I want to format my hard drive so i can have files bigger than 4GB what format should I use?

I have a new hard drive that I want to format so it will work with both mac and PC (windows) but I have files that are bigger than 4GB, what format should I use?
It needs to work with both PC and mac because I need to go between two computers etc

If both of these computers are connect to the same router, both are in your home or place of work (Both are in the same location), it is very easy to Network them so you don't have to use DropBox or the external drive to share files between them.
MickAUS2012 wrote:
yea thanks for that, i have drop box so i use that for some of my smaller files. Im just new to the mac so this is all a learning experince thanks for all your help everyone!

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I'm not able to move files from my mac to my hard drive, but i can move files from my hard drive to my Mac. Would really like to make more room on my mac-any suggestions to get these files onto the hard drive?

When i plug my external hard drive into my mac i'm able to see all the files on it and move files off the hard drive to the mac, but not the other way around. I need to make more room on my mac and would really like these files to be on this particular external hard drive. Any help would be great!
Thank you
Kris

Thank you all. Sounds like i might as well buy a new (mac OS supported) external hard drive. Not worth the hassle/risk of taking all the old files off my current external HD.
Really appreciate all your help!
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Getting files bigger than 4GB onto external drive for itunes

   Im woundering if anyone can help me ?
    I have recently purchased a 2012 mini mac and wanted to transfer my itunes from my pc to the new mac.
   After several attempts at doing this i found it easier to start afresh due to my external hdd that i was using on the pc not being large enough.
    I have now reached one small problem ,after puchasing a 2Tb hdd then being told to re-formatt it to fat32 i cannot download any hd movies
as they are larger than 4GB.
   I am now lead to believe it needs to be formatted to Mac OS Extended(journaled).
   So i have now copied my itunes complete folder to the mac temporary so i can wipe the hdd
   Only problem now is when i try to re-formatt the hdd it gives me an error message saying it carnt do this .
   Can anyone please help me or do i noe hae to buy a new hdd
its a seagate expansion if that helps.
thanks for any help
Mark

If this drive is only ever going to be used with a Mac,
you should actually repartition the drive to be a GUID
partition table with Mac OSX extended journaled format.
It probably will not let you format OSX because because its
partitioning table is MBR (Master Boot Record) which is
used with PCs.
If you want to use with both Macs and PCs, recreate the
partition table as MBR with the file format as ExFAT instead
of FAT32.

I have a late 2012 iMac running osx 10.8.5. I keep losing access to my internal hard drive. I can reboot and regain access and it will last for a few minutes or hours. Disk utility does not seems to help.

I have a late 2012 iMac with an I5 precessor running OSX 10.8.5 and a 1tb internal hard drive. I keep losing access to the internal hard drive/startup disk.
I can reboot and everything operates as normal for a few minutes or hours but then I lose all access again to anything on the hard drive. The computer is still up and running but no files can be accessed and certain websites cannot be acessed even though internet access appears to be normal. Disk utility can only find permission errors related to iTunes which can be repaired only to come back at the next scan (I would not think permission errors would have anything to do with the hard drive crashing). It does not seem to matter what program I am using at the time access is lost and it can lose access sometimes right after reboot when no program is running.

You will need to boot into the Recovery Volume (command - R on a restart or hold down the option/alt key during restart and select it) to run Disk Utility/Disk Repair.

What is the best format to use on an external hard drive so I can both back up my Macbook Pro and also put movies on it from another hard drive (PC)?

I am looking for a solution to whether if it is best to get two hard drives or one that can do two things that I want.
I am looking for a hard drive format that can both back up my 500GB Macbook Pro but I was also wondering if I could also put movies on it from another hard drive that is PC based. Would partitioning the hard drive work for this? I don't know what are the best formats to use.
If this is too hard it might just be easier having a separate 500GB hard drive for back up of my Mac and another bigger hard drive for the movies etc (the files are probably bigger than 4GB). Any help would be greatly appreciated as I need to make a decision soon!

Csound1 wrote:
Microsoft has not released the official exFAT file system specification, and a restrictive license from Microsoft is required in order to make and distribute exFAT implementations. Microsoft also asserts patents on exFAT which make it impossible to re-implement its functionality in a compatible way without violating a large percentage of them.[13] This renders the implementation, distribution, and use of exFAT as a part of free or open-source operating systems or of commercial software, for which the vendors could not obtain a license from Microsoft, not only technically difficult, but legally impossible in countries that recognize United States software patents.
Can't help with that, if one is using a Windows machine then they are subjected to their rules and control.
Limited support outside Windows and Mac OS X operating systems as of 2012, when most consumer electronic devices could only handleFAT12/FAT16/FAT32, rendering exFAT (and flash memory formats using it) impractical as a universal exchange format.
The OP said they plan to store movies on the external drive.
Many movies today are well over 4GB in size, thus exFAT has to be used and formatted on the PC, which the Mac can then read.
Older Windows NT versions up to Windows Vista without Service Pack 1 do not support exFAT.
Irrelevant, Microsoft provides a free download of exFAT for Windows XP, and Vista shouldn't be running on pre SP1 anyway.
Some distributions of Linux have begun to include support for exFAT. It is however, only available as a file system in user space, as it's not supported by the kernel.
Irrelevant, OP is using Windows and OS X, not Linux and if they did Linux can read the files at least and transfer, which is all they care about really.
Windows Vista is unable to use exFAT drives for ReadyBoost. Windows 7 removes this limitation, enabling ReadyBoost caches larger than 4 GiB.[14]
Irrelevant, the OP's is intending to use it as transfer drive between Mac's and Windows for movies.
The standard exFAT implementation only uses a single file allocation table and free space map. FAT file systems instead used alternating tables, as this allowed recovery of the file system if the media was ejected during a write (which occurs frequently in practice with removable media). The optional TexFAT component adds support for additional backup tables and maps, but may not be supported.
Some relevancy, but only exFAT can handle 4GB+ files between Mac's and PC's, so the need outweighs the possible problem.
The OP needs to follow the standard Windows practice of "safely removing hardware" before physically disconnecting the external drive. If a write is occurring, it won't allow disconnecting until the write is finished.
Support for up to 2,796,202 files per subdirectory only.[1][nb 3] Microsoft documents a limit of 65,534 files per sub-directory for their FAT32 implementation, but other operating systems have no special limit for the number of files in a FAT32 directory. FAT32 implementations in other operating systems allow an unlimited number of files up to the number of available clusters (that is, up to 268,304,373 files on volumes without long filenames).[nb 4]
Not a issue, only in extreme cases of a lot of small files. The OP plans to use it for movies which are usually large and take up a lot of space on the drive.
IMMO It looks like you just ran off and copied something to argue your point when all the points are basically irrelevant.
There is only one format that can easily share 4GB sized files between Mac's and PC's without further complications.
It's ALSO possible to install MacDrive on the PC and format the drive on the Mac HFS+, but I didn't recommend that because I know it's a hassle just like third party NTFS writing software is a hassle on Mac's.
If you so anti-Microsoft format, then you must know Paragon has to pay a license fee to Microsoft for using the NTFS format.
At least with exFAT there is no fee to Redmond, at least not yet.

I have a tried to format my seagate free agent 1TB external hard drive so I can use it, but I keep getting an error message saying it failed. Can n e 1 help me plz

I have a tried to format my seagate free agent 1TB external hard drive so I can use it, but I keep getting an error message saying it failed. Can n e 1 help me plz

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Did you format the external disk on Windows? If you did this, probably the external disk is formatted in NTFS. OS X can't write on this format, so it's normal that it doesn't allow you to copy the files.
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Welcome to Apple Support Communities
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MacBook A:
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contains the hard drive I want to move
MacBook B:
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4. Should I wipe the hard drive before I move it?
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I can get info on the physical aspects of moving the drives on YouTube, so I'm really more interested in how to make sure I get the operating system and data parts right.
Thanks for any and all help. Step by step instructions would be awesome!
Jeannie

1. What would happen if I just moved the hard drive and turned on MacBook B? I'm assuming that's not a good option, but am I wrong?
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What you do next depends on the results of this test.
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I want to format my hard drive so i can have files bigger than 4GB what format should I use?

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