external hard drive to use between mac and pc

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Level 1

0 points

external hard drive to use between mac and pc

Is it possible to have an external hard drive and connect it to both of my computers (emac and a pc)? I would like to access information from both computers.

Emac
10.3.9
1.25 ghz
1g ram

PC
Vista
2g ram
Duo core 2

emac, Mac OS X (10.3.x), 1.25 Ghz

Posted on Jan 4, 2008 2:13 PM

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Answer 1

dolbinau

Level 4

1,440 points

Jan 4, 2008 2:37 PM in response to Tara Young

If your hard drive is formatted using the Fat32 file system (Not NTFS) then you will be able to read and write files using the drive on both systems. OS X can read but not write to NTFS volumes.

You can format the drive correctly using Windows or from Apple's disk utility using the MS-DOS (FAT) Option.

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Answer 2

Tara Young Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 4, 2008 2:43 PM in response to Tara Young

Thank you. I am new to the Mac world but as a designer I need to be flexible.

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Answer 3

JMVP

Level 6

16,845 points

Jan 6, 2008 11:56 AM in response to Tara Young

You'd likely find it worthwhile to purchase MacDrive for the PC; that will make the drive faster (especially on the Mac) and will alleviate the need for any tricks formatting a large drive as FAT32. (Also very handy for using an iPod with both Mac and PC.)

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Answer 4

Mar 1, 2008 6:25 PM in response to JMVP

I'm going to be using a mac for storing/ editing video but the data at some point will need to be viewed on a pc.

1- Does that mean that before I use an external hard drive on my mac it has to be formatted using "mac drive" on the pc?

2- What is a good external hard drive that has a proven track record of being sucessful in both platforms.

Thanks!

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