How to Use Seagate External Hard Drive on Mac without Formatting?

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Seagate is one of the most famous external storage manufacturers. Seagate Backup Plus, Seagate One Touch, Seagate Pride drive, Seagate Expansion, Seagate Barracuda Fast SSD, Seagate Photo drive...are reliable external storage devices for both Windows users and Mac users.

Seagate external hard drive read-only on Mac? Why?

However, most of Seagate external hard drive are formatted to NTFS, the standard Windows-based file system. Some Mac users may find, when they connect a Seagate external hard drive on a Mac, they can not write data to it or modify the contents stored on the Seagate external hard drive.

To fix this Seagate external hard drive read-only on Mac issue, other people may suggest that you format the NTFS Seagate external hard drive to Mac-compatible file system such as ExFAT, FAT32, APFS, Mac OS Extended, etc. However, if you do that, you’ll lost all files stored on the Seagate external hard drive.

Is it possible to change the Seagate external hard drive from Read-only to Read-write without formatting it? Yes, NTFS driver can help you grant full read-write access to any NTFS drive on Mac.

How to use Seagate external hard drive without formatting?

If your computer informs you that your hard drive needs to be formatted, it means the drive is not being read correctly and must be initialized and ready for use. There are a lot of potential causes for this, including the drive's corruption, faulty connection, or physical damage.

Since formatting a hard disk deletes everything stored, we will review alternative solutions to fixing the drive. For example, if your Seagate external hard drive is read-only on Mac due to incompatible NTFS file system, you just need to install a Seagate NTFS driver on your Mac and use it to enable writable for NTFS drives. Then you can use the Seagate external hard drive on your Mac without any limitation.

Why do you need the NTFS for Mac tool?

You probably wouldn't want to reformat the Seagate external hard drive if you frequently switch between Windows and Mac and have sensitive files stored on this external drive. That's because a disk format will wipe all data on the drive.

A cross-platform NTFS driver for Mac is your best bet if you want to use a hard drive on a Mac without resorting to formatting. To use NTFS drives on a Mac by converting them from read-only mode to read-write mode.

Enable writable for Seagate external hard drive on Mac:

Step 1. Download and install a NTFS driver on Mac. Donemax NTFS for Mac is an easy-to-use and 100% safe NTFS driver for Mac. It can quickly lift all restrictions of NTFS drives on Mac. Download it here:

Step 2. Open Donemax NTFS for Mac and connect the Seagate external hard drive to your Mac.

Step 3. Find the Seagate external hard drive, select it and then click on Enable Writable button. Then the Seagate external hard drive will become read-write on your Mac.

You also can use Donemax NTFS for Mac to:

• Unmount or mount Seagate external hard drive on Mac.
• Quickly open Seagate external hard drive on Mac.
• Format Seagate external hard drive on Mac.
• Repair damaged Seagate external hard drive on Mac.
• Eject Seagate external hard drive on Mac in safe mode.

Quick way to fix a damaged Seagate external hard drive on Mac

#1 Check the connection

When investigating corruption on an external hard drive, it's easy to get bogged down in the details and miss the obvious, like a connection issue. Therefore, before attempting more involved methods, consider the following:

Once you've determined that the problem isn't with the connection, you can move on to more complex troubleshooting techniques.

# 2 Run First Aid on the Seagate external hard drive

If the Seagate external hard drive gets crashed, can not mount on your Mac, you can repair it with Disk Utility.

• Step 1. Open Disk Utility on Mac.
• Step 2. Find and select the Seagate external hard drive.
• Step 3. Click First Aid and then run First Aid to repair the crashed Seagate external hard drive.

FAQs about how to use Seagate external hard drive on Mac

Conclusion:

This article will show you how to use a Seagate external hard drive without formatting the drive on Mac. NTFS driver is a tool which can solve NTFS drive read-only on Mac problem. If you want to use an NTFS Seagate external hard drive on Mac without formatting, just download and install Donemax NTFS for Mac. Then use it to add NTFS read-write support on your Mac.

But, if your Seagate external hard drive gets crashed, you have to format it. Data recovery software can help you scan the Seagate external hard drive and get all lost files back.