i backed up some data on my hard drive from may mac os using time machine now i cannot use my hard drive to save any data

itsmedekay

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Jan 17, 2015
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Hi,

I have zero knowledge when it comes to storage devices and the operating system for that matter.

I was trying to practice my computer skills and it seems I may have screwed my up laptop.

I have a MacBook air which a friend of mine installed bootcamp so that I can use windows.

recently I tried using my mac os. I am clueless when it comes to all this techy stuff - and because of this - I seem to have screwed up my mac os.

1. I cannot open the user preference on my mac os settings option - it just has a window saying that it cannot be accessed
2. I tried backing up my system (while on mac os) using time machine on my 500gb Seagate slim hard drive and now I can't seem to save anything on it since it keeps asking for admin permission. this is happening when I use windows os.

I am stuck, don't really know what to do and a bit embarrassed to go and ask for help. could someone try to explain what's going on to me in layman's terms and provide some steps to follow to fix this.. if it is fixable without me having to ask someone to help me.

if not, I guess i'll just have to ask someone to help me out.

thanks in advance for any help!
 

casper1973

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Dec 30, 2012
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When you use a hard drive as a Time Machine backup it gets formatted with Apples own file-system HSF+

Windows doesn't use or understand HSF+ therefore you cannot access the drive from Windows.

As for 'Fixing it' well you can't. It's not supposed to work. You can however use some 3rd party tools like this - http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hfs-windows-free/



As for your user preferences I'm not sure. I don't use a Mac so I'm not too familiar.