Access HDD with NTFS Partition and TimeCapsule

By acido00
in Apple (macOS)

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acido00

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Hello friends,

 

I'm having an issue trying to access my external HDD that I connected to my Time Capsule.

 

Basically, what I want is to have my extra external HDD of 1TB to be accessible via Finder, so I can manage the files manually.

 

This is my setup:

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks.

TimeCapsule 2TB currently used for Time Machine

Extra External HDD 1TB (the one I want to use to store manually my personal data)

 

Note: the HDD is NTSF format, I know Time Capsule supports FAT32 and other format of Mac. HOWEVER I have files that are around 8GB size or so on, that I need to backup and FAT32 does not support that file size sadly. I also have some Virtual Machines I want to manually backup, but FAT32 file size is a problem.

 

Any solution or ideas for this?

 

 

Thanks in advance

Grand Master

Nick H. Supervisor

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From the sounds of it the issue is that your mac isn't reading the NTFS drive? The odd thing is that it should support reading of an NTFS partition without an issue, normally writing is the problem. For that you can look for NTFS-3G which should resolve the problem.

I've just looked at my Time Capsule partition and it's formatted to HFS+? I don't think that has the same restrictions as FAT32...

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acido00

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Well, my external HDD is connected via USB to the Time Capsule. Not directly connected to the Mac. Basically I want to be able to access my HDD wireless.

 

Note: when I connect my HDD directly to the macbook pro, no issues at all, I can navigate into the folders and files without issues.

 

Probably this helps to clarify my issue.

Grand Master

Nick H. Supervisor

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  • Supervisor
Posted

Oh wait, are you talking about the Airport Time Capsule, rather than just using any HDD to save your Time Capsule data?

Hmm, I've not used the Airport Time Capsule before, although I do see that it mentions that you should be able to share a HDD through it. That doesn't explain why it can't read the drive though, seeing as - as I mentioned earlier - Mac should be able to read NTFS without an issue.

I'll have a look around and see if I can find something.

EDIT: Found it, although you're not going to like the answer, I'm afraid. According to this you can only browse an External HDD connect to your Time Capsule if it is formatted in Mac's Extended Journal file system.

Grand Master

Nick H. Supervisor

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Interesting that you mention that, as over the past few days I've been strugging with file systems. I own a Mac, I'm currently using Linux, and everyone I know normally uses Windows. Because of that I've been trying to find a file system that everything would recognise. The only real solution is either NTFS or UDF (and UDF is a pain for me to deal with at the second, but that's another matter.)

However, for your particular situation neither file system will work. You'll have to switch it to Mac Extended if you want to connect to it through Time Capsule.

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acido00

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  On 12/08/2014 at 19:10, Nick H. said:

Interesting that you mention that, as over the past few days I've been strugging with file systems. I own a Mac, I'm currently using Linux, and everyone I know normally uses Windows. Because of that I've been trying to find a file system that everything would recognise. The only real solution is either NTFS or UDF (and UDF is a pain for me to deal with at the second, but that's another matter.)

However, for your particular situation neither file system will work. You'll have to switch it to Mac Extended if you want to connect to it through Time Capsule.

 

Yeah. Seems like there is no other way sadly.

 

I'll try to research in the dark world so see if I can find a hint or something.

 

Thanks for the help.

Grand Master

PGHammer

Posted
Posted
  On 12/08/2014 at 18:56, Nick H. said:

Oh wait, are you talking about the Airport Time Capsule, rather than just using any HDD to save your Time Capsule data?

Hmm, I've not used the Airport Time Capsule before, although I do see that it mentions that you should be able to share a HDD through it. That doesn't explain why it can't read the drive though, seeing as - as I mentioned earlier - Mac should be able to read NTFS without an issue.

I'll have a look around and see if I can find something.

EDIT: Found it, although you're not going to like the answer, I'm afraid. According to this you can only browse an External HDD connect to your Time Capsule if it is formatted in Mac's Extended Journal file system.

Then that is a HARDWARE restriction of the Airport itself - I have a Netgear WNDR3700v4 with a USB port, and I can access any USB drive connected to it, as long as it is in a format that OS X recognizes, and yes, that includes NTFS.

 

While I can't WRITE to an NTFS partition without a third-party utility (such as Paragon NTFS), that's fine - that means I can download files in Windows, and use them on OS X - without having to worry about cross-OS file corruption.

 

I'm more concerned about another issue that could cause conniptions - using a MyBook as a backup destination for both OSes, with a single drive split into two partitions - one NTFS for Windows and one HFS+ for OS X.

 

Since the MyBook won't be a boot drive, can this work?

Grand Master

#Michael

Posted
Posted
  On 12/08/2014 at 19:10, Nick H. said:

Interesting that you mention that, as over the past few days I've been strugging with file systems. I own a Mac, I'm currently using Linux, and everyone I know normally uses Windows. Because of that I've been trying to find a file system that everything would recognise. The only real solution is either NTFS or UDF (and UDF is a pain for me to deal with at the second, but that's another matter.)

However, for your particular situation neither file system will work. You'll have to switch it to Mac Extended if you want to connect to it through Time Capsule.

 

The best solution is exFat.  Windows, Mac, and Linux all can write and right to that file format.

Grand Master

Nick H. Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
Posted
  On 12/08/2014 at 20:07, PGHammer said:

I'm more concerned about another issue that could cause conniptions - using a MyBook as a backup destination for both OSes, with a single drive split into two partitions - one NTFS for Windows and one HFS+ for OS X.

 

Since the MyBook won't be a boot drive, can this work?

I can only comment on what I have tried in the past. I had a 3TB External HDD split in to two partitions: One is HFS+ (for Time Capsule) and the other was in ExFat. Time Capsule had no problem backing up to the HFS+ partition, and Mac had no problem reading ExFat.

So yes, you should be able to do that without a problem. (Y)

 

 

  On 12/08/2014 at 20:08, #Michael said:

The best solution is exFat.  Windows, Mac, and Linux all can write and right to that file format.

I agree, and as I mentioned in my reply to PGHammer I had an External HDD formatted in ExFat which worked between Windows and Mac without an issue. Once I started using Linux though, something went screwy with the permissions and Linux no longer allowed me to write to the ExFat partition. A few guys on Neowin and myself tried various things for a majority of the day before I gave up.

I've now formatted the ExFat patition to NTFS, that seems to have the least problems across all the systems. But again, that is my problem that I'm facing, not the problem of this discussion. ;)

Grand Master

Nick H. Supervisor

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Posted
  On 12/08/2014 at 20:50, acido00 said:

exFat supports larger file sizes? and if you say that it is supported in windows and Mac and Linux, then that is perfect.

 

Can I format it then using Disk Utility?

Well hang on, read what I wrote again. Yes, all three OS's are supposed to be able to read and write ExFat (using FUSE, I think) but I did have problems when it came to Linux. We still aren't sure exactly what caused it, but it may have been to do with disconnecting the drive without properly ejecting it. Who knows, It's not my problem anymore. :p

ExFat supports larger file sizes, yes. But again, in your situation you'll be better off sticking with NTFS (at least, in my opinion.) It won't fix your problem with the Airport Time Capsule, but neither will changing the filesystem to ExFat.

Airport Time Capsule will only read the Mac Extended Journaled file system. There doesn't seem to be two ways about it, I'm afraid.

Mentor

acido00

Posted
  • Author
Posted
  On 12/08/2014 at 20:54, Nick H. said:

Well hang on, read what I wrote again. Yes, all three OS's are supposed to be able to read and write ExFat (using FUSE, I think) but I did have problems when it came to Linux. We still aren't sure exactly what caused it, but it may have been to do with disconnecting the drive without properly ejecting it. Who knows, It's not my problem anymore. :p

ExFat supports larger file sizes, yes. But again, in your situation you'll be better off sticking with NTFS (at least, in my opinion.) It won't fix your problem with the Airport Time Capsule, but neither will changing the filesystem to ExFat.

Airport Time Capsule will only read the Mac Extended Journaled file system. There doesn't seem to be two ways about it, I'm afraid.

 

oh! I misunderstood then. OK, I'll follow your suggestion then.

 

Thanks.

Grand Master

Sikh

Posted
Posted

exFAT is totally stable between OS X, Win and Linux. I use many drives for cross platform talk. For time machine you will need to use HFS+ but for everything else you can use exFAT. OS X writes natively to exFAT and the stupid 4GB File limit is gone and it can handle up to 16T file sizes now.

Grand Master

Nick H. Supervisor

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Posted
  On 12/08/2014 at 21:08, Sikh said:

exFAT is totally stable between OS X, Win and Linux. I use many drives for cross platform talk. For time machine you will need to use HFS+ but for everything else you can use exFAT. OS X writes natively to exFAT and the stupid 4GB File limit is gone and it can handle up to 16T file sizes now.

Again, I would have agreed before I moved to Linux. However, Linux will need a third party driver to read-write ExFat. OS X was the same until 10.6.5. (source)

And again, ExFat was working fine for me on Linux until...well, until it didn't. It didn't have a problem reading the drive, just writing to it. But again, that could have been something that I did wrong, and isn't the topic of the conversation. ;)

Maybe I'll start a discussion about file systems. There are lots of variations out there, each with their own pros and cons. For this thread though, acido00 is best of leaving his drive with the NTFS file system as far as I can see.

Grand Master

Sikh

Posted
Posted
  On 12/08/2014 at 21:24, Nick H. said:

Again, I would have agreed before I moved to Linux. However, Linux will need a third party driver to read-write ExFat. OS X was the same until 10.6.5. (source)

And again, ExFat was working fine for me on Linux until...well, until it didn't. It didn't have a problem reading the drive, just writing to it. But again, that could have been something that I did wrong, and isn't the topic of the conversation. ;)

Maybe I'll start a discussion about file systems. There are lots of variations out there, each with their own pros and cons. For this thread though, acido00 is best of leaving his drive with the NTFS file system as far as I can see.

 

You should definitely start a conversation on file systems. All the linux builds ive used based off debian or arch and read exFat fine. We have ubuntu and centOS servers at work and they all read and wrtie to exFAT drives fine. I dont know many Snow Leopard which is why its not a thought in my mind when I mention exFAT is supported.

 

im looking for to this file system dicussion thread!

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acido00

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I think, I have an idea. Is it possible to create a partition probably of 1GB using (exFat or Fat32) and then the rest using the MAC OSX Format (HFS+)? this way when I connect it to my Airport Time Capsule it can be detected and I can write on it wireless

 

Any tutorial or guide?

 

I think if I can make it that way, I can put on the 1GB partition software like "MacDrive" or any other free that will allow me to read on Windows the HFS+ format, so basically I can install it on windows when needed and I can access the information.

 

What do you think?

Grand Master

+BudMan MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

Ok maybe I am missing something - why are you using ntfs, you don't list any windows machines - did I miss that?

Why don't you just format the disk in your mac book pro with apple filesystem, quite sure that supports large file sizes. Even really old 10.0 to 10.1 supports 2TB, etc.

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acido00

Posted
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Posted
  On 14/08/2014 at 14:41, BudMan said:

Ok maybe I am missing something - why are you using ntfs, you don't list any windows machines - did I miss that?

Why don't you just format the disk in your mac book pro with apple filesystem, quite sure that supports large file sizes. Even really old 10.0 to 10.1 supports 2TB, etc.

 

yes, it should wrok on windows machines.

Grand Master

Nick H. Supervisor

Posted
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Posted
  On 14/08/2014 at 12:47, acido00 said:

I think, I have an idea. Is it possible to create a partition probably of 1GB using (exFat or Fat32) and then the rest using the MAC OSX Format (HFS+)? this way when I connect it to my Airport Time Capsule it can be detected and I can write on it wireless

 

Any tutorial or guide?

 

I think if I can make it that way, I can put on the 1GB partition software like "MacDrive" or any other free that will allow me to read on Windows the HFS+ format, so basically I can install it on windows when needed and I can access the information.

 

What do you think?

So your Fat32 drive would have the installion file for Macdrive which you could then use on any machine to make the machine read an HFS+ partition, while the rest of the drive would be formatted in HFS+, allowing you to access those files through Time Capsule?

I can't see a problem with it in theory, although if you choose to do that you will have to have administrator rights on any machine that you wanted to connect your HDD to, in order to install the software.

As for a guide, what are you looking for? Any partition tool (GParted, for example) should be able to partition the drive for you and format each partition without an issue. Remember that it will format the drive though, so backup your data first!

Mentor

acido00

Posted
  • Author
Posted
  On 14/08/2014 at 16:56, Nick H. said:

So your Fat32 drive would have the installion file for Macdrive which you could then use on any machine to make the machine read an HFS+ partition, while the rest of the drive would be formatted in HFS+, allowing you to access those files through Time Capsule?

I can't see a problem with it in theory, although if you choose to do that you will have to have administrator rights on any machine that you wanted to connect your HDD to, in order to install the software.

As for a guide, what are you looking for? Any partition tool (GParted, for example) should be able to partition the drive for you and format each partition without an issue. Remember that it will format the drive though, so backup your data first!

 

Exactly what you just said is my idea. For admin permissions that is not a problem, wherever I will use my personal external HDD I will have the right permissions.

 

GParted sounds cool. I was also about to give it a try using Disk Utility to perform the partition following this guide: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20110422113851848

 

It should works as I think.

 

I'm backup up my external HDD, to give it a try and if it works, I'll let you know here on this post.

 

Thanks

Veteran

protocol7

Posted
Posted

If you just want read-only HFS+ access in Windows you can install the HFS+ drivers from Apple's BootCamp package. I use them here to have read-only access to my hackintosh partition.

 

There's an installer here. Basically it just copies the two driver files and sets up the registry. Reboot and your HFS drives should be visible.

Grand Master

+BudMan MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

Why should it work on windows - you didn't list any windows machines?

doesn't hfs explorer work? http://www.catacombae.org/hfsx.html

There are for sure ways to read and write hfs in windows machines. Why do you just buy another external if you need one for windows - and copy your files over the network to this disk be it ntfs or exfat, etc.

If this devices is going to be connect to your timecap -- then why would you use it for anything else?

Grand Master

Nick H. Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
Posted
  On 14/08/2014 at 19:56, BudMan said:

Why should it work on windows - you didn't list any windows machines?

Because he might want to unplug it, take it somewhere and plug it in to a Windows machine? The same reason I was looking in to UDF a while back.

  Quote

If this devices is going to be connect to your timecap -- then why would you use it for anything else?

Because the HDD isn't being used by Time Capsule as a backup. It's being used to hold files and folders that he would like to access wirelessly. The drive isn't a wireless drive, but he can connect it up to Time Capsule which would make it wireless.
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