Sharing an external hard drive with a PC

Hello. I am still using a 2005 PPC iMac running Tiger. My photos are stored in Aperture and Lightroom 2, however they are all stored on my computer's hard drive. I want to remove them from my computer and store them on an external hard drive instead.
My flat mate has a Windows based PC laptop and also has stuff he wants to store on an external hard drive. We were thinking about going halves and getting a Western Digital 2TB hard drive and sharing it.
I understand that the hard drives can be shared for both formats using FAT32, although I am aware there are file size limits and data corruption is very possible, so I will be avoiding that. I have read that it can also be done using NTFS for a PC and downloading NTFS-3G for use with the Mac so both formats can read and write to the hard drive.
My question is this; how will this affect my Lightroom library? Is it even possible to store a Mac based Lightroom Library on an external hard drive that has PC files on it. Or is it safer to not bother sharing a hard drive and getting individual ones?

Fancy an Apple? wrote:
Hello. I am still using a 2005 PPC iMac running Tiger. My photos are stored in Aperture and Lightroom 2, however they are all stored on my computer's hard drive. I want to remove them from my computer and store them on an external hard drive instead.
My flat mate has a Windows based PC laptop and also has stuff he wants to store on an external hard drive. We were thinking about going halves and getting a Western Digital 2TB hard drive and sharing it.
I understand that the hard drives can be shared for both formats using FAT32, although I am aware there are file size limits and data corruption is very possible, so I will be avoiding that. I have read that it can also be done using NTFS for a PC and downloading NTFS-3G for use with the Mac so both formats can read and write to the hard drive.
My question is this; how will this affect my Lightroom library? Is it even possible to store a Mac based Lightroom Library on an external hard drive that has PC files on it. Or is it safer to not bother sharing a hard drive and getting individual ones?
If you are so concerned about data corruption that a 25 year old well tried file system is too risky, what makes you think that a relatively untried, free 3rd party addition is even going to be as safe?
Maybe you should rethink this.

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Using the same external hard drive with two computers

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As Kappy says, Time Machine will put both sets of backups in the same Backups.backupdb folder. That may not be a good idea for the future; your best bet may be to partition the drive.
See #4 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

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Results of my enquiries at Apple Genius Bar .. the guys found the problem interesting. They've been unable to provide a fix neither to give any explanation as to the reason why. To be fair I was not much impressed by the technical level demonstrated ..
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Sorry it's all done through iTunes.
The following article(s) may help you with home sharing.
Troubleshooting Home Sharing
Troubleshooting Wi-Fi networks and connections
Recommended Wi-Fi settings
Wifi Diagnostic Software (for Mac users)
You may also find some help on this page, where I’ve collected some of the more unusual solutions to network issues.

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If you mean an AirPort base station other than the Time Capsule, it doesn't have internal storage.
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Sharing an external hard drive with a PC

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