Changing HDD without losing files/data

I used ParagonNTFS several years ago and it worked as intended, providing read/write access to an external NTFS drive.

You can’t change a drive’s format without erasing it. Rather, you need to copy the data off the drive, reformat the drive then copy the data back. If the drive will be used with Mac/Win, choose exFAT. Else, go with an Apple format (APFS works but MacOS Extended aka HFS+ may be better for a spinning-disk drive).

There are a few third party tools you can use, I don’t have experience with them, because i have a windows gaming pc at hand on the same desk as my mac but a quick google learned me that there are tools like ParagonNTFS that you can use for this

Apple computers can Read NTFS Drives

Apple Computer can not Write to NTFS Drives without a Third Party Software being installed on the computer

It should be noted

These Third Party Softwares are best to be purchased otherwise you tend to get what you Payed for

Also, often times these same software get broken - cease to work - after and upDate or upGrade ( these are not one and the same thing )

If and only if you intend to use these drives exclusively on Apple Computer

Follow the instructions in below links

Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac

File system formats available in Disk Utility on Mac

EDITED - the later steps will Wipe ALL DATA from the drives

You could Copy the Important files to a Safe Place >> First <<

The Format the drives to APFS / GUID, HFS Journaled / GUID

Then copy the files back onto the drive

Back up your Mac with Time Machine

TM Backup Utilities is built into the operating system so not need for additional software

It also what to Control the Entire Dentition Drive

In effect, the drive should be used Only for TM Backup and nothing more

neuroanatomist wrote:

I used ParagonNTFS several years ago and it worked as intended, providing read/write access to an external NTFS drive.

You can’t change a drive’s format without erasing it. Rather, you need to copy the data off the drive, reformat the drive then copy the data back. If the drive will be used with Mac/Win, choose exFAT. Else, go with an Apple format (APFS works but MacOS Extended aka HFS+ may be better for a spinning-disk drive).

+1 🦉

HelpMePlease_69 wrote:

I have few hard drives that I used to back up files when I was a Windows-OS user. Few years ago, I switched to Mac-OS. Whenever I plug in my hardrive that is in NTFS, I cannot erase files inside the drive while using the Macbook.

Verify that third party software is current....what ever you are using to r/w to those drives:

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/

http://www.tuxera.com/products/tuxera-ntfs-for-mac/

https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/wiki/NTFS-3G

https://iboysoft.com/ntfs-for-mac/

https://macfuse.github.io/

On their own, Macs can read NTFS drives but not write to them. That's why you cannot delete files on the NTFS drive when it's connected to your Mac.

You need an app like Paragon NTFS for Mac or Tuxera NTFS for Mac in order to fully use your NTFS drives with your Mac.

Merely reformatting the drive(s) from NTFS to exFAT would erase the entire drive. If you still use the drive(s) with both your Mac and a Windows PC then you should figure out a process to migrate your data to drives formatted as ExFAT.

But if you have fully switched over to using Macs and no longer use a Windows PC it would be advisable to migrate your data to drives formatted as APFS (if they are SSDs) or Mac OS Extended Journaled (if they are HDDs) and stop using NTFS.

No in-place migration from NTFS to ExFAT exists, nor is using ExFAT HDD on a Mac a particularly good choice.

You’re going to need to offload the data (somewhere) as part of reformatting the HDDs. That might be to iCloud, to some other hosted or borrowed storage, by temporarily packing the files from a few HDDs into a few-1 HDDs, etc.

These old HDDs are probably also small HDDs, and a migration to a newer (and larger) HDD can resolve all of this.

Or you use third-party NTFS apps, and continue with what you have.

In my previous post I suggested developing a process to "migrate your data to drives formatted as ExFAT" ... or, as the case may be, drives formatted as APFS or MacOS Extended Journaled.

On reflection, and to avoid confusion, it would be better to think of it as "copy your data ..."