External Hard Drive Formatting For Cross Platform File Sharing

I have been doing some research on formatting options that can read/write both OSX and Win7. Someone recommended that I use UDF. I'm curious hearing from the apple community whether there are any downsides to choosing this formatting method. Are there any other better ones to use? Thanks

Best I can tell, UDF is for DVDs and CDs, not HDDs.
If you want a compatible format for Mac and Windows on a HDD, FAT 32 or ExFAT will fit the bill. Fat32 does have a 4 GB file size limitation. It is best to format these on a PC.
You can use NTFS, but then you need third party software such as Paragon or Tuxere in order to write to the HDD.
Ciao.

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Using IMOVIE '08 to import from DV camera to 'BUSLINK' external hard drive( formatted for MAC ) but no success and kept getting this message: The import was canceled. You may not have permission to write to /Volumes/BUSLINK/iMovie Events.localized. Thanx

Using IMOVIE '08 to import from DV camera to 'BUSLINK' external hard drive( formatted for MAC ) but no success and kept getting this message: The import was canceled. You may not have permission to write to /Volumes/BUSLINK/iMovie Events.localized. Thanx in advance!

I finally got a representative that was able to help me, she had me go to Get Info, by right clicking iMovie from the finder, and I had to click on Sharing & Permissions>Everyone>Read & Write

How can I transfer files off an external hard drive formatted for windows?

I just bought my first mac (yay!) and am trying to transfer my files off of my old pc. The problem is that I stored all my personal files on an external hard drive, which is of course formatted for windows. My mac will open it, but it is "read only." I tried plugging it back into my pc and using the Migration Assistant to transfer my files over, but it was not detected (rest of the pc was).
However, the second time I tried plugging it in to my pc, it told me it would need to be formatted first. Obviously my mac has changed something on it, and now all my personal files are on a hard drive that is unusable by either my old pc or my new mac!
Any suggestions would be appreciated! Heads up though, I am not especially computer literate, and my pc needs to stay intact as the husband needs it and some of the programs on it for school. Also, I have a second external hard drive that is brand new with nothing on it, if that will come in handy.
Thanks!

Format the extra HDD to EXFAT as previously indicated. There are two ways that can use to transferr the data.
1. Connect both drives to the PC and the copy the files to the newly formatted (EXFAT) drive from the HDD with the data . Then connect the EXFAT drive to the MBP and transfer the data to same.
2. Connect both drives to the MBP and open DISK UTILITY>RESTORE. Drag the drive with the data on it to the 'Source' field. Drag the EXFAT drive to the 'Destination' field. Click on the 'Restore' butt is on. After the transfer has been completed, close DISK UTILITY and place the data on the MBP where you want it.
Ciao.

Reading MP3 music files from an external hard drive formatted for PC

I have 60 Gigabytes of MP3 files (my whole CD collection, mostly saved in high quality format) on a 120 GB external hard drive that was attached to my IBM Thinkpad. They are arranged in folders and subfolders, e.g. folder "Great pianists of the XXth Century" subfolder "Sviatoslav Richter" subfolder "Sviatoslav Richter CD1" files "(01) Bach English Suites 1", "(02) Bach English Suites 2".
1) My Mac (OS X.4 - Tiger - or is that X.3?) recognizes the drive as a drive (its icon appears on the desktop), but not its contents. I was told by somebody that I'd need a differently formatted PC Hard Drive for the Mac to recognize the content, and then by somebody else that the titles would all then be truncated to 8 characters. Is there a way around this? Preferably I'd like to be able to read a HD that is formatted for PCs in the way that is now standard, directly from my Mac.
2) Is there a way for iTunes - or some other music programme for the Mac - to play the MP3s as they are currently arranged, without having to reorder or rename them, or copying my whole CD collection onto a HD from scratch? (Getting 60 Gigs of MP3s from CDs is a task I'm not keen to repeat). If necessary, I could find a way to copy the current folders and files onto an external HD formatted for the Mac, but then that would hopefully be it.
At present I'm having to use the Thinkpad with Windows Media Player to play back all this music over my Hi-Fi, but would like to free up the Thinkpad for other uses by my family, and would like to run all my music from the Mac I use for everything else.

Thanks, Jason & Mike. This is how I resolved the problem. Turned out the disk with the data was in NTFS format. Neither my eMac nor my wife's Carbon iMac (prehistoric, in other words) was able to read it, on repeated attempts. In process I discovered (to my surprise) that the external hard drive attached to my eMac (a 320 Gig My Book) was formatted in FAT 32 format, and that the PC laptop (Thinkpad) read from it, and wrote to it, without any problem. (Is FAT 32 less than optimal for use with a pre-Intel Mac?). So I just copied the needed files from the NTFS disk to the FAT 32 disk, via the Thinkpad. When I reconnected the FAT 32 drive to the eMac, it turned out that it was easy [with some fiddling] to put the titles of the new music into the iTunes Library, without having to copy the music itself into iTunes. Making playlists does still seem to have to go manually. Sometimes the "New Playlist from Selection" option automatically gives a name (the original name) to the album from which the music came, sometimes it doesn't. Rationale not clear to me. Other problem: often the sequence is jumbled (this is after I added the whole collection of folders containing music to my iTunes Library in one fell swoop). Usually it was possible to correct this by copying track names for albums one album at a time from the external HD (in Columns view, selecting all the tracks in each folder simultaneously) directly into the playlist; the playlist name then always had to be copied or typed in separately. I don't know if I'm missing an easier route. Also, I see that I have version 4.7.1 of iTunes - I'll download a newer version! Don't know whether newer version will affect what I want to do in a positive sense.

I have a an external hard drive formatted for Windows, and I want to move those files to a new hard drive formatted for both Windows and OS. Is this possible?

I just purchased a MB Air 13", as well as a Seagate Slim Backup Plus. I have an older external hard drive that I was using with a Dell laptop. I would like to get the files off of the older external hard drive, and onto the new Seagate drive. Is this possible? I'd also like to be able to add files going forward to the Seagate from either a PC or a Mac and be able to view/use them on the MB Air 13".
Thanks in advance.

You will have to format the Seagate external HDD to a format common to both Mac and PC such as ExFAT. That should allow you to transfer files from the old HDD and still allow you to use with your MBA.
Ciao.

External hard drive formatted for a PC

In order to format my external hard drive to my imac, do I need to first copy all the files to the imac, and erase and reformat the hard drive. I just wanna make sure I'm doing this correctly, it scares me anytime I erase a hard drive. This is 4 years of wedding photo's that I can not afford to loose, but currently I can't put any further information on the hard drive, only remove it. Thank you in advance for any of your help.
Mark

NTFS can be read by Mac OS X if you install Macfuse or NTFS-Mac. Such hard drives though should not be used for booting, or backing up applications, or any non-platform agnostic files. You are limited to platform agnostic files as well with FAT32 too. MacDrive lets you format your hard drive for Macs while still use them on PCs.
Message was edited by: a brody

Best external hard drive format for use with mac and windows?

This is more of an apple operating system combined with windows operating system question, but being that my OS will upgrade an fluctuate there is not option to choose in the operating system section.
Anyways to the question(s)
This whole prbolem came about when my computer started having issues, I want to back it up and whether I can continue to use my laptop or not I will still be owning an apple in the future. I went to buy a hard for back up and got told that it is not as easy as one would think to transfer files from mac OS to windows OS and vice versa. I have a mac, my boyfriend has a windows computer; we share files. Mostly I just copy his files, but once in a while I give him files too. I have read up and talked to people and only found one solution so far to format the external drive to fat 32 or exfat. I think only mac has the exfat option, but works well between both OSs, correct me if I am wrong.
What is the difference between fat 32 and exfat?
A user posted some good info about formatting. More specifically .Drives, partitions, formatting w/Mac's + PC's
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3044
If I do not want to use fat32 or exfat is there a format type that works great for mac saving that I can still at least save files to that were originally on a windows computer? Such as I copy his files from his external drive to my computer and then save them to my external drive.
Is there a better format for file sharing between mac and windows that does not set a 4GB limit?
And a silly question, Can you dual format a hard drive?
Note: This format is for an external hard drive.

I still do not know which format would be the best. That is so that I can use it easily between mac OSX and windows. Is FAT32 the only true option? How limited is it? I heard it is limited to 4GB file size for windows and 32 GB for Mac. Are there other sources I have not found with more concrete information on the limitations of this format?
I really do still need this information and I need to back up my drive before I can take the computer in for service.

External Hard Drive Formatted For Mac

Hello,
Can some one please point to a link to an external hard drive that comes formatted for Mac out of the box? My 90 year old mother-in-law needs a time machine backup and would freak out if I tried to guide her through Disk Utility to reformat the external drive she just bought from Radio Shack. So an out-of-the-box plug-n-play drive would work best for her.
Does anyone know of any? I know LaCie is/was Mac focused, but I need to have a drive that is ABSOLUTELY Mac plug-n-play when it gets delivered to her house.
Thanks!

Do you Skype with her? Seems like you could just do a Skype call and share her screen so you can literally tell her to click this, click that. I've done exactly this with my mother across the Atlantic to solve a different problem. If she's capable of plugging the new drive into the Mac (which it sounds like you intend her to do anyway), I'd have to believe she'll be able to follow your instructions if you can tell her which options to click. Formatting a drive is relatively few clicks. And, I think this wouldn't be any harder than figuring out how to setup Time Machine...
https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA10022/how-do-i-share-my-screen-in-skype-for-m ac-os-x

External hard drive format for use in both OS9 and OSX

I have never use OS9. A friend of mine wants to transfer their files from an OS9 computer to an OSX computer. Is there a hard drive format that can be used on both OS9 and OSX. It would be great to be able to transfer the files over on my Firewire hard drive.
Many thanks,
Beaglebrain.

Beaglebrain,
Should have added that you should check the size of your HD. OS9 won't recognise anything beyond about 190GB.
Michael

External hard drive formatted for Mac, but must access files from PC ASAP!

Hi,
I have a 20G Firefly Smartdisk that is formatted to work with my MacBook (in OSX). The drive contains the only copy of a final paper I have due in just a couple days, and unfortunately, it got left behind at a friend's house 9 hours away. My friend has a PC (running on Windows Vista) and when he plugs the drive into his computer, the computer recognizes the disk but is unable to access any of the files on it. It pops up with a marker detecting it as unreadable and asks if he wants to reformat (which he can't do because I need the files that are currently on the disk.) He says the file type is listed as RAW and it says used space - 0G free space - 0G. Does anyone know of a way to fix this and allow him to access the files? (I'm a recent convert to Mac, and I know when I plugged the disk into my Macbook when it was still formatted for Windows, I was at least able to see the files in read only format, but that does not appear to work in reverse!) Could he possibly have corrupted the disk by trying to access it from his computer?
Please let me know - thanks so much!!

Macdrive (per Templeton's post) should work. All I have to add is that the free/eval version has a 5 days timeout, so he should be able to use it to get your file -- I was experimenting with it just today for a GUID/GPT formatted USB disk. (OT, but related: XP+sp2 was able to recognize, read/write the FAT32 formatted partition on a GPT disk - preMacdrive - which came as a bit of a surprise).

Trying to copy ANY file from my MacBook Pro to an external hard drive spins for 45 minutes then fails. I hate this computer and WISH I never would have wasted my money. Any ideas? WD My Passport 2TB Drive, had to buy a program to make the POS write

Trying to copy ANY file from my MacBook Pro to an external hard drive spins for 45 minutes then fails. I hate this computer and WISH I never would have wasted my money. Any ideas? WD My Passport 2TB Drive, had to buy a program to make the POS read files. Copies that would take seconds from a Windows based machine never complete. I have to close the transfer or shut off the machine half the time. Worst computer I have EVER owned, crashes non-stop, constantly freezes, and seems like EVERY operation is more complicated with this thing. Literally, my 1997 Compaq was FAR MORE reliable and user friendly.

This is one of the messages I keep getting; The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in -- File Whatever -- can’t be read or written.(Error code -36)
I have copied things to the hard drive in the past, but it has always been incredibly slow, and now just seems to freeze and fail

With Time Machine I have an external hard drive formatted with Mac

With Time Machine I have an external hard drive formatted with Mac. The record contained files windows. How to recover?
Serious mistake: to connect a Mac to an external drive with data (important!) Windows, the warning appears: "You want to use the disk for Time Machine?" Wrong button, so in 2-3 seconds, the disk is formatted. Now Mac "sees" the disc but empty, Windows does not see it under "My Computer" but in "Disk Management" is reported as "hard core", "healthy", "GPT protective partition" Is there a way to retrieve the files? Sorry for my English Thanks

I'm having a difficult time following, I understand English isn't your native language. You may have good luck with Google Translate.
Also please read Pondini's Time Machine FAQs & Time Machine Troubleshooting.

I have some stuff i want to put on external hard drive when i drag the file or files it just puts them back

i have some stuff i want to put on external hard drive when i drag the file or files it just puts them back

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.
In this case, you have three possibilities:
1. Install Paragon NTFS. This program allows you to write on NTFS partitions.
2. Copy the hard drive content to your internal disk and format the external disk with Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Do it only if you are going to use the external disk only with OS X.
3. The same as the last one but formatting it with exFAT. This filesystem is compatible with Windows (XP, Vista, 7, 8) and OS X (10.6.5 and newer), so you can write and read files on external disks formatted with it on Windows and OS X, but you may have problems on Linux

Hi, Can anyone recommended software to import dvd to iMovies. I need to import about a dozen homemade DVD's and edit them into a single DVD comprising the 'best bits'. How best can I do this. I have an external hard drive available for the job

Hi, Can anyone recommended software to import dvd to iMovies. I need to import about a dozen homemade DVD's and edit them into a single DVD comprising the 'best bits'. How best can I do this. I have an external hard drive available for the job

You need to convert the VOB files in the TS-Folder of the DVD back to DV which iMovie is designed to handle. For that you need mpegStreamclip:
http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html
which is free, but you must also have the Apple mpeg2 plugin :
http://store.apple.com/us/product/D2187Z/A/quicktime-mpeg-2-playback-component-f or-mac-os-x
(unless you are running Lion in which case see below))
which is a mere $20.
Another possibility is to use DVDxDV:
http://www.dvdxdv.com/NewFolderLookSite/Products/DVDxDV.overview.htm
which costs $25.
For the benefit of others who may read this thread:
Obviously the foregoing only applies to DVDs you have made yourself, or other home-made DVDs that have been given to you. It will NOT work on copy-protected commercial DVDs, which in any case would be illegal.
And from the TOU of these forums:
Keep within the Law
No material may be submitted that is intended to promote or commit an illegal act.
Do not submit software or descriptions of processes that break or otherwise ‘work around’ digital rights management software or hardware. This includes conversations about ‘ripping’ DVDs or working around FairPlay software used on the iTunes Store.
If you are running Lion or later:
From the MPEG Streamclip homepage
The installer of the MPEG-2 Playback Component may refuse to install the component in Lion. Apple states the component is unnecessary in Lion onwards, however MPEG Streamclip still needs it. See this:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3381
To install the component in Lion, please download MPEG Streamclip 1.9.3b7 beta above; inside the disk image you will find the Utility MPEG2 Component Lion: use it to install the MPEG-2 Playback Component in Lion. The original installer's disk image (QuickTimeMPEG2.dmg) is required.
The current versions of MPEG Streamclip cannot take advantage of the built-in MPEG-2 functionality of Lion. For MPEG-2 files you still need to install the QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component, which is not preinstalled in Lion. (The same applies to Mountain Lion even though that has it preinstalled.) You don't have to install QuickTime 7.

External hard drive setup for time machine reading as a virtual cd

Why is my MacBook Pro reading my external hard drive setup for time machine reading as a virtual cd?
Thanks

Hi Christian,
Is this something that has happened from the start? If so, I would reformat the disk and setup TM from scratch again.
Prepare the external HD by connecting to the Mac, open Disk Utility, select the manufacturer’s name of the external HD, select Partition and choose GUID Partition Table, format to Apple OS Extended (Journaled); quit Disk Utility.
Open System Preferences.
Click on Time Machine.
Click on “Select Disk.”
Click just to the left of "On" to turn TM on if it's not already on.
Click on the disk or partition you want to use.
Click on “Use for backup.”
Leave external HD connected, and TM will automatically do its thing.

External Hard Drive Formatting For Cross Platform File Sharing

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