New mac corrupting external hard drives and USBs

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Level 1

11 points

New mac corrupting external hard drives and USBs

Hi,

So last week I finally got my brand new mac mini M2! However, I've had quite a few issues with external hard drives and usbs with it since.

The first issue occured on Friday where I had my external hard drive plugged in, it was working perfectly then it just ejected itself and would not show up anymore. I tried it across my macbook air, my old windows and PC and my mum's windows PC and it just wouldn't show up. Being less than a year old, I took it back as it must have been faulty and got a new hard drive. It showed up fine on my mac and I formatted it on my mac so it could go between mac and windows without issue. Backed up my windows pc (again) and when I plugged it back into my mac, it would not mount, no idea why, the formatting hadn't changed. I thought reformatting it would sort the issue but nothing seemed to get it to mount again. Gave up with this hard drive and returned it.

The problem has then come that I've transferred some files to my usb (that works across both mac and windows) from my new mac and then the files are showing up as corrupt on my mum's windows PC. Tried with her external (pre-formatted with exfat), it ran fine on my mac but then started showing up with errors on her windows PC.

What is going on, why is this happening? I'm now worried that something is very wrong with my mac and has corrupted my mum's external hard drive which is only a couple of months old.

Mac mini (M2, 2023)

Posted on Aug 8, 2023 3:48 AM

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Answer 1

catiekitty94 Author

Level 1

11 points

Aug 8, 2023 5:10 AM in response to Owl-53

All drives and files worked fine on the macbook air (m2) across windows 10 and windows 11 pcs. The issues have only begun after the drives have been introduced to the mac m2 mini which is on ventura 13.5.

I'm wondering if there is an error in my mac installation causing this issue.

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Answer 2

catiekitty94 Author

Level 1

11 points

Aug 8, 2023 5:06 AM in response to Barney-15E

All drives have been formatted with exfat.

The files that I have moved are music, videos, documents, nothing windows or mac specific. I did not have this issue when migrating my windows laptop to my macbook air.

The issue is any drive being plugged into the mac mini is then coming up with errors, either not mounting to the mac after being plugged into a windows pc or windows saying the drive has errors.

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Answer 3

Owl-53

Level 10

100,735 points

Aug 8, 2023 4:19 AM in response to catiekitty94

Moving a drive between macOS and MS Windows computers can be done.

It will require the drive be formatted in a way that Both MS Windows and macOS can use and understand

For better results, if is suggest to re-format the Entire Drive on the Apple Computer

refer to below link

1 - Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support (CA)

2 - File system formats available in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support (CA)

You may require formatting using the FAT / MBR format first

Then, reformatted to the exFat

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Answer 4

catiekitty94 Author

Level 1

11 points

Aug 8, 2023 4:58 AM in response to Owl-53

As mentioned in my post above, 3 out of the 4 drives have been used between my macbook air and windows pc previously with no issues. The errors only came up after being plugged into my new mac mini.

The other drive was formatted using the mac mini before transferring my files from the windows pc, however, upon plugging it back into the mac mini, it would not mount.

This is an issue being caused by my mac mini as I have had no issues with my macbook air.

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Answer 5

Barney-15E

Level 10

121,418 points

Aug 8, 2023 5:04 AM in response to catiekitty94

Are you running software on Windows or on Mac that allows use of the other’s file system. macOS can read, but not write to NTFS.

Windows can’t even read a macOS file system.

Which file system are you using on the drives? If you are using ExFAT, format it on Windows, not macOS.

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Answer 6

Owl-53

Level 10

100,735 points

Aug 8, 2023 5:06 AM in response to catiekitty94

I have four different Apple Computers including a M1 Mac Mini and 2 M2 Apple Computers

3 of 4 running Ventura 13.5 and the last running macOS 10.13.6 High Sierra

I have 4 different External Drives all formatted as per previous suggestion

My wife has a MS Windows PC running MS Windows 10

I can copy files from any of the Apple Computers to any of the 4 different External Drives

The files can be opened on the MS Windows computer

I can move those very same drives back to any of the 4 Apple Computers

No issue what so ever

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Answer 7

Owl-53

Level 10

100,735 points

Aug 8, 2023 5:16 AM in response to catiekitty94

catiekitty94 wrote:

All drives and files worked fine on the macbook air (m2) across windows 10 and windows 11 pcs. The issues have only begun after the drives have been introduced to the mac m2 mini which is on ventura 13.5.

I'm wondering if there is an error in my mac installation causing this issue.

How can you arrive at that conclusion ?

Care to elaborate

The M2 Mac Mini was introduced in Jan 2023 so probably can pre-installed with Ventura

EDITED

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Answer 8

Barney-15E

Level 10

121,418 points

Aug 8, 2023 5:39 AM in response to catiekitty94

Format the drives on windows and try it like that. I wouldn’t trust any of the FAT formats created on macOS if you’re going to introduce them to a Windows PC. It’s not a native format, and windows may not like how the Mac formats it.

I have a M2 MacBook Pro but I don’t have a Windows computer to test it on.

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Answer 9

catiekitty94 Author

Level 1

11 points

Aug 8, 2023 5:39 AM in response to Owl-53

It came with Ventura 13.5 and I have made no modifications at all and there has been no update since.

I know on windows updates or an iffy install could cause issues. I haven't been using mac long enough (since august 2022) to come across any errors until now.

If there is any other explanation, I am open ears. I just want to feel confident that I can use an external hard drive or usb without having to reformat constantly or have errors all the time.

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Answer 10

Owl-53

Level 10

100,735 points

Aug 8, 2023 7:02 AM in response to catiekitty94

Moving forwards - try the suggestion from @Barney15-E and format on the MS Windows computer

If it works for both macOS and MS Windows - great.

If not, post back in a reply

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New mac corrupting external hard drives and USBs

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