[Hammyzone]

hi folks,

I recently connected my Seagate external Hard Drive to a Mac OS in order to transfer files. The Mac read the drive and put the files okay, but now my PC running XP is saying "drive not formatted, would you like to format now?"

Is there any way I can get my PC to read the drive again? Can I assume the Mac OS will still be able to read it?

In future, am I best partitioning the drive for cross-platform use?

Help Please!!!!!

[johnnyburst79]

I think this is the same basic issue with Ipod's, as both are basically hard drives. Mac and Windows format their drives differently so taking a drive from a Mac to Windows will not work. Windows wants to format in FAT32 which is recognized by both Linux and OS X, however the reverse is not true.

Try this site: www.mediafour.com They may have an option for reading Mac formatted drives.

[Serge_N_Gin]

Originally Posted by Hammyzone

hi folks,

I recently connected my Seagate external Hard Drive to a Mac OS in order to transfer files. The Mac read the drive and put the files okay, but now my PC running XP is saying "drive not formatted, would you like to format now?"

Is there any way I can get my PC to read the drive again? Can I assume the Mac OS will still be able to read it?

In future, am I best partitioning the drive for cross-platform use?

Help Please!!!!!

Adding to the above advice from johnnyburst79, if you have no files over 4 GB in size, just back up the files and format the external drive as FAT32 (Windows/DOS) on the Mac. Then both Windows and the Mac can access the data on the Ext HD.

Here'a a good read on using an Ext HD between Windows and a Mac:

Sharing a FireWire drive between a Mac and a PC

[Hammyzone]

Originally Posted by ilovedonna

Adding to the above advice from johnnyburst79, if you have no files over 4 GB in size, just back up the files and format the external drive as FAT32 (Windows/DOS) on the Mac. Then both Windows and the Mac can access the data on the Ext HD.

Here'a a good read on using an Ext HD between Windows and a Mac:

Sharing a FireWire drive between a Mac and a PC

Thank you. Fortunately, there's only one or two DVD's worth of stuff I don't have backed up elsewhere so I'll just do this on my friend's Mac. It also suggests this formatting method in the manual (which I obviously didn't read beforehand!!)

Do you know if the drive will still be readable by the Mac in its present state? My assumption is that it should still be fine on the Mac regardless of Windows being unable to read it now...

[Hammyzone]

Originally Posted by ilovedonna

Adding to the above advice from johnnyburst79, if you have no files over 4 GB in size, just back up the files and format the external drive as FAT32 (Windows/DOS) on the Mac. Then both Windows and the Mac can access the data on the Ext HD.

Here'a a good read on using an Ext HD between Windows and a Mac:

Sharing a FireWire drive between a Mac and a PC

Thanks for the link, its all coming together! I know what I'm doing now and how to avoid this in future. Ta muchly.

[Serge_N_Gin]

Great! Glad you have it under control Hammyzone ...

[Hammyzone]

Originally Posted by ilovedonna

Great! Glad you have it under control Hammyzone ...

Well, it didn't work after connected once more to a Mac so am currently using a disk recovery program to try salvage the contents. I think the drive's index has been corrupted, most likely due to disconnecting the drive without properly dismounting, so either way I will have to reformat.

In future I wion't bother trying to share between platforms and will make sure I follow the dismount process properly. All of which is new to me and did not realise the importance of beforehand.

Hindsight I think its called.