Jump to content

Welcome to Geeks to Go - Register now for FREE

Need help with your computer or device? Want to learn new tech skills? You're in the right place!
Geeks to Go is a friendly community of tech experts who can solve any problem you have. Just create a free account and post your question. Our volunteers will reply quickly and guide you through the steps. Don't let tech troubles stop you. Join Geeks to Go now and get the support you need!

How it Works Create Account
Photo

External Hard Drive with MAC and PC


  • Please log in to reply

#1
hospitaldoctor

hospitaldoctor

    Member

  • Member
  • PipPipPip
  • 318 posts
I placed my old Dell hard drive in a external hard drive case (Rosewill). I now have a MACBOOK Pro and I would like to put data on the external hard drive using my macbook, however, it says that it is only Read Me and it needs to be formatted to do so. Thus, I will lose all my previous information on the external harder drive by doing so. I cannot add data on the external HD using my MAC right now.....
Is there a way where I can STILL keep the current information and still be able to transfer information between the MAC and PC without losing the data on the external hard drive?
I want to put some data on the external using the macbook pro and then transfer it to a PC and vice versa....
What steps do I need to take please?
Thanks
  • 0

Advertisements


#2
Neil Jones

Neil Jones

    Member 5k

  • Member
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • 8,476 posts
Copy the data off onto the PC.

Connect it back to the MAC and format it FAT32.

Connect it back to the PC, and copy the data back.

Macs cannot read NTFS formatted drives.
  • 0

#3
Kemasa

Kemasa

    Nobody

  • Technician
  • 1,727 posts
Actually, it is possible to read and write NTFS on a Mac, although there are also reports that it can be an issue, at least for the OS version:

http://www.ntfsonmac.com/

I found this with a quick search. There might be other packages as well.

If you want to transfer a fairly small amount of data, you might want to consider a thumbdrive or memory card. The prices for 16Gb models seem to have dropped.

Otherwise, saving the data and reformatting it would work.
  • 0

#4
hospitaldoctor

hospitaldoctor

    Member

  • Topic Starter
  • Member
  • PipPipPip
  • 318 posts
How do I format it exactly? What steps do I take?
Once I format it, I will be able to transfer data back and forth from the MAC to the PC and vice versa?
  • 0

#5
Kemasa

Kemasa

    Nobody

  • Technician
  • 1,727 posts
Once you backup the data, you can format it and instead of NTFS, use FAT32 (which has limits on size) for the type of filesystem. You should be able to do this from the Mac or Windoze. Then once you have a common FS which works on both, you can transfer data.

You could also transfer data through the network.
  • 0

#6
hospitaldoctor

hospitaldoctor

    Member

  • Topic Starter
  • Member
  • PipPipPip
  • 318 posts
Could you please be more specific? HOW do I format it with FAT32? What steps do I take exactly? Limit on size? I need more than 32GB...
How do you transfer through the network?
thanks

Edited by hospitaldoctor, 12 March 2012 - 07:53 PM.

  • 0

#7
hospitaldoctor

hospitaldoctor

    Member

  • Topic Starter
  • Member
  • PipPipPip
  • 318 posts
?
  • 0

#8
Kemasa

Kemasa

    Nobody

  • Technician
  • 1,727 posts
To format the drive, you can go to "my computer" on your PC and right click and select format. There will be a list of options, one of which is the file system, which you select FAT32 instead of NTFS. I would also assume that the Mac is similar.


To transfer files through the network you would use a program like ftp or the secure copy scp. There is a bit more to setup, but then you don't have to use a disk to do the transfer.
  • 0

#9
hospitaldoctor

hospitaldoctor

    Member

  • Topic Starter
  • Member
  • PipPipPip
  • 318 posts
what do you mean by limit on size?
what size??
  • 0

#10
Kemasa

Kemasa

    Nobody

  • Technician
  • 1,727 posts
FAT32 is older and due to that, with the disks that were available at the time, it can not create a filesystem larger than 32Gb.

Please see:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184006
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314463

Depending on your disk and OS, will determine if this is an issue for you.
  • 0

Advertisements


#11
hospitaldoctor

hospitaldoctor

    Member

  • Topic Starter
  • Member
  • PipPipPip
  • 318 posts
I need more than 32GB of space on my hard drive though...
what do you mean by file system?
im confused
Can I still put more than 32GB of data on my HD?
Thanks

Edited by hospitaldoctor, 13 March 2012 - 11:18 AM.

  • 0

#12
Kemasa

Kemasa

    Nobody

  • Technician
  • 1,727 posts
The filesystem is what allows you to put files on the disk. You can create multiple partitions, but there is the size limit of 32Gb for a FAT32 partition. You could create one FAT32 partition for transferring between the two systems and then split the remainder between a Mac filesystem and a NTFS filesystem.

This might be more than you want to read or know:

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Filesystem
  • 0

#13
hospitaldoctor

hospitaldoctor

    Member

  • Topic Starter
  • Member
  • PipPipPip
  • 318 posts
Ok so could you please explain how I could do those partitions? what steps do I take to create multiple partitions?
What is each one for?
  • 0

#14
Kemasa

Kemasa

    Nobody

  • Technician
  • 1,727 posts
Microsoft has instructions on how to create partitions:

http://windows.micro...-disk-partition

You need to decide how you want to use the disk. You can create a partition which can be used with Windoze, but is not usable by default with the Mac, as well as the opposite. The common filesystem is FAT32, but it has a size limit.

This means you need to divide up the disk depending on how you want to use it. You could just use it on one system and get a thumbdrive to transfer data.
  • 0

#15
hospitaldoctor

hospitaldoctor

    Member

  • Topic Starter
  • Member
  • PipPipPip
  • 318 posts
Sorry, I am confused, what are my options exactly?
I explained how I want to use my hard drive... I would like to transfer data from my Mac to my PC and vice versa... so transfer data from the MAC to PC and also transfer data from the PC to the MAC
so I want to consistently exchange data between the two computers... is this possible? how?
Thanks
  • 0






Similar Topics

0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users

As Featured On:

Microsoft Yahoo BBC MSN PC Magazine Washington Post HP