Q: Mac OS recognizes NTFS as ExFAT
I have an external 2Tb HD with two partitions one for Time Machine and another for Windows, formatted as NTFS. However my MacBook recognizes the latter as ExFAT, shows only "System Volume Information" and "$RECYCLE.BIN", but not other files I wrote in Windows, and allows writing on the partition as ExFAT! At the same time when I boot in Windows 10, it shows the partition as NTFS and does not show system files (".Spotlight-V100", ".Trashes", and ".fseventsd"), written by Mac OS. This looks weird and I think Mac OS damages my data on NTFS partition.
I have the latest version of El Capitan 10.11.3 and Windows 10.
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2), Windows 10 in BOOTCAMP
Posted on Feb 11, 2016 5:26 PM
So I identified the problem. Here are the steps to reproduce.
1) I used DiskUtility to partition the disk.
2) When creating a partition for Windows, I choose ExFAT format.
3) After rebooting in Windows, I deleted the partition and re-created it with Windows Disk Manager and formatted with NTFS.
4) Back in OSX however it still recognized it as ExFAT.
To solve the problem, I re-created the partition with DiskUtility in OSX, but choose "OS X Extended (Journaled)" format in step #2. Then after I rebooted in OSX in step #4, it correctly identified the volume as NTFS.
This is a serious bug in OSX. If I had not noticed it, it could have cost me entire Windows backup data.
Posted on Feb 12, 2016 1:29 AM