HD format for mac & PC

Gilbretto

Gilbretto

Gilbretto

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Hello,

I tried to take data off a mac the other day using my external HD and it would read the data but not write to it.

Just wondering how i should format it so that i can use it on both PC and Mac.

The biggest file i need to take off the mac is over 4 gigs. (if that makes any difference).

Thanks,

Gil.
 
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Gilbretto, check the privileges on the removable drive.

There shouldn't be any reason why it can't copy across or vice versa.

All external drives are Fat formatted unless noted otherwise so should be read by all OS's confortably.

Mac's can read NTFS as well, but if you're going to take the opportunity to format, then just format it as FAT from with the mac's Disc Utility, it's a lot more powerful and versatile than the windows one.
 
FAT32 is limited to 4GB file sizes. so if you've got anythign bigger (which you say you do in the OP) you wont be able to use this
your best option is to try some of the mac ntfs tools (never used them so cant comment on how well they work)
 
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you're right Vertica, but Mac's will format greater than 32GB, it's only windows which sees that limit.

Mac OS X has a unix core, and therefore a lot more versatile when it comes to these things.

When I changed from a laptop to a desktop, I chucked my hard drive into a cradle and formatted it as FAT through the MAC, and that was 80GB, I've moved files bigger than 4GB onto it and off it.

Should that fail, yes, try formatting as NTFS, but I'd be very surprised if you needed go down that route. If you do, then again, disc utility will let you do it with typical apple ease.
 
sev said:
Gilbretto, check the privileges on the removable drive.

There shouldn't be any reason why it can't copy across or vice versa.

All external drives are Fat formatted unless noted otherwise so should be read by all OS's confortably.

Mac's can read NTFS as well, but if you're going to take the opportunity to format, then just format it as FAT from with the mac's Disc Utility, it's a lot more powerful and versatile than the windows one.
Click to expand...

bad advice...

1. most drives are formatted fat32, not fat.
2. fat32 is limited to 4gb file sizes


also windows can create partitions bigger than 32gb in fat32, but it removes the GUI option to do this, because NTFS is superior
 
bledd, on the Apple Disc Utility the formatting option is Just FAT and will cope with any volume or file size, rather than differentiating between FAT16/32.

You are quite right of course regarding the limitations of 32.

Put it this way, the volume I mentioned, I formatted 5 years ago as a 'fat' volume on my mac.

Last week I used it to backup a 52GB disc image of my W7 system without a problem.

That's why I advised to use the Disc Utility within the MAC OS to do the format.

HOWEVER, since mac OS will happily read an NTFS volume as well, it may as well be safer to format as NTFS.

Unix has never had the restrictions on the FAT format that windows has had, thus we never really had the differentiation as mac users, for us, FAT was just an interchangeable volume format.

Gilbretto, I take back what I said, format as NTFS, it'll be safer for you in the long run based on what bledd has said.
 
you win, I'll wear that one!

After a lot of titting with my own drive and mac, here goes:


Mac OS X includes support for mounting NTFS volumes as read only. So, you could copy files from the PC (Windows XP, Vista and Windows Server all use it as their native format) and then mount it on your Mac and copy away with the added benefit of the 4GB limit imposed by a FAT32 formatted volume being eliminated.

I've just checked the properties of my removable and I did format it as NTFS not fat!
I suppose i've never noticed as I've got the two networked together and transfered files that way!

Gilbretto, sorry for the misinformation!
 
ntfs support on unix is certainly hit and miss, I wouldn't put great faith in mac doing it any better. I'd suggest using unrar to break the larger files up in order to fit them onto the fat32 volume. fat32 is as universal as you could ask for.

edit: what happened to fat64?
 
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