Hard drive solution

Stainless_Steel

Hi guys, need a hand.

I have an external passport drive (HFS+ format) that I use for my time machine back ups and as a general store for all my media.

Problem is, what if I want to share files with a friend that has a windows pc...the pc wont read the HFS format and I dont want to have to download software for people who want a few tunes off my drive.

Whats the best solution??? Buy a second HD?

Jev/N

Buy a second HDD or create a new partition...either way you'll need to:

Format it FAT32 for both to read with no problems

or

Fotmat as NTFS and download NTFS-3G and MacFuse for the mac to read the drive


It's gonna depend on whether you care about the slight speed difference and if you want files bigger than 4GB on the drive. I have a HDD split HFS+ and NTFS and works perfectly for me for both PC and mac

Stainless_Steel

Jev/N wrote: »

Buy a second HDD or create a new partition...either way you'll need to:

Format it FAT32 for both to read with no problems

or

Fotmat as NTFS and download NTFS-3G and MacFuse for the mac to read the drive


It's gonna depend on whether you care about the slight speed difference and if you want files bigger than 4GB on the drive. I have a HDD split HFS+ and NTFS and works perfectly for me for both PC and mac

Thanks!

So can I use disk utility to add a FAT partition (4GB limit isint an issue) ?

Can I add the FAT partition without deleting anything on the HFS+ partition?

pedantic.pat

High guys,
Sorry if im hijacking this thread SS but i have the sme problem as you i just have one more quick question. When i format my hard drive to fat 32 do i lose everything i had saved on it previously.?(my time machine backups etc.)

Thanks
Pat

J-blk

pedantic.pat wrote: »

When i format my hard drive to fat 32 do i lose everything i had saved on it previously.?(my time machine backups etc.)

Yes, absolutely - formatting a drive completely wipes everything on it.

What you want to do is create a separate partition, like Jev/N suggested - though I don't think Disk Utility can do non-destructive partitioning so if you want to create a new partition without wiping the data, you're going to need third party software.

I'd also second the suggestion that formatting the drive to NTFS is a better idea, as you can easily get write access with NTFS-3G on your Mac and then you don't have stupid file size limitations to deal with. That's what I do with all my external HDDs.

pedantic.pat

Thanks J appreciate it