Mac OS X forum: External hard drive format for both Mac and PC

... to get a windows PC to read an external HD formated for apple? Will it be "read only" on a PC, the way an NTFS HD is read only when plugged into a mac?

Can you split/partition an external HD so that half is mac compatible and half is windows compatible?

THX

grim

... and say that I wouldn't be asking how to do this, if I did know how to, or even where to start researching it. Instead, I will just walk away, chastened, and put in my place, knowing that the quick answer is not to be found... only to be earned with blood, sweat, and frustration.

... I have a western Digital external HD formatted in FAT 32. It reads quite well on my apple and windows computers.

Now, I can open and read a NTFS HD connected to my mac. I can even drag files from it onto my mac... I just can't write to it. But, I also have a Seagate FreeAgent Go that I formatted just for use on my mac. I use this for storing large projects and software to transport from school, to work, to home. When I plug it into a windows PC running XP... it won't even be recognized as a hard drive. That is why I asked... OK... what do I need to do... to get a windows PC to read an external HD formated for apple? Will it be "read only" on a PC, the way an NTFS HD is read only when plugged into a mac?

If reformatting to FAT 32 for a PC to be able to read apple produced files is the only way, then it is the only way. I will grant that I could have asked if there was a windows utility to allow a MS machine to read an apple formatted HD or that I could have been more descriptive of just what I wanted to accomplish. I may know a great deal about some complicated pieces of audio/video and graphic software but I am extremely ignorant about what makes my computer actually work. Thus, telling me that FAT32 is my only option would have been a wee bit more informative than stating "then do that" was.

If you did the initialization, format, inside Disk Utility, you are done.
It does not take much more that 30 seconds or so to initialize a disk.

You can check by going to the System Profiler, Apple menu/About this Mac and then clicking More on the resulting window.

Then choose the type of connection your external is using, Firewire or USB, and you will see details of everything connected using that method. You are looking for HFS+(journaled)

Just as an FYI, Firewire is the preferred method of connecting external drives, including optical drives, to a Mac.

P

is to not connect the external drive directly to either machine and use it as a shared resource on the network... as in Network Attached Storage... NAS...

Check it out here

http://shop2.outpost.com/product/5306728?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Message was edited by: admin to edit long URL which was breaking the page in IE.

The answer is here. Just format the disk using NFTS and run MacFuse on the Mac.

The Mac will read and write to the disk, as will the PC machine and no need to partition or use Linux.

P

OK, thanks.

Two years into it and no complaints.

P

fire up disk utility,
select the drive in the left hand pane,
choose Erase from the tabs.
If Erase is not available, move on to the Partition tab
Select 1 partition from the drop down
If you are using an Intel Mac, click Customize (or Options), and select GUID as the format type
Otherwise, select Apple Partition Map

Hit the apply button and you should be good to go

P

It's not really a flaw, but FAT32 wasn't really designed to be used on large hard drives. In your case, Win 98 must've been a small HD, hence why FAT32 would work perfectly for your needs. I have a 200GB HD and FAT32 slowly degrades in performance over time. Also, there would be a lot of wasted space by using FAT32 on a larger HD.

I just wanted to say that I solved my problem by following the Macfuse method. I had to save my data to another hard disk, then format the drive in Mac format, transfer the files back to the newly formatted HD, and use the network and/or flash drive if I needed to transfer any data to/from a Windows computer. I decided not to get Macfuse because I barely use my Windows PC anymore. Again, this method works for me because I'm on the Mac most of the time.

Hey how did you format your external drive with Mac, NTFS, and Fat on three different partitions?? What platform and software did you use?

Anybody else know how to do this on a Mac with Panther OS?
I got a LaCie d2 Quadra external.

Just bought an IMac running Mac OSX10.5 Leopard .... wanted to use the Maxtor 300 GB external drive I have connected to my Dell Laptop. After some research, I found a program called "Paragon NTFS for Mac OSX."

It allows full read/write access to my Maxtor (NTFS formated) external drive by BOTH my new IMac and Dell Windows XP laptop. As I recall it was about $29.

There's additional information on the Web if you Google "Paragon NTFS for Mac"

is allow a Mac to read and write to an NTFS (windows) formatted disk.
Without the software, the Mac can only read from a disk formatted in that way.

Your 500GB Seagate will work just fine. Remember to format it on your Windows machine so that the format is NTFS.
Install the Paragon software on your Mac.
Connect the Seagate, with a USB cable, to either of your two machines and you will be set to go

P