Can Mac formatted drives work on a pc as well, without re-formatting?

Daraflats

I got a new macbook pro recently...

I back-it up through 'Time Machine' once per week through an external 500GB hard disk.

I also have a PC.

However, i want to use the HD to transfer films etc between both the mac and the pc.

The pc is not recognizing the HD since i formatted it on mac...

Is there any way to format the HD so i can easily use it between both?

I am a beginner, so maybe its easy, but any info would be appreciated! On my brief research, I see a programme called 'MacDrive' helps the process, but this is very expensive!

J-blk

You can't reformat the HD without losing all your data on it. NTFS would be the ideal format to use for sharing the drive between a Windows PC and Mac OS X (FAT32 has certain file size limitations) but that's a moot point since you already have the drive formatted as HFS+ and want to avoid re-formatting.

The only solution I know of is indeed MacDrive. Unless if you can move the data off the HDD temporarily and re-format as NTFS, which will be easier to share in the long run (Mac OS X cannot natively write to NTFS but there are free tools out there to do this).

Daraflats

Thanks J-blk.

Looks like I have no option, but to re-format in NTFS.

Two more questions before i do, which you may be able to help me with:

1. Can 'Time Machine' work through NTFS through the use of one of these free tools?

2. Can you recommend a free tool?

syklops

Use HFS-Explorer to browse a HFS filesystem from windows. Free download form here:

http://hem.bredband.net/catacombae/hfsx.html

No formatting necessary!

Sad Professor

Daraflats wrote: »

1. Can 'Time Machine' work through NTFS through the use of one of these free tools?

No, Time Machine will only work with HFS+.

J-blk

Daraflats wrote: »

1. Can 'Time Machine' work through NTFS through the use of one of these free tools?

Like Sad Professor said, Time Machine will only work with HFS+ - a workaround might be to just create a smaller partition on the drive for moving files around and keep the bigger portion of it as HFS+. However, if the tool Syklops suggested works well, that seems like an ideal solution for you, I wasn't even aware of that one (FWIW, I have used MacDrive and it works very well indeed, but as you mentioned, it's pretty pricey).

Daraflats wrote: »

2. Can you recommend a free tool?

For NTFS write support? All you need is NTFS-3G (you used to have to install MacFuse separately but I believe it's now all bundled):

http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/

NTFS-3G has recently gone commercial as well, but you will find the older free versions on the page above.

Beyond that, I re-read your initial post - if you simply want to share some files from your PC to your Mac, why not do it over the network? Or are the two systems in different physical locations and networks?

Daraflats

syklops wrote: »

Use HFS-Explorer to browse a HFS filesystem from windows. Free download form here:

http://hem.bredband.net/catacombae/hfsx.html

No formatting necessary!

syklops - can i write from the pc onto the hd with this though, or can i only 'extract?

Sad Professor - Cheers!

J-blk - different locations unfortunately!

J-blk

Daraflats wrote: »

J-blk - different locations unfortunately!

Too bad . This is not going to be the complete solution you need (cause you mentioned movies, etc) but for moving smaller stuff around, get a Dropbox account set up on your PC and Mac if you don't already have one, it's excellent (free up to around 2GB of storage).

Otherwise, if the app Syklops suggested does not cover your needs, partitioning will be the only solution I think if you need both PC/Mac sharing of the drive + Time Machine support.

Jev/N

BTW you can't read a TM backup without running it through a Mac, I tried it before on a Windows program and most of the files could not be viewed due to the special formatting

Clanket

Lads I've a query similar to this.

I've recently purchased a 500gb Iomega ego external HD that's pre formatted for a Mac.

here's the link

http://store.apple.com/ie/product/TW883ZM/A/Iomega-500GB-eGo-Portable-Hard-Drive-Mac-Edition?mco=MTY3ODQ5OTY

I've already backed up my Imac using Time Machine.

However, when I plugged it into a Windows 7 pc the hard drive was not recognised.

I was planning on setting up a 100gb partition on it to be able to transfer files between my mac and a pc I also have at home (wifes).

So my question is can I set up this partition in NTFS with the main part of the external drive in FAT32/HFS+?

Also, is it easy enough to remove partitions if I need to at some later stage (if the IMac backup starts to get too big)?

Thanks for any help.

Clanket

Anyone?

Sad Professor

Time Machine will only work with HFS+. So if you want to use TM with it, the main partition on the drive will have to be HFS+. If you want a second partition for use with Windows, you can add one using Disk Utility (under the partitions tab, click on the plus button). You can then format this second partition as FAT32. And, yes, you can remove this partition at a later date if you wish using Disk Utility.

Clanket

Thanks Sad Professor. Your a gent