I received my Macbook Air today. After setting it up, & so forth, I wanted to make a back-up. Ergo, I attached a Toshiba external hard drive (capacity 2 terabytes) to the MAC. To do so, I use a dongle that switched the Toshiba's regular USB-2 connection to the smaller input on the MAC. That Toshiba HD is presently formatted for Windows. My Mac Air's inputs are USB 4 / Thunderbolt (supposedly backward compatible all the way to USB 2). The MAC app, "Time Machine," never acknowledged the Toshiba HD. Also, Time Machine did not offer to re-format the Toshiba. So -- 1- Is there something I can do to get Time Machine & the Toshiba HD to work together? (My guess: use Mac's Disk Utility app to format the Toshiba to HFS+. Hmmmm......?) 2- If not, is there a moderately priced external HD, with ~2 Terabytes, that WILL be acknowledged by Time Machine? (... such as, maybe THIS one?)
One of my relatives has Macbook Air. She has a Toshiba HD. Don't know the size. Probably 1GB. She uses some kind of a dongle that she bought in the Apple store when she got the computer. I don't know the name, all she can tell me is Model A1632, designed by Apple, made in China. Time Machine recognizes the drive just fine and is doing backups. Edit: Ooops! I just reread your post. You already have some dongle, so I'm of no help. Sorry.
Yes, you should be able to use Disk Utility and just reformat to either APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Those formats should be compatible, see: Types of disks you can use with Time Machine on Mac. If you need a little further help, you may wish to watch this YouTube video: How to Set up Time Machine on an External Hard Drive ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDOvxlaCIQg&feature=youtu.be ). If Disk Utility doesn't recognize the external drive at all and does not display an external drive top-level entry labeled as Toshiba... then you likely have some other incompatibility or low-level issue going on. As far as I know, pretty much all external USB drives should work with the Mac... typically the only real difference is the default formatting of the drive. If the drive doesn't show, you may want to Google the specs and compatibility for the drive to see if there is anything weird going on, or it may be an issue with your specific USB type A-to-C dongle you are using. Apple makes adapters of course, but a company named Satechi makes a lot of different Hubs & Adapters for Macs also.
Yes, for basic file transfer between Mac and Windows... but no for Time Machine. Time Machine: No FAT or exFAT drives, only HFS+ and APFS.
@Alec -- thanks to the nth!!! I'll give it a go later today, after I finish my lesson plan for tomorrow's lectures. @ Anyone & Everyone The new Macbook Air is amazing. Boots up faster than lightning. Superb display -- best I've ever seen. Comes with lots & lots of apps -- apps that I had to buy extra for my Windows laptop. MacOS isn't a steep learning curve so far. It's pretty easy, in fact, and VERY powerful. ==>QUESTIONS for whoever: Now that I've learned how to make my Toshiba Hard Drive (HD) work with Mac, I'm still thinking about buying a new external HD -- as a back-up to my back-up. I have my eye on this LaCie drive. Q1- Are LaCie drives top quality? (I've never heard of them before.) Q2- Is there a HD that you consider will offer more bang for the buck? Q3- Psst -- does anyone know how to pronounce "LaCie" ... and any idea what "LaCie means?
Literally the first line on the Wikipedia page about them: LaCie (pronounced Lah-See, for "The Company")
Hey Bill, Many, many years ago I had several LaCie external HDD's. (Maybe on my W98SE times, I don't remember it exactly). Oh, they did look nice. They worked. But at some time they all did not work anymore. Maybe my fault; maybe others did have other experience; maybe things have been improved. That could all very well be the case. But I learned my lessons. PS: Doesn't this belong in the hardware forum ?
When I started the thread, I was trying to set up my Mac to do backups (the title of this forum) but couldn't do so because Time Machine wouldn't shake hands with my HD. So it was a toss-up between (a) am I not understanding how to configure Time Machine (software problem)?, or (b) do I need to re-format my HD (hardware problem)? As it turns out, item "b" turned out to be the more likely problem. I hope..... ~ Off Topic Remarks Removed ~
