# Help! MacBook/external hard drive

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-macbook-external-hard-drive/569623>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 31, 2011, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-macbook-external-hard-drive/569623 "2011-01-31T08:55:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2011, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-macbook-external-hard-drive/569623/1 "2011-01-31T08:55:43Z")

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“LG external HDD cannot be modified” is the message I get when I try to add files to my brand-new 1TB LG XD7 external hard drive. I am using a 5-year-old MacBook. I would gladly RTFM, but I live in Korea and the handbook is in Korean, which I neither read nor speak. Is there an easy way to get around this?

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**Author:** ![Pitchmeister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pitchmeister/32/3459_2.png) [@Pitchmeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pitchmeister)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2011, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-macbook-external-hard-drive/569623/2 "2011-01-31T09:00:11Z")

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Open Disc Utility to see if the HD is maybe formatted in NTFS (Windows). Disk Utility will allow you to format it in MacFS (or FAT32, if you want to use the files on Windows systems as well).

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**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2011, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-macbook-external-hard-drive/569623/3 "2011-01-31T14:08:18Z")

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I poked around Disk Utility and couldn’t find any formatting options. Where should I be looking?

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**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2011, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-macbook-external-hard-drive/569623/4 "2011-01-31T14:10:44Z")

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> [@Krokodil](#):
>
> I poked around Disk Utility and couldn’t find any formatting options. Where should I be looking?

Partition tab.

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**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2011, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-macbook-external-hard-drive/569623/5 "2011-01-31T15:03:00Z")

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That did it, thanks!