1 hd with 2 file formats for use between mac and windows?

Think this is the right forum...
I want to instal a program onto an external hard drive for use on both mac and windows. The program supports both mac and windows.
My plan is to get an external hd and partition it in half. One half i will format mac os extended and the other i will format ntfs. I'll instal the mac version on the mac partition and the windows version on the ntfs partition.
This should work i'm thinking, yes? I.e. when i plug it into windows it'll run the windows installation no problem and when i plug it into the mac it'll run the mac installation no problem?
Thanks.

An easier solution might be to just connect the drive to a Windows PC and format it as FAT32. Both Windows (98 and higher) as well as Mac allow full read/write access to FAT32 formatted drives. No need to download any drivers, etc. It just works.
Yes, this solution is not perfect, but none are. The free NTFS drivers for Mac are not most efficient drivers for speed/performance, the HFS+ drivers for Windows are not cheap, and have their own performance issues, and FAT32 has the limit of file sizes over 2GB (or is it 4GB now?) not supported. No one solution is perfect, but for the many one is better than the others, but it all depends upon their circumstances which is "better".

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FORMAT HARD DRIVE FOR USE ON MAC AND WINDOWS

I'm going to start working on scanning a lot of old family photos and getting them put on an external hard drive for my parents. I'd also like to eventually put old VHS family home movies on the hard drive as well. However, I'm not sure what to do about the hard drive. I know if I format it to be compatible with my Mac it probably won't be compatible with their PC. I read about the FAT32 option but I saw something about a file not working if it's over 4 GB in size. I'm thinking maybe some of those home movies will be larger than 4GB. I also saw an exFAT option. If I go with that will I be able to scan the photos on my Mac, get the home videos converted and put it all on the hard drive will all of it be visible and usable on their Windows PC?
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matahari_1946,
if you’re not yet backing up your Mac’s internal hard disk, I’d recommend first that you purchase an external hard drive for yourself for exclusive use as a Time Machine backup destination; that way, in case of a disk problem, you won’t permanently lose all of your scanned photos and imported movies.
A 4 GB file limit does apply to FAT32 filesystems. If their version of Windows allows, the external disk which will hold those photos and videos should be formatted as NTFS from their PC, so that they can watch video files over 4 GB. (It’s unlikely that an individual photo file would be over 4 GB.) However, OS X doesn’t come out of the box with NTFS support. The exFAT filesystem is able to hold files over 4 GB, and it is supported by Mac OS X 10.6.5 and newer, but it’s optimized for flash drives; it’s more “fragile” on hard disks than other filesystems are. As a workaround, you could format a flash drive to have exFAT, copy videos over 4 GB onto the flash drive, and then use your parents’ PC to copy the videos from the flash drive to their NTFS external disk. Other alternatives would be to look for third-party software for OS X which supports reading from and writing to NTFS disks, or third-party software for Windows which supports reading from and writing to journaled HFS+ (the default OS X filesystem) disks.

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I am new in using Mac and recently I buy a IMac 24" model.
I used to use PC a long time with a lot of old document.
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Hi Eric and welcome to Discussions and the Apple world.
Mac OSX can read and write from Windows partitions (like the BootCamp Windows partition you are about to create) when using FAT32 as file system for Windows.
However with FAT32 you are limited to a partition size of 32GB.
Mac OSX can also read from Windows partitions that uses the NTFS file system, but it can not write to them unless you use a third-party helper like either Paragons NTFS for Mac http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/ or NTFS-3G http://www.ntfs-3g.org/
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i also run windows on my mac (for work). The issue i had was that when booted in osx, i could see the windows partition, and copy files FROM it to the mac side, but i could not copy files TO the windows partition.
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http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/
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Windows:
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CoreSync
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https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/access-hidden-user-library-files.html (Mac)
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I used the earlier discussions. I couldn't decipher the steps details as it was mostly by level 4 above.
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Normally the drives are formated as exFAT which could be used by both a Mac and a PC out of the box. Connect the drive to your computer it should be able to read it. If not then the system will ask you if you want o erase the hard drive. Select yes, it will format the drive for use with a Mac only. This is the required format to use it as a Time Machine backup. As stated in our post you would like to use this hard drive on both Windows and Mac, you should reformat the hard drive as exFAT in disk utility.

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I'm not clear as to the current format of the drive. Since you say it is working with MacDrive I am assuming it is currently NTFS. You also say this is for a "new computer" so is this really a Leopard OS computer, making this a Leopard OS question? There's differences in the capabilities of the different systems.
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Connect the PC to the library on the NAS. Wait while "updated".
Under Edit > Preferences > Advanced make sure the media folder is correctly pointed at the media folder on the NAS. If not correct, close iTunes, wait a few moments, then open iTunes again.
Close iTunes on the PC. Do not open iTunes on the Mac.
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Click the icon to start iTunes and immediately press and hold down SHIFT. Keep holding until prompted to choose or create a library. Click choose and browse to the copied .itl file, e.g. C:\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl
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tt2

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Hi there
Are there any problems with using an external hard drive and moving back and forth between a Mac and a Windows PC? I'm mainly using MS Office documents but am concerned that they might corrupt if I switch back and forth betwen Mac and Windows.
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Hi Sharif,
Thanks for your answer. If I could just ask for some clarification
Sure thing, tht's why we are here, aren't we ?
If I buy a new external drive, should I then use Disk Utility to format it according to the guidelines you've given?
1. Start Disk Utility
2. In the left pane click on the external harddisk
3. Click on the 'Partition'-Tab in the right pane
4. Choose 'One Partition'
5. Choose 'MS-DOS' and enter a "Name"
6. Click on the 'Options'-Button and set MBR as partition scheme
7. run the partitioning
And in doing so, this will make the drive stable across platforms?
Has worked for me on a number of external harddisks.
Although I personally share the hatters opinion about NTFS being the better file system.
But as said you have to use a third-party helper in OSX to write to NTFS harddisks.
Regards
Stefan

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Us ean external drive formatted FAT32 or ExFat. Both OSx and Windows can read/write to the drive and both can use the same data files as long as you have a program that can open and save these files. For example, Word running both on OSx and on Windows will be able to work with the same document on the external drive.

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MacQuack wrote:
You will need to pull all the information off first. The formatting will erase it all.
Use Disk Utility (in Applications >> Utilities or use Spotlight to find it). On the left select your WD drive and then select the Erase tab. Where it says Format, select exFat in the drop-down menu. Next, click Erase and done. It will take approx. 5-15mins to re-format.
Cons: You will be unable to store files 4GB or larger in this format (usually only dmg/iso files or large Outlook files). Also, you will be unable to use Time Machine or other auto-backup programs.
That is not entirely correct, there is no 4G limit using exFat, FAT32 is the one with the limit.

1 hd with 2 file formats for use between mac and windows?

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