External Hard Drive Sharing - Mac format works - FAT32 doesn't?

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Level 1

4 points

External Hard Drive Sharing - Mac format works - FAT32 doesn't?

Hello,

I recently upgraded to Lion and since the upgrade the sharing of my FAT32 external hard drive no longer works when connecting from a windows machine. I used to use this external drive as a backup and now I cannot access it. I did attempt to reformat the drive as Mac Journaled and then the drive sharing worked fine but I need this drive to be portable and functional on all OS'.

Can someone please help?

Thanks,

Mathieu

Mac mini (Early 2009), Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on May 2, 2012 9:14 PM

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Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,638 points

May 3, 2012 3:09 PM in response to beausoleil85

Try formatting it on a Windows OS using FAT32, or format it as exFAT so you aren't limited by FAT32's file size limitations.

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Answer 2

beausoleil85 Author

Level 1

4 points

May 3, 2012 5:42 PM in response to Barney-15E

I did that -- I tried to format in FAT32 and exFAT on both the mac and pc. Didn't make a difference. This is extremely frustrating!

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Answer 3

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,638 points

May 3, 2012 6:08 PM in response to beausoleil85

What makes it not "functional?"

When you formatted it in FAT32 on a Windows PC,

could the PC read/write it?

could the Mac read/write it?

Same for exFAT.

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Answer 4

beausoleil85 Author

Level 1

4 points

May 3, 2012 6:13 PM in response to Barney-15E

"not functional" = it is shared by cannot be accessed from the PC -- everything else on the mac can be accessed.

Also, in both of the formats, the mac and pc can both access the files properly if connected via usb.

It seems odd that the upgrade to lion did this -- I am tempted to put snow leopard back on but I just bought lion and this shouldn't be happening!

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Answer 5

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,638 points

May 3, 2012 7:14 PM in response to beausoleil85

Do you mean shared via file sharing, or directly connected.

If it is over a network, Lion changed the SMB protocol it uses to connect to Windows, so that could be what you are experiencing.

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Answer 6

beausoleil85 Author

Level 1

4 points

May 3, 2012 8:45 PM in response to Barney-15E

Hey Barney -- yeah it's over a network -- I had read that the SMB protocol had changed -- but I find it weird I can't find any solutions online -- I'm sure others are having the same issues.

Thanks,

Mathieu

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Answer 7

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,638 points

May 4, 2012 4:55 AM in response to beausoleil85

All of the issues you'd find would be in reference to just connecting to a Windows server or PC, not necessarily accessing an external drive.

I assume you want it in a cross-platform format so that you can disconnect it and use it on a Windows machine. Otherwise, the format is irrelevant.

Have you gone into Sharing and set it up to share out the drive specifically, not just turn on File Sharing.

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Answer 8

beausoleil85 Author

Level 1

4 points

May 12, 2012 7:24 PM in response to Barney-15E

Well it was a samba issue. I found a piece of software called SMBUp and it fixes everything -- runs samba the old way as a service! Wonderful piece of software -- Apple should fix this issue!

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/41541/smbup

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