my music collection to, and have room to grow. I see that the drives come formatted NTFS and include the mac drivers from paragon. Is this a good way to go? I don't use windows currently, but some of my friends and family do, and I might want to share occassionally, as I plan to hook them up to PogoPlug in the future.

If reformatting the drives, what is the recommended mac format to use? I see four different choices in the option box in the disc utility. Oddly enough, I went through this exact same thing in December. My cheapo external drive died so I replaced it with a Goflex as the cost was right. The 'supplied driver for Mac' put me off a bit, but the gentleman at Best Buy assured me I could reformat it and that they would accept a return if he was wrong. Anyhow, just power it up and then connect it to your Mac. Open Disk Utility and select the Goflex on the left side pane.

Then to the right side along the top you will see tabs for First Aid/Erase/RAID/Restore. Select Erase and then choose the 'Format' drop down option that says 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)'. You can rename the drive to something meaningful to you in the space below the drop down. Then just hit the 'Erase' button and you are good to go. No driver is needed! Thanks for your help! I had gotten to that point, but wasn't sure whether to go with extended or the extended journaled.

This drive is just for music. Is journaling necessary? Does it slow the drive down? What about taking up more room on the drive?Extended it the current 'Standard' for Mac OS X. It may or may not run faster, but certainly doesn't run more slowly than without journaling.

It's designed to prevent corruption and make things a bit more fault tolerant. It basically keeps a 'journal' of what's going on which can help fix problems if they occur. One last thing-when I place a question, how is the best way to find responses to it? I had to go through each question until I found mine.anyway, thanks for your help.If you go to your User Control Panel on the left side and look at the options, a little way down is 'Settings and Option' and within that 'Edit Options'. Clicking that opens a settings page and the second section from the top called 'Messaging & Notifications' has a portion labeled 'Default Thread Subscription Mode'. You can choose to to have it automatically subscribe to a thread you start or post in and how you wish it to notify you of new replies. On the left side, make sure you have the top-most icon for the external disc selected ie: there should be a drive icon, and immediately underneath it there should be another icon for that drive that is slightly indented.

When you select the top most of the pair of icons you will have 5 options along the top of the Disk Utility window: First Aid/Erase/Partition/RAID/Restore When you select the bottom of the pair of icons you will have only 4 options: First Aid/Erase/RAID/Restore Toggle between the two icons for your external disk and you will notice the the options along the top changing. I just went through all this with this same disk with Seagate's Tech Support a few minutes ago.

He had me choose 2 partitions first, then go back and choose 1 partition. He also recommended OSX Journaled.

I'm not sure I'm going to keep this disk. I don't like the fact that the files can only be read by Mac. NOT that I expect to switch back to windows, but what good are backed up files if they can't be seen by Windows (JIC)?!?

I have also read some reviews that say that the files can't even be dragged from Seagate onto desktop. And you can forget sharing, according to them, because it works only with one computer.

Am I wrong about any of this? Is there a better externall HDD out there??????? Eta: the Tech Support guy first had me choose 2 partitions 'GIUD format', then immediately choose 1 partition 'Apple format'. I don't know why, just thought I'd mention it.

I'm a bit late to the discussion but. Formatting as HFS doesn't really address sharing with Windows users does it? Why not use the Paragon driver and format to NTFS? If you just want to use them purely for Mac then you can use the setup dmg that came on the drive (or off the seagate website) to format the drive as HFS. As far as alternative drives go. You could have gone for the Seagate GoFlex for mac range (which has firewire 800 aswell as USB) but personally I prefer to buy hard disk enclosures and bare hard drives to go in them.

That way you don't have to fight with all the bespoke software the HDD manufacturers seem to thing people want but most often don't. WE have got one of these GoFlex Home drives at work. I cannot reformat the thing since no matter what I attach it to (with the USB cable), it isn't recorgnised. I have tries Mac OS 10.6, Windows XP SP2 and Windows 7, none of them can see the drive. It shows up when connected to the router, but no Macs can write to it, and the Paragon drivers are a no go since they will not install unless the drive is attached. I am not asking for a solution, just saying I have had no luck with this drive and me and the boss are now ready to take it back, since quite frankly - it's eaten up enough of our time already.

PS - have tried another cable - but no go.

Hi Swdal, This issue might occur if drivers for mac have got installed. Method 1: I would suggest you to run Hardware and devices troubleshooter and see if that helps. Press Windows Key +R, type Control Panel. Type troubleshooting in the search bar, click on troubleshooting. Click on Hardware and Sound, click on Hardware and Devices. Follow the steps from the wizard to run the troubleshooter. Method 2: I would suggest you to update the drivers for the external drive from device manager and see if it shows in device manager.

A) Press “Windows Logo” + “X” keys on the keyboard. B) Click on “Device Manager”. C) Search for the device that you would like to remove from the computer. D) Right click on it and select “Uninstall”.

E) Follow the on-screen instructions and restart the computer, if prompted. Method 3: I would suggest you to assign drive letter. Open Computer Management by pressing Windows + R, and typing Control Panel in Run prompt, clicking System and Security, clicking Administrative Tools, and then double-clicking Computer Management. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. In the left pane, click Disk Management.

Right-click the drive that you want to change, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths. Do one of the following:. To assign a drive letter if one has not already been assigned, click Add, click the letter that you want to use, and then click OK. To change a drive letter, click Change, click Assign the following drive letter, click the letter that you want to use, and then click OK.

To remove a drive letter, click Remove, and then click Yes to confirm that you want to remove it. Notes. Some programs make references to specific drive letters. If you change a drive letter, these programs might not work correctly. If you get an error, the drive you are trying to change might be in use.

Close any program or window that is using the drive and try again. Do get back and let us know the status of the issue, I will be glad to help you further. We, at Microsoft strive towards excellence.

Vijay, None of these things worked for me. If it helps, here's the instructions I followed on my Mac before I started running into problems: You have to 'partition the hard drive.' Click 'GO' in the menu bar, then 'Utilities', then double click on 'Disk Utility', select the 'Seagate' icon at the left (it doesn't matter which one), select 'erase' top right, and under 'Volume Format', select 'Mac OS Extended.' Then click 'Erase.'

After doing this I could put files from the Mac onto my Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex, but then the drive would not show up on my PC. If there's a way to undo this I would like to. I'd rather have the external hard drive work on my PC than on the Mac. Hi, It appears that you have formatted your external hard drive in Mac OS Extended format, which is not supported in Windows. Windows operating systems will support FAT 32, NTFS file format. I would suggest you to follow these steps.

Connect the external hard drive to your Mac and copy the important data to the Mac PC. Now connect the external hard drive to Windows 8 computer and format it in FAT32 file system.

Seagate Freeagent Goflex Usb 3.0

C. Now you would be able to use the external hard disk on both the computers. Also refer to this link: Drives, partitions, formatting w/Mac's + PC's Hope the above information is useful.