Go Back   Cockos Incorporated Forums > REAPER Forums > REAPER for macOS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 09-20-2018, 03:58 PM   #1
pitol678
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 115
Default Cannot save to external Hard drive after mac HD crash

Hi,
I recently had a HD crash on an early2011 Macbook pro. I was near the end of a project and had all my files saved to an external drive, fortunately, and can still access the files with the new HD. However, I cannot save anything to the ext drive and when I attempt, I get an error message of "Reaper Error. Error Creating Project! Project Not Saved!" I can save to the internal drive but want to continue using the ext. one. When I look at the format of the ext drive it says that its NTFS (Windows) but its always worked previously with my macbook. Any advice on how to fix this w/o losing everything would be MUCH appreciated!! Thanks
pitol678 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-20-2018, 04:52 PM   #2
serr
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 12,561
Default

NTFS is blacklisted for writing in OSX by default. You can enable it (google it). A better choice would be to use a more supported disk format like HFS+.

PS. Whenever you get a new drive, format it yourself. Never know what someone might have put on there (format or otherwise).
serr is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-20-2018, 06:04 PM   #3
pitol678
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 115
Default clarification

Thanks for the reply! After re-reading I see that I may not have been clear.

My original internal Mac HD crashed and I bought a brand new one to replace it. The external HD is one that I've been using and has always worked perfectly, and is what all my projects are saved on. However, once I installed the new internal HD, the existing external HD will let me use Reaper as normal, BUT will not let me make changes and "save as" onto the previously used external HD. When I looked at the format of the external HD Ive been using for quite a while, it says thats the format is NTFS, which is confusing since its worked perfectly until now. I remember formatting it for mac when I got it, although I cannot remember what I did exactly, but again its worked as expected for quite a while. Even if I have to save the contents of the old external HD onto another source(and cross my fingers everything works as it did before) Im totally up for that, I just really don't want to risk losing this project. Really, really appreciate any help.
pitol678 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-20-2018, 06:25 PM   #4
serr
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 12,561
Default

Well, the bottom line is you need to enable NTFS writing in OSX. It's disabled by default. Did you clone your main system back or install new when you replaced your internal drive? If the latter, maybe you just forgot you enabled NTFS writing last time around?
serr is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-20-2018, 06:31 PM   #5
pitol678
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 115
Default

Yeah I had to install totally new. So that makes a lot of sense if it's disabled by default, I'll check it out and report back for the next person. Thanks!!!
pitol678 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-22-2018, 06:41 AM   #6
pitol678
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 115
Default following up

Does anyone have a preferred way to enable NTFS on OS? Everything Ive found so far requires a download of a separate program but I don't recall doing this when I first began using the external drive, but its possible I forgot. Thanks!
pitol678 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-22-2018, 08:02 AM   #7
serr
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 12,561
Default

These are the notes I saved for myself.
I believe there are also some 3rd party drivers available as an alternative. Most of these (or maybe all?) are not free. All of them have the look of the kind of suspicious stuff aimed at Windows users.
The best advice would be to avoid dodgy old disk formats like this. There's probably good reason it's write disabled by default by the OS. I believe I've seen a driver install included with external drives before as part of the included (and already written to the drive out of the box) software. I always completely erase and reformat any new drives myself as SOP. Avoids problems.

Anyway, those notes:

1. On your Apple computer, connect an NFTS-formatted drive to an external port. Take note of the volume name, as you'll need it later.
2. Launch Terminal.app and type in the following command, entering the admin password when prompted
sudo nano /etc/fstab
3. This will open the fstab file that is blank by default. Now, using the volume name, enter the following command 
LABEL=VOLUME_NAME none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse

4. Press [Ctrl]+[O] to write the information to file, then press Enter to save the change 

5. Repeat steps 2-3 for each drive you wish to enable NTFS write support on, and then press [Ctrl]+[X] to close the file

1. Next, eject the drive(s) and mount them again. This time, you'll notice the drive does not appear in the Finder. Select Go | Go to Folder... from the Finder menu, enter /Volumes, then press Enter to view the hidden volumes connected to your Mac. From here, you'll be able to drag and drop the volume(s) to the sidebar for easy access when reading and writing to/from, as it does not mount on the desktop unfortunately.
To undo the edits made to the etc/fstab file, simply load the file (as in step 2) and delete the entries created for each drive, then save and exit. That's it!
While this is quick and easy to implement, it's not without drawbacks, such as occasional instability, the fact that it's unsupported, and you can only enable it on a per-drive basis. If you manage multiple drives, need this to work quickly and efficiently, or if you're deploying this as a solution to multiple end users, then a more robust driver like those provided by 3rd-party developers (such as FUSE or Tuxera) might be a better solution for production or mission-critical needs.
serr is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-22-2018, 09:49 AM   #8
pitol678
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 115
Default

Thanks for that!

Ive had my ext drive for probably close to 5 years and have considered a new one especially given all the issues Ive experienced lately. Would it make sense to just get a new drive, format it correctly and then transfer everything over? Then, reformat the old one as a backup? Or would I still have to what you outlined above anyway?
pitol678 is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 03:05 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.