Using external drives between Mac and Windows: NTFS or ExFAT

This is a challenge a beginner faces when trying to copy data between Mac and Windows. Some of your USB drives may appear on Mac as read-only system. These are NTFS formatted disks.

Although Mac can natively write NTFS, this requires a system hack. It is also quite dangerous, as the drive can be easily corrupted. There are two options to use your USB hard disks between Mac and Windows:

1. Format your drive as ExFAT. This file system is supported on both Mac and Windows 7/8, it is fast and reliable. The only problem is that on Windows XP ExFAT requires installation of an additional software.

2. Use NTFS drive with an additional driver. There are multiple choices. If you are looking for software free of charge, you can try OSXFUSE or NTFS 3G. I personally would recommend the first one. If you do not mind spending money for MS file system support, you may try Paragon NTFS ($19.90) or Tuxera NTFS (EUR 25.00). Both paid options provide you a trial period to see if you really need that piece of software.

Personally, I have used to run some NTFS support, but eventually started to use ExFAT only. That would be my sincere recommendation, leave NTFS to Microsoft fans.

How to see free HD space on Mountain Lion

I have never thought I would need that, but found myself explaining the thing to my daughter the other day.

So here is an idea. By default on Mountain Lion there is no indication of drive's free space. If you area used to have it, open Finder / View and click to "Show Status Bar", as shown on the picture.

Now, carry on.

Incorrect free space indication in Finder

Apparently there is an unpleasant bug in Finder with Lion and Mountain Lion. Sometimes Finder status bar shows you much more free space than you actually have. 

To be sure, compare Disk Utility indication and Finder indication. Disk Utility is always correct. 

If you see that the numbers do not match, don't panic. It is actually fixable. There can be two reasons for Finder lying.

1. HD is corrupt. Try to repare it with Disk Utility, you may require reboot in Recovery mode to do that. To do that, press CMD + R when rebooting. Choose Disk Utility from the Recovery menu and go from there. Sometimes (happened to me) one iteration is not enough. It took me tree attempts to fix my SSD corruption. Sometimes you cannot recover the drive. I hope you have your Time Machine backups to restore from them. If not, boot, try to backup all you can and re-install.

2. If your drive is OK, but Finder still shows you ridiculous amount of free space, that might be Time Machine to blame.

In my case, when Time Machine automatic backups are enabled, Finder begins to lie. It seems that it add backup sizes to the free space, even if Time Machine drive is an external one. To fix this annoying issue, unmount Time machine drive, turn automate backups off and re-launch Finder. To restart Finder, do ALT + two finger click (right click with a mouse) and choose Relaunch. 

Enabling FTP on with Mountain Lion

If you have Lion or Mountain Lion, you may mention that FTP option is gone from Sharing options.

No worries, FTP server is still there, even if it is a regular installation and not Server one.

No enable FTP server, run from Terminal.app

sudo -s launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ftp.plist

To disable, do unload instead of load.

FTP home directory is a users's home one.

How to see hidden files in Finder

By default Finder does not show you the hidden files. If you ever need to see them there, do the following.

1. Open terminal and type in:
defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

2. Restart Finder app by holding ‘alt’ on the keyboard and right click on the Finder icon. Click on Relaunch.

If you need to revert to the previous state, do
defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles NO
and then re-launch Finder again.

Hello world

I have decided to start a different blog about my Mac experience. I will be documenting here findings, tricks and gotchas, just for myself.