Which hard drive format for Mac/PC compatibility ?

Hi,
My external hard drive isn't working on my PC, in which format do I have to format the drive in order to use it on my Mac and PC ? And how do I do it ?
Sincerely

Hi,
have a look ahere for explanation of exFAT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT
It's a proprietary file system introduced by Microsoft and intended to be used with flash drives.
Mac OS X can simply not handle it.
My proposal would be to connect the harddisk to your PC and reformat it.
Make sure to use MBR (Master Boot Record) as partition table and FAT32 as file system.
Since Windows only formats drives/partitions smaller than 32GB with FA32, you might have to use a third-party app like this one http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm
*Be aware that reformating the external harddisk will delete everything that is on it right now !*
Regards
Stefan

Similar Messages

  • Hi.have a g5 mac,dual core 2.3 unit.i bought it with no hard drive.have got hard drive,formatted for mac.i am trying to load osx.i get a grey screen with a small box in the centre with 2 character faces,and then grey apple with loading icon spinning.help?

    hi.have a g5 mac,dual core 2.3 unit.i bought it with no hard drive.have got hard drive,formatted for mac.i am trying to load osx.i get a grey screen with a small box in the centre with 2 character faces,and then grey apple with loading icon spinning.nothing is loading tho.

    I see 10.6.3 in your profile---is tthat what you are trying to load? If so, it won't work. No PowerPC Mac like your G5 can run a Mac OS version higher than 10.5.8

  • 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

  • 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 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).

  • 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.

  • Does all external hard drives work for mac?

    I am buying a imac i want to know weather all external hard drives work for mac?

    Not with equal reliability. Avoid Western Digital.
    Most reliable are these:
    http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
    Search their site for various alternatives.

  • Hard drive format for sharing

    I've trying to set up a Mac and PC network using an Airport Extreme Base Station. What hard drive format is supported by both Windows and Mac OS? I'm switching over from a PCs so most my extermal hard drives are NTFS, but it seems that Airport Extreme isn't able to share this format over the network.

    I've found that many people have similar questions, but I still haven't seen the direct answer.
    In particular, I want to know which format is easiest for the Airport Extreme to share over a network, which both PCs and Macs will have access.
    I would like to share my iTunes library over the network, as well as DIVX films, plus I will have InDesign files that I need to work on both on the PC (running Windows 7) and Macs.

  • 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.

  • 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

  • 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.

  • Portable Hard drive formating for use with windows and mac operating system

    Just bought a verbatim sure fire 500g 800 firewire portable hard drive for my new macbook pro. I have not did bootcamp yet because I am deciding on wether to use Vista or the new windows 7 that will be coming out soon. The drive is already formated HFS+, how do I format the drive so I can write both windows and mac files to it. Help!!!

    how do I format the drive so I can write both windows and mac files to it.
    Either format it to MS-DOS from the DIsk Utility, or install a tool such as MacDrive into Windows and keep the drive in its current format, or install the NTFS-3G driver into Mac OS X and format the drive to NTFS in Windows.
    (45687)

  • The best hard drive format for sharing XP and Mac

    Hi, I just bought a external Hard drive and I would like to format it, but I don't know which format to use since I'm going to sharing the hard drive with XP(work) and my iMac(personal). I don want share using USB not network. thanks

    1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
    2. After DU loads select your external hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
    3. Set the number of partitions from the drop down menu one. Set the format type to MS-DOS. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to MBR then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
    The drive should be usable on both a PC and a Mac.

  • 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.

  • Hard drive formatting for OSX and Windows 7 using GUID

    Hey,
    I am currently trying to format a 2TB WD Elements external hard drive so that I can use one half with Time Machine and the other half with Windows 7 (run using Boot Camp). From looking around online it appears that GPT is the best to use, and so using Disk Utility I formatted the hard hard drive into 2 partitions, one being Mac Os Extended (Journaled) and left the other as empty space. I then switched to Windows 7 (on the same machine) and formatted the empty space as NTFS. The problem is that now Windows 7 can see both partitions (and can see the contents of the HFS partition which I didn't think would be possible) but OSX can only see the NTFS partition (and has changed the label of the HFS partition from what I set to "disk0s2" when viewed in Disk Utility). I've probably done something very wrong, can anyone help?
    Cam

    you would have been fine had you set the free space to FAT instead.
    You can read only from Windows to HFS unless you buy 3rd party HFS driver.
    Same for NTFS only reverse.
    You do not need or want to use BC Assistant for that external drive. At. All.

Maybe you are looking for

  • Mega 180 spdif out w/ Linux ALSA

    Has anyone managed to get the spdif output working under Linux ALSA?  I've got analog out working no prob, but I'm getting nothing out on optical. A working .asoundrc  file would be much appreciated. Thanks, Roman

  • Regarding Business Graphics?

    Hi All, i want to creat a chart in WDA.i.e Business Graphics... Can u plz give me Sample tutorials if any . Regards, Ravi

  • HT201269 Is it possible to have a telus carrier on a deactivated phone, and switch it to virgin?

    I currently have a iPhone 4 with virginmobile and I broke the screen. I wanted to put my simcard in that phone to make it work. Unfortunately it is not the same carrier. Is it possible to change the carrier on a phone???

  • Can't change track order in iTunes DJ or get Crossfade to work.

    For some reason, I can't switch the order of my tracks in iTunes DJ. If I click on a track and try to drag it to a new position, it won't work. And Crossfade won't work in DJ. It's fine when I'm playing from my playlists, but it won't work in DJ. I'm

  • Unknown connections

    Hello, Sometimes, OS try to connect to that three adresses: idisk.me.com.akadns.net on port 443 m3.mac.com on port 443 www.mac.com on port 443 configuration.apple.com on port 80 What kind of information OS need to recieve from this servers? What if I