Format for a Mac vs PC

Hi,
I have never asked this before but I would like to have a betterunderstanding, I have seen this a lot, when you buy a new external hard drive that says “ready formatted for mac”or in some tutorials on the internet they recommend ... “format for Mac before you use your new HD ” and I have noticed that in some cases I have not formatted my new external HDs and they just worked, so I was wondering what’s the difference between a formatted HD for PC vs Mac.
Can some explain the differance between a formatted HD for PC vs Mac or direct me to where I can find some info about formatting types?
Does this mean that I cannot use the same hard drive for both a PC and Mac? In otherwords this means that I cannot switch a HD back and forward between a PC and a Mac? I haven’t tried this since I’m afraid to corrupt the files other HD itself but it would be nice to know if this is possible.
Can some explain a little bit about the different format types?
Thanks

Mac uses a filing system called HFS+ [Hierarchical Filing System Extended] for writing files to a drive. Windows uses a filing system called NTFS [New Technology Filing System]. The older Windows system was FAT(32) [File Attribution Table-- 32-bit]. Mac can read and write to HFS+ and FAT32 but can read only from NTFS (without third-party plug-ins). Most commercially-available external drives are formatted so that Windows users can put the drives into service without any preparation for their machines; this means that most drives from BestBuy etc are formatted FAT32, which creates no problems for general usage with a Mac. In order to use such a drive for Time Machine you would have to re-format to HFS+. That is the message you would get if you decided to use such a drive for Mac backup. The Time Machine process would happily do that for you to prepare the drive. However, it is possible to do that hands-on yourself by using Disk Utility. When a drive isuch as a LaCie or G-Tech is purchased from an Apple Store or Apple Reseller the drive is already formatted HFS+ for Mac users which is why the box label would read that it is ready for Mac (but not for Windows!).
As a rule of thumb, I clean a drive before I ever begin to write files to it by using Disk Utility to erase and format. That way the drive is doulble-checked for bad sectors before use where your important files will be stored. If you have already written files to a drive then it cannot be re-formatted without wiping it clean because the allotment sectors have to be prepared on an empty drive. Don't be confused about partitioning since a drive already formatted in HFS+ using the GUID Partition Table can be partitioned 'on the fly' (so to speak) without erasing the files.

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