How does Mac OS and Window share external HD?

How is the sharing of an external Hard Drive done with a Mac that has Windows installed?

Could I do something on an application in Windows and save the file to the external HD then use it in Mac OS?

Using Bootcamp.

g725s said:

How is the sharing of an external Hard Drive done with a Mac that has Windows installed?

Could I do something on an application in Windows and save the file to the external HD then use it in Mac OS?

Using Bootcamp.

Click to expand...

I assume you would move the external hdd from one system to the other ...

Yes you can but the external needs to be formatted in a format windows can see. It also needs to be a format that your mac can see ... it can't see NTFS without extra software.

Oops I just realized your using Bootcamp ... I haven't tried that yet, sorry.

Could I do something on an application in Windows and save the file to the external HD then use it in Mac OS?

Click to expand...

Yes. OSX can read/write FAT32 natively, and read NTFS (but not write) natively. Thirdparty tools/add-ons allow you to write to NTFS volumes as well.

Windows machines require thirdparty software to read/write to HFS+ volumes.

The easiest way to get what you want is to use the least common denominator of file systems, FAT32; this way you will be able to read/write from Windows and OSX without the use of thirdparty software add-ons or utilities.

I use my home network to read and write to so if you got a NAS box and put your hdd in there, it should work fine. That's assuming you have a router of course.

wmprice1240 said:

The easiest way to get what you want is to use the least common denominator of file systems, FAT32; this way you will be able to read/write from Windows and OSX without the use of thirdparty software add-ons or utilities.

Click to expand...

But then you wouldn't be able to store files larger than 4Gb.