Why won't my newly formatted MS-DOS(Fat) Hard drive work on my windows computer?

I just bought a Macbook Pro. I understood that to make my old hard drive work with the Mac, I needed to format it to MS-DOS(fat). I also understood that this format was supposed to allow it to work in windows as well. However, after formatting to MS-DOS(fat), my hard drive will no longer become visible on my windows laptop. It makes a noise when I plug it in or take it out, but nothing pops up, and while I am able to find my hard drive in the management section - I am unable to edit it in any way except for disabling it. I cannot access any files. This is problematic for me as the computers used at university are not Macsle
Can anyone please help me?

If I were you, I'd format the drive on the Windows side as NTFS. Then use the $20 Paragon NTFS software to be able to read and write to the volume.
Clinton

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