Need Help With Mac/windows

[akabanu76]

Hi there...
i am trying to hook up an external drive which had been mac formatted into my windows os. My pc managed to install the drivers and stuff but the drive does not appear in my computer. I need this to work bcos i will use this drive for both windows and mac machines. Any idea guys? Please help me out.

 

[Didou]

What do you mean "mac formatted into my windows os" ? If you've formatted the drive in Windows it will either be in FAT32 or NTFS. If you've formatted it in MacOSX it will either be FAT32 or HFS(+).

If you've formatted it in HFS(+), it's normal that Windows sees the drive but not the partition as it does not support that filesystem.

 

[SiMuLaCrUm]

You might have to re format the external... :/

 

[DelJo63]

Windows would normally be NTFS, but supports FAT32

Mac supports HFS+ but also supports FAT32.

As an External device, the natural thing to do is format the device FAT32 and let
all systems play in the sandbox

 

[SNGX1275]

The problem we came across in a thread a few weeks ago (that was an 2004 thread brought back) is that Windows XP won't format over 30 gigs as FAT32. And that if you try and format the external as FAT32 from within OSX Windows will not recognise it.

It may be advantageous to put a 30 gig FAT32 partition on it (format with Windows) then leave the rest NTFS. OS X will read NTFS so you can still access the data, then do any saving from OS X onto the FAT32 partition. Or use something like Partition Magic to format the full drive as FAT32.

Edit: Here is the discussion I was talking about: https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic10486.html

 

[DelJo63]

You can use Win/98se or any Linux for format FAT32 > 32gb

 

[Didou]

I think he's looking for a simple solution jobeard.

 

[DelJo63]

the only thing 'not so simple' is the lack of an available system or friend with same