How do I use an external harddrive to move files between a mac os x and a windows pc? I have to formate the harddrive to a format both windows and os x understands, right?
Can I do that on my mac?
How do I do it?
Moving files between a pc and mac with an eksternal harddrive
June 7, 2004 - 5:36pm
#1
Moving files between a pc and mac with an eksternal harddrive
You will have to format it as FAT32 on a Windows machine. Windows doesn't like it when you format stuff on Macs. OS X should be able to read a FAT32 formatted hard drive without too much problem. I think. I haven't tried it in a long time, so maybe someone can back me up there?
My pc can read mac formated hard drives...actually any mac formated thing. Its costs money though... now where did I put that cd...
Found it! Its called MacOpener 6.05 and its great!
http://www.dataviz.com/products/macopener/index.html?redirect=monews
I have found the easiest way is to format the drive on the Windows machine. I have used FAT32. NTFS should also work if you use NT/2000/XP but I have not tried it.
NTFS is read-only on Macs. You have to use FAT32 to read and write files on the Mac.
mmm... I'm new to Macs (just got an iMac for video work) and have a 160gb ext firewire drive I want to plug into both pc and mac.
I have discovered a lot by formatting the drive from both machines - the mac will read pc-formatted discs but wont write..
It seems formatting in FAT is the answer but I think there is a partition size limit for FAT32. I dont mind having 2 partitions on it. Anybody care to step me through this?
Good karma will result.
Sam
Use a program like PartitionMagic to force a larger partition. I once had my 120GB drive in an external enclosure and was able to format it in one FAT32 partition.
Limitations........If I am not mistaken we are talking about the FAT32 limit under Windows XP. Maybe I'm wrong, but even with a program like Partition Magic, isn't Windows XP's limit on FAT32 partitions 32 Gigabytes? I once partitioned a drive with 15 Gig and 50 Gig FAT32 partitions before installing XP Home on the 15 Gig. Every time I opened Windows Explorer the computer would lock up. I finally separated the 50 Gig into smaller sections and all was well. This limit is nonexistent in Windows 9x/ME. Under XP does Partition Magic somehow sidestep this very inconvenient limitation?
I think so. How it does it I don't know; all I know is that I was able to format both a 60GB and a 120GB drive with PartitionMagic 8 as FAT32 and Win XP Pro had no problems with them.
I'd agree with others that the easiest way is probably just format the drive as FAT32 under Windows.
However, another option is to format the drive as HFS+ (i.e. native Mac format) and install HFV Explorer on the Windows box:
http://gamma.nic.fi/~lpesonen/HFVExplorer/HFVExplorerHelp.html
Apparently it only works on Win 9x and NT (not XP, and I guess not 2000), but it's free and it does work nicely.
If you go this route, I imagine it would be important to have the "include Mac OS 9 drivers) option checked if you're formatting the transfer HD under OS X.
Mat
If you format the large drive under Windows 98, it will be Fat32, and XP should be able to read it as well s OS X.