External hard drive for both windows and mac

hello, all - just bought a western digital 500gb my book premium edition external hard drive. will be using for both pc and macbook, not necessarily to share files (though i may on occasion), but rather as a backup. been researching the discussion boards and concluded that i should use it as pre-formatted fat32. few questions...
1) if i do use to share files, from what i understand i will be able to read windows files with my mac but i can't read mac files with windows (unless i have macdrive installed). is this correct?
2) since mac can read/write to fat 32, is it necessary to partition the drives and keep the files separated? i talked to a "computer guy" earlier today and he said i should consider having two completely separate external hard drives as having files from two different operating systems on the same drive could cause major problems for both... i didn't really believe him.
3) i have seen different posts stating using fat32 format for mac limits file size to 4gb. another post said 32gb. which is right? i have os is 10.4.7 if that makes a difference.
thanks in advance for any insight.

2 - i don't mind partitioning at all. but he strongly suggested not even partitioning but using two completely separate hard drives. yeah, the 500gb was a bit overkill, so if i can use it for both as opposed to one and buying an additional, i'd rather.
2/3 - if i partition, is it best to divide it into ntfs and hfs+? or should i keep the pc portion fat32? if the mac portion is hfs+, can i store any size file? i have videos that are anywhere from 10-20gb, and i'd like to get them off my computer and into the external drive.
thanks.

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Hello!
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Thank you!
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If I may suggest:
Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
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How can I use my external hard drive on both pc and mac, but also being able to use it to back up my mac data?

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FORMAT TYPES
FAT32 (File Allocation Table)
Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
Maximum file size: 4GB.
Maximum volume size: 2TB
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NTFS (Windows NT File System)
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For Mac OS X 10.4 or later (32 or 64-bit), install Paragon (approx $20) (Best Choice for Lion)
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AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support NTFS
Maximum file size: 16 TB
Maximum volume size: 256TB
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HFS+ ((((MAC FORMAT)))) (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Don't use case-sensitive)
Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! backups of Mac internal hard drive.
To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer
Maximum file size: 8EiB
Maximum volume size: 8EiB
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EXFAT (FAT64)
Supported in Mac OS X only in 10.6.5 or later.
Not all Windows versions support exFAT.
exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support exFAT
Maximum file size: 16 EiB
Maximum volume size: 64 ZiB
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Here you go:
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090913140023382
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Bob,
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I'm new to the video stuff, so i have a few questions. i am planning to post videos on my blog. I want to have them in a format that both windows and mac users can play. is this a possibility or will i have to export .wmv for windows and quicktime for mac? i realize that windows users can download quicktime, but i either want the video to be viewable in a format that can be read by all without having to download anything (might be too big a wish :o) ).
Posting to YouTube and providing a URL link might be the most universal method of playback although quality may be on the weak side.
if i can't do that, then i'd like to have 2 links - one for quicktime and one to the .wmv. in this case, how to i export a .wmv file?
WMV is a proprietary compression format. You will either have to purchase the authorized QT components from Flip4Mac or purchase a separate open source converter application like Visual Hub.
i don't see that option anywhere on the share menu?
Any you won't even if you purchase and install the QT component -- iMovie '08 only exports to QT compression formats.
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if i have imovie, do i need quicktime pro? so far i'm having a hard time figuring out what quicktime pro has that imovie doesn't.
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ADDED: If you really want to see what QT Pro can do, check out QTKirk's examples on his DotMac account.
Message was edited by: Jon Walker

Best external hard drive for Macbook pro and Aperture

Hi, any recomendations for an external hard drive for the macbook pro and aperture. I was looking for approx 300Gb !
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macphi

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-Allen Wicks

How can I format external hard drive for both Mac

Hi, I want to use my Seagate external Hard Drive 1 TB on both Mac & Windows. I go to know that FAT 32 supports both but it can not transfer more than 4 GB data at a time. Is there some better alternative? Please suggest.

As said above Use exFAT but do the formatting on a Windows PC as I have had problems of Windows seeing the drive when done on a Mac. Once done on a PC it was seen by both platforms.
Also if you are running XP on the PC you may need an update for XP to see and use exFAT drives. It may be included with XP SP3, i'm not sure, but Microsoft has an update for both XP SP2 and SP3 so that exFAT drives are usable.

External Hard Drive that Both OS and Windows can use

I just bought a MacBook Pro for my son @ college. I've installed bootcamp because we have a large volume of windows software. (I also like the features of the Apple).
I'm trying to make this as bulletproof as I can (since I won't be around to act as tech support. I have an external hard drive (160 G firewire) that I'd like to set up so i can back both systems up.
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Should I partition the external hard drive?

External hard drive for both 10.3.9 and 10.4.6

I need a 500 GB external hard drive that will work with both my iMac OS 10.3.9 and my MacBook Pro 10.4.6.
I'm looking at the Seagate FreeAgent Pro ST305004FPA1E3-RK -- which seems to fill the bill:
- - - - -

Here's the full text of my question, including what went missing before!
I need a 500 GB external hard drive that will work with both my iMac OS 10.3.9 and my MacBook Pro 10.4.6.
I'm looking at the Seagate FreeAgent Pro ST305004FPA1E3-RK -- which seems to fill the bill:
Interface USB 2.0 / eSATA / FireWire 400
compatible with both O/S Mac
* Power PC G3, G4, or G5 processor running OS X 10.3.9 (or higher), or
* Intel Core Duo or Core Solo processor running OS X 10.4.6 (or higher)
I understand the disk has to be reformatted for Mac--no problem.
But the software? The User Guide for Mac says
"The FreeAgent Pro software and the Memeo LifeAgent software that powers the Backup & Restore are already loaded on your FreeAgent drive and ready to be installed on your computer."
But the screenshot for installing the software says: The FreeAgent Pro software and the Memeo LifeAgent software runs on Macs using OSX 10.4.8 and higher.
Will the drive still work with the iMac even if I can't install the FreeAgent Pro software and the Memeo LifeAgent software?
And what's the scoop with the MacBook Pro's Time Machine? If I use that software with the drive, will it make the drive unavailable for use with the iMac?
Thanks for any suggestions and help you can offer!

Using an external hard drive for an apple and a pc

I recently bought a Seagate 250g external hard drive to store files from both an apple and a pc. What is the best way to format the drive (or partitions) so that i can reliably back up files from both the mac and the pc? I am using OS 10.4.2 on the mac, and windows xp professional on the pc.

I presume you want to access all the 250 GB from both systems. There are two solutions for it.
The problem in the background is, that both systems have their own special file system, which can't be written by the other system.
solution a)
If you are a rather unexperienced user you should format it FAT32. Don't use Windows to do so, because it will limit your partition size to 32 GB. Rather use the Mac OS X Disk Utility instead. Apple calls the FAT32-format the "MS-DOS" format.
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But it is easy to setup!
solution b)
Windows can't even read Apple's HFS+ neither write to it natively. You would need commercial software to enable that. Therefore I would use Microsoft's NTFS. Mac OS X can read this at least. If you want to write to it you have to install the open source freeware MacFUSE and the NTFS-3G "extension" for it as suggested by The Mark above (see his link).
Use Windows to format the drive as NTFS.
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I would say: try to install MacFUSE and NTFS-3G on your Mac. If this seems to work, format the drive with Windows as NTFS. If something doesn't work choose FAT32 as fallback solution.

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I have a 640GB external hard drive that I have been using for over a year for time machine backups. My mac hard drive is now starting to fill up and I am looking to move audio, video and picture files to my external hard drive. How do I do this without messing up my time machine backups? Can I do both on the same external hard drive? Do I just make new folders on the external hard drive to move the files I want? Thanks for the help.

If you move the files you will need to get another disk to back the files up to. You don't want to have only one copy of certain files (personal, professional etc.).

External hard drive for both windows and mac

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