Hello, I just recently got a new hard drive and in order to set it up and really just use it in general I need to input my device serial number and when I do it says that it is invalid. How can i fix this?
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Original Title: Setting/Connecting Hard Drive
MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 15.6
It appears you have been led astray. You need nothing of the sort. Read Connect and use other storage devices with Mac - Apple Support.
If you were led to believe you have to install some software that came with that hard disk drive, do not install it. If you installed it already, uninstall it.
It appears you have been led astray. You need nothing of the sort. Read Connect and use other storage devices with Mac - Apple Support.
If you were led to believe you have to install some software that came with that hard disk drive, do not install it. If you installed it already, uninstall it.
rehema115 wrote:
It is a SeaGate portable hard drive
Seagate makes lots of drives. Exactly what model is it?
If you are using any Seagate software for initializing or managing this drive, don't. Just use macOS Disk Utility to erase & format the drive as GUID Partition Map, APFS format.
rehema115 wrote:
Hello, I just recently got a new hard drive and in order to set it up and really just use it in general I need to input my device serial number and when I do it says that it is invalid. How can i fix this?
Exactly how are you setting up this Seagate drive?
What is requiring a serial number?
Sounds like you are using the Seagate proprietary software for something. If so, you may need to download the most recent version of their software. The only reason to use their proprietary software is if you want to use the built-in hardware encryption for their SSDs or to allow writing to an NTFS volume. However, this can still cause problems with macOS depending on how you plan to use the Seagate drive. You will definitely need to keep that Seagate software up to date since each minor macOS update patches could break the Seagate.
As @John Galt already mentioned, it is best to avoid using the Seagate software to manage the external drive and use a file system that macOS actually supports (APFS, HFS+, exFAT....which one to use depends on the type of drive & how it will be used).
What is the make & model of the drive?
Did it come with any vendor software purporting to install or manage the drive? If so, you don't need it and it will likely cause problems.
A drive that is set up with the drive-maker's Utilities (rather than with Disk Utility directly) CAN have MaOS files created on it, and all will seem to be fine, until...
... if those utilities are ever NOT present, such as after some sort of failure, the drive may NOT be readable.
Always initialize a new Drive intended for use with a Mac on a Mac, using the appropriate version of Disk Utility, or the closest available.
It is a SeaGate portable hard drive
Okay, I'll read the linked page, thank you! :)
Invalid device serial number when setting up a new hard drive
