Does Windows XP support Mac file systems?

[Rick]

A customer asked me to have her data recovered from a floppy disk today.

I had no problems reading the directory structure in Windows XP, although the files didn't open properly... But I found some very interesting files such as "finder.dat" and a few other things that gave this away as being Mac formatted.

Under that assumption, I popped it into a G4 machine - Read it perfectly.

I was able to open documents in word pad under Windows XP. They lost their formatting, but I could still read the files.

Does this mean Windows XP can read UFS, Mac Extended (etc..) drive partitions?

I've never had a reason to, but this is useful knowledge to me if anyone knows.

 

[LNCPapa]

Macs can read FAT and FAT32 partitions with no problem. Also, if a Mac accesses a share (even a windows share via a cifs mount or an smb mount) and it has read/write permissions it will create a couple of .* hidden files in each folder that you traverse.

As a quick test - take a PC formatted ZIP disc with PC data on it and throw it in a Mac - it'll read just fine.

 

[dani_17]

Actually you are reading backwards LNCPapa.... Rick wants to know if windows xp can read a mac partition, not if mac can read a fat one. I'm totally out of my knowledge if I talk about Mac's... so I'll leave the answer to anyone else

 

[LNCPapa]

Oh yeah! Oops!. Well it definitely should NOT be able to read HFS, HFS+, or UFS formats. Dunno why it worked for you if it was formatted that way. There is always the chance that the user formatted the disc for windows for compatibility reasons - for instance, they work with Word on both the PC and Mac and want to be able to move the files back and forth (not over the network of course.)

 

[conradguerrero]

lol Mac is linking to Mac cosmetics lololol

 

[SNGX1275]

Yeh papa is right. What happened is she has a PC formatted floppy that was used on a Mac, Macs read pc formatted floppys fine, just not the other way around.