Can same flash drive be used on mac and pc?

can same flash drive be used on mac and pc?

ok because i fried a Hp drive yesterday but it never asked me to format

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Have a 64GB flash drive that used to work and after an update, now doesn't show up in finder

I have a 64GB flash drive that worked just fine and Finder would show it when I would insert it, well it seems that after I updated my mac it now doesn't recognize or show the flash drive. I am unsure if the update did something but like I said it worked previously to update and it works on other windows based computers. So is there a way I can fix this?

Hey Raveybaby
I would check to see if it shows up in Disk Utility. If it does, run a Repair Disk on it and also mount the flash drive as well. If it does not show up, check other ports as well.
Disk Utility 12.x: Repair a disk
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5836
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Regards,
-Norm G.

I recently purchase macbook air with OS 10.10.2. I want to use my Seagate external backup plus hard drive for time machine back up. How to partition my 1TB Seagate back up plus hard drive for use with mac and windows pc?

Hi All,
I recently purchased 13" Macbook Air with OS 10.10.2. I want to use my 1TB Seagate backup plus external hard drive as time machine and my windows 7 pc. Please suggest a method. Thanks in advance for your reply.

I strongly recommend having an external drive dedicated solely for TimeMachine. You could partition the drive but if something goes wrong you risk losing the data on both partitions. Should you decide to go ahead with splitting the drive for two different uses you’ll need to partition the drive either using the Mac’s built in Disk Utility program or Windows utility. I believe the built in Windows disk utility program will destroy the current partition and erase the data that’s on it - I use a third party Windows disk utility program for partitioning and it allows for non-destructive partitioning but warns to back up data first just in case. Apple’s Disk Utility can do non-destructive partitions but I don’t recall every trying to do a non-destructive partition on a disk originally formatted for Windows using it. Again - back up that data just in case.
Finally, your TimeMachine drive should be at least 1.5 times (I prefer 2 times) the size of the data you expect to be backing up a year or two from now. In other words, if you currently are using 50GB of your computer’s drive but expect to begin purchasing Mac software to replace software on your Windows computer and if you expect to be putting photos, music, and other data on it you might expect that two years from now you’ll have 100GB of stuff on the drive. So a 200GB partition is the smallest size you’d want. TM’s backup scheme keeps multiple copies of data as it changes so the extra room is important for this scheme.

External Hard drive help: use with mac and pc? how to backup everything etc

Hello! I need some help regarding a new external hard drive I got from OWC. It is a 500 gb firewire 400 + usb 2.0 7200 rpm hard drive. I am running it from firewire. The software suggests the first thing you do is make a clone of your macbooks internal hard drive, that way if it fails later you can use the external to back everything up. If I do this ...
1. do I have to make the drive "Bootable" ? I have software called Data Backup 3 by Pro soft I think. It came with my external.
2. Can I still back up other stuff like my audio recordings and record onto that drive to a seperate folder?
3. If I make a bootable copy will it try and boot from the drive everytime I turn it on or something?
My other question is... how can I use this drive with a pc? I have a pc as well and I heard that the only way it will work is to format it in ms-dos mode (fat32?)
If I write it to fat32 will it slow down my drive or make it worse? I heard that you should format external drives specifically for mac if you have a mac; so it will only work with macs...
(sorry this is going on and on; it's like a chain reaction of questions)
so If its formatted to mac drive format then can I do this with my current situation:
1. I have wireless internet, the router is on a pc downstairs
2. Can I send files over a network somehow from the pc to my mac
3. then store it on my external?
If so can someone point me in that direction with a link?
Thank you for reading, sorry for making this so long.

1. No, you don't have to make a bootable clone.
2. If you use the drive for a bootable backup, then you cannot use the drive for other types of storage unless you partition the drive and make more than one volume.
3. No, it will not try to boot the computer. You must designate the startup volume using Startup Disk preferences.
If you wish to use the drive on both a Mac and a PC, then either you make two partitions - one for Mac and the other for the PC or you must format the entire drive using FAT32 so the drive can be used for read//write by both operating systems. If you do this then you cannot use the drive for a bootable backup nor can you use it with Time Machine.
FAT32 is slower for read/write on the Mac than using Mac formatting.
Optimally, I would suggest you partition the drive into two volumes. One volume formatted for the Mac and the other formatted FAT32.
You can send files from a PC to a Mac and vice-versa using File Sharing. Select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "file sharing" or "sharing" to find help articles. Also see,
Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Setting up a Mac computer to share files with Windows users
Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Setting up a Windows computer to share files with Mac users
Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Sharing with Windows computers

Use same external drive for itunes in mac and windows?

Hi,
I have a Macbook Air that has bootcamp and I use 99% of my time under Windows 7.
All of my music and movies are on an external hard drive and I have a problem using
it for iTunes under Windows and the Mac at the same time.
Is it possible to have both versions point to the same external drive?
I tried almost everything but it fails as the file paths are stored once and for all in
the iTunes library file.
When booting under OS/X and opening iTunes, it loads the .itl file and shows all music
but of course it doesn't see anything since the path under OS/X has nothing to do with
the one under Windows.
My iTunes lib was created under Windows and all files are stored in a variation of:
J:\Private\My Music\iTunes[Rock | Classical | Soundtracks]
Under OS/X of course the path is totally different:
/Volumes/DRIVE_J/Private/My Music/iTunes/[Rock | Classical | Soundtracks]
Now if I reimport everything in iTunes for OS/X it will change all the paths and then
Windows will not be able to fetch the files.
Isn't there a way to have relative paths so both the OS/X and Windows versions
of iTunes work flawlessly without caring at all about which OS is running?
This is driving me nuts.
I'm not talking about Sharing an iTunes library over a network. I want to share the
same physical folder between Windows and OS/X
Thanks for any help.
Steve

Anyone?

HT2213 Can a flash drive be used instead of a CD?

I need to restore firmware to my 17" MacBook Pro A1229. My problem is I have no optical drive. It completely stopped working and I am waiting to replace it. Is there any way to restore the firmware using a flash drive instead of a CD? Thank you

When I held down the option key the only one that pops up is the Macintosh HD. I saw no sign of the USB stick.
I have no idea if this would help or how to go about it... but I have been successful connecting through Firewire Target Disk mode and also at a single level user. Can I reach and install the firmware from either of those methods???
I just don't know what else I can do....?? Im not a Apple Tech... anything I know is self taught and right now I don't have a clue....:( I have repeatedly asked Apple for help and have been refused on all fronts. I really thought 30+ years of customer loyalty would have counted more to them. Please forgive my dumping.... it's not directed at you. You have been the first person to respond to me and I appreciate that more than you know It might sound crazy but I have never been so utterly let down by a Company in my entire life... They have almost crushed out my spirit and joy that I once found with computers. (sigh)
I will hold on to the sliver of hope that you can tell me something else to try.....

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?
Thanks for your help!

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.

What format for my external drive allows use with Mac and Windows?

I got an external hard disk (1 tr) and i want to used it for my windows and mac, i read i can have two partitions one for mac and one for windows, but i dont really want to have two parts, and I read i can format it by fat32 and i can write and read on both os, is that true?
I want to use it for movies, os backups, and files..
Is it true that i can only save files up to 4 GB when the format is fat32?
please advise..

It this case you would need to to go to "Disk Utility" on mac and select 3 partions which will be under the Parition Layout in my screen shot below. "Current" is grayed out that will drop down select 3 partitions and make one NTFS, second Mac OS Extended, third FAT32. Using the FAT32 for both Mac and Windows but the files have to be under 4GB each.

Can same iPod connect to both a Mac and a Windows PC?

I have a PC at work and a Mac at home. I'd like to be able to use both computers to transfer songs to my iPod Nano. Can I do that, or do iPods need to be associated with only one computer??

Probably the easiest way to use an iPod on both Mac and Windows computers is to format the iPod (using iPod Updater) using the PC. This will force your iPod to use the Windows file system (FAT32) which both the Mac and PC can read from and write to without the help of additional software.
Of course then all your software updates for the iPod will have to be done on Windows.  
If you need to use a Mac (HFS+) formatted iPod on a Windows PC, you'll need to install some 3rd party software such as XPlay 2.0 or MacDrive (which you can get from MediaFour Software). This will enable your Windows PC to read a Mac-formatted iPod.

Flash Drive Format for BOTH Mac & PC

Is there any way I can format my flash drive (scandisc) for both mac and pc? Thanks!
Jesse

Bottlerocket wrote:
Thank you so much! I had my doubts that a definitive solution to this problem existed. I am very grateful.
Just thought I would also throw this out as an option: "IronKey The World's Most Secure Flash Drive" (https://store.ironkey.com/personal) works on PC, MAC, and Linux (see specs for details). But at a price range of $79.00 (IronKey Personal S200 1GB Secure Drive - FIPS) to $299.00 (IronKey Personal D200 32GB Secure Drive - FIPS) this seems like a hefty price to pay, but also no need to have something like PGP on each machine.
Three reviews I found helpful were:
http://www.net-security.org/review.php?id=216
http://www.rohos.com/2010/04/ironkey-security-review-part-2/
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/index.cfm?reviewId=112356
What I don't like about what have read is the self-destruct feature. I understand it offers protection from data theft from tampering attempts or brute-force attacks, but as the PC Advisor reviewer noted "10 consecutive failed logins will leave you with an ornamental keyring" so that is actually an open door to a denial of service / denial of data attack - your data is secure but could cost you $299.00 and your data if someone had access to it in your absence and just wanted to be prankish. Yea, I know they could also disable more expensive equipment in like manner, so guess this is just more in line with a valid argument for protecting physical access to systems as part of overall security plan. In this case, maybe handcuff the thing to yourself.
Also the product does offer more of it feature set to PCs, and I would rather have equality here for the price. And although interesting, I am not immediately sold on it added features such as seemingly anonymous surfing with hardened version of Mozilla Firefox and IronKey's servers (similar in concept to using Tor network) - it may be neat and advantages in some situations but it is not a panacea of speed and complete privacy if you delve into such things.
All that being said, think it would be nice to play with and see how it works; and other manufactures are also putting out efforts in this direction so it is kind of interesting to at least be aware of it and how it might be useful and look towards its evolution. Depending on the environment, you might be better off getting a 64GB encrypted SSD, set it up on your PC and then access from your Mac via something like a virtual windows machine using Parallels for Mac (http://www.parallels.com/).
Also, may want to look at True Crypt (Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux) at http://www.truecrypt.org/. Much reading there, but also think there would be a solution that would just cost you your time; have read varying reports, google and you will have much to read for the next few days but may be just the ticket to meet your needs.
If you do start implementing any of this, would love to hear about how it plays out. Assume others would also.

New drive - can i not use on mac and windows?

A year ago i bought a usb 2 wd external drive which i formatted on windows so that i could use it on both mac and osx - No probs.
I now have a seagate 750gb firewire 400 drive (thats formatted to NT) i want to do the same as i did with the usb2 0 ie format on windows so that i can use on mac and xp.
In the seagate manual it says that swapping data between windows and osx is BAD and YOU WILL LOSE DATA if you do this (it says i need madrive - but what if i want to get data of a college drive, or someone who doesnt want macdrive installed?)- is this manual statement true? i havent lost any data between my usb2 drive in the year ive had it!
Also, formatting the seagate drive to ms-dos file system on mac - this makes it mac only doesnt it?

Hi,
I do the same with my two WD externals.
You would need MacDrive if you want to use the NTFS (NT filse system) with the Seagate.
But if you choose FAT32 (that's what OSX calls MS-DOS) you don't need any kind of extra software to access (read/write) it from both Mac and PC.
One minor issue with FAT32 (MS-DOS) is, that the file size of a single file is limited to 4GB.
Regards
Stefan

I'm using Time Machine and a LaCie external drive to backup. I also have a 8 GB LaCie flash drive I want to use for small jobs. If I plug the LaCie flash drive in, is my Mac going to think it is the LaCie external drive and start trying to backup?

I'm using Time Machine and a LaCie external drive to backup. I also have a 8 GB LaCie flash drive I want to use for small jobs. If I plug the LaCie flash drive in, is my Mac going to think it is the LaCie external drive and start trying to backup?

no.

New iMac. Flash drive is primary for OS and apps. I want to use my HD 2 (1 TB hard drive) for my bulky photo and music files. Can I direct iPhoto and iTunes to use the larger hard drive as the primary target when importing?

New iMac. Flash drive is primary for OS and apps. I want to use my HD 2 (1 TB hard drive) for my bulky photo and music files. Can I direct iPhoto and iTunes to use the larger hard drive as the primary target when importing?

Yes. Unfortunately, I don't know the specifics because I don't use iPhoto anymore and I completely copied over 15 years of MP3 files recently when I installed 10.7. Needless to say, I have not opened iTunes since and probably never will again - not because of iTunes but because of my stupidity. I did have some of the files backed up but I hadn't backed up in a while.......anyway....
When I imported my CD's, I had them go directly to my external firewire. I can't remember exactly how to set it, but in the preference section of iTunes you can specify an import destination to any drive that's available to your machine. I did this with iPhoto as well way back at one point when I was using Tiger, but I don't remember the specifics on that either. I can't imagine they would have discontinued support for that feature since then.
Sorry I couldn't help more.

My assistant and I are using two Lightrooms (i.e. two serial numbers) and need to share between our two computers. I provide originals to her onto a flash drive. She tags them and returns them to me. I then copy the photos from her flash drive onto my com

My assistant and I are using two Lightrooms (i.e. two serial numbers) and need to share between our two computers. I provide originals to her onto a flash drive. She tags them and returns them to me. I then copy the photos from her flash drive onto my computer and load them in my LR. The photos appear but witthout any editing or tagging. We need to be able to have her working on the photos on her computer with her copy of LR and me on my computer with my version of LR being able to access what is already tagged and given back to me. This seems hard. We need advice on if it is at all possible to have two computers simultaneously working on LR . I bought her her own version because I was told at the time of purchasing that that was the only way to share. Please advise urgently! Thanks.

Sounds like your assistant isn't instructing Lightroom to write the tagging and editing to the files themselves, so wehn the files return to you, they don't have editing and tagging information. She need to select the photos in Lightroom and then Ctrl-S (Cmd-S on Mac). Or alternatively turn on the option to autmoatically write this information to the files.
If you are using RAW photos, then this information will be written to a sidecar XMP file, and your assistant must provide you with the sidecar file. If these photos are not RAW photos, then the information is written directly into the photo file itself.
Lightroom wasn't designed to be a multi-user program, and so it is truly not possible to have two people working on the same catalog at once. The way you are doing things, as modified above, is probably the way to go.
As an alternative, you can transfer (portions of) catalogs as well as photos back and forth and then all of these issues disappear, but a catalog might be rather large for a flash drive (or maybe not, it depends)

Trying to use portable hard drive on both my Mac and PC...

I just purchased a Toshiba Canvio Plus 1TB portable hard drive for my three Macs. Out of the box, I need to format the drive for Mac, which is fine, but I just found out that my fiance would also like to use it for her work computer, which is a PC running Windows XP. I need your help in finding out how to read and write to this portable drive from both a Mac and PC.
I thought about partitioning the drive but that wouldn't work because we want both systems to access the same data. After doing a few Google searches, I thought formatting the drive to a FAT32 would be the answer but I read that file sizes can't exceed 4GB. Since I purchased this specifically to complement my new HD camcorder, a 4GB file size limit will not work for us.
One last thing, since she has a company-issued PC, I'm pretty sure she's unable to install third party software and/or drivers. So please factor that in.
What would be our best solution? Thank you so much for all your help.
Message was edited by: madeinguam

madeinguam wrote:
What would be our best solution?
two possible ways:
(a) format the drive for Mac and install MacDrive on the winsloth machine(s)
(b) format the drive NTFS and install the _*NTFS 3G*_ driver on the Mac(s)
JGG

Can same flash drive be used on mac and pc?

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