Trying to backup my hard drive from my macbook and its not recognizing the maxtor hard drive on my mac?

Frank

• 175 Answers
• Posted on Nov 12, 2007

SOURCE: Transferring Files to Maxtor backup drive

Find your MAXTOR model and you can download guides (basically, the manual and it will show you step by step instructions).
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=Installation_Assistance&vgnextoid=dce3b27d0434e010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

Tim Babcock

• 2794 Answers
• Posted on Jun 10, 2008

SOURCE: Maxtor External Hard drive not compatible with Mac

I would check Maxtors website to see if there is compatibility issue using that particular drive on a Mac.

SOURCE: Installing Maxtor onto mac osx

I found the solution here: http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=SATA_Troubleshooter_-_Mac_OS_X_Installation_Basics&vgnextoid=a0a44a3cdde5c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD#storage

but short version of it all:
Basically you just need to format the drive to get it working. Open up disk utility. Selecting the maxtor drive on the left in disk utility. Then select the erase tab. Then change MS-DOS (FAT) to Mac OS Extended. Finish by clicking erase.

Mine didn't work at first even though I plugged it in but after I did that it worked. Hope you can get yours working too!

SOURCE: Maxtor 3200 backup drive not recognized in my computer to access

http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=PersonalStorage&message.id=510

Re: whishels
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eltigre
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Posts: 1
Registered: 09-09-2008

eltigre

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My Maxtor 3200 died also. I took the following steps to get it running again.
(1) Remove plastic box from around unit. Carefully stick a screwdrive in the case division and pry it apart. It is not easy, but do will finally come apart.
(2) inside you will find a perforated metal box. There are two screw on each side of the box. Remove and separate the two halves.
(3) there you will discover that inside is just an ordinary Maxtor hard drive like you would buy in the electronics store. Attached to the HD is a PC board. There are 3 screws holding the PC board down. Remove the screws and carefully remove the HD and PC board.
(4) unplug the powere plug and the IDE interface from the HD. Now you have a HD that you can install in your own case (as long as you have a desktop unit and not a laptop).
(5) I installed the HD in an empty slot, connected the IDE cable that was already there (between the CD and IDE interface), plugged in the power plug, fired 'er up, and voila, works like a champ.

I suspect that the problem is in the interface (PC board), since the only thing I did was remove that from the equation. Hope this helps

Kudos! Thanks!
09-09-2008 09:36 AM

SOURCE: Maxtor Basics portable 320gb Mac to pc compatability problems

Hi Tys,

I had a similar issue with my Maxtor Basics portable 500GB drive. I hadn't formatted mine yet, but had heard there were issues, so decided to find out before I start. I even saw your post here looking for an answer. Finally, one of my friends told me the following solution, which worked fine for me:

Don't format the drive as any of the Mac OS Extended options, simply reformat it as MS-DOS (it should be one of the options in Disk Utilities when you choose Erase and go to the Volume Format dropdown list).

Your Mac should be able to recognise and use the drive in this format and it works for PCs. Transferring files between the two shouldn't be a problem.

A thing to note, though, is that these Maxtor drives apparently come ready-formatted as MS-DOS (mine did). But while my Mac recognised the drive, I couldn't copy files on to it. If this happens, erase this MS-DOS formatting with... MS-DOS. Don't ask me why this works, I'm not a Mac Genius, but now my Maxtor is trouble-free and can transfer files from PC to Mac and back again.

Hope this works out for ya!

K