10-21-2009, 12:03 PM

So I have a desktop PC (Windows XP) and a Macbook Pro. I want to get a external hard drive, so I can move files back and fourth. Most likely will be just music, movies, pictures, word documents, and some install files like for example; nvidia video card drivers for my pc so I wouldn't have to re-download the drivers from the site- just want to be able to click and install from the external hard drive, and same with the macbook.

So pretty much I want 1 external hard drive to hold both my pc and macbook files. (getting sick of burning music and movies onto a DVD data disk everytime I reformat).

Thanks.

10-21-2009, 12:09 PM

Use Fat32 or you could also use NTFS if you used something like this on the Mac. I would use NTFS:

Paragon NTFS for MAC® OS X - communication channel between MAC® OS X and Windows

10-22-2009, 12:10 PM

So I bought a WD My Passport Essential 320gb external hard drive today. It comes with "WD SmartWare software", can I just delete this software, I don't like it that much. I just want to drag and drop files into the hd.

Also I just noticed my DVD player has a USB PORT! But I don't think it reads NTFS format... Will formatting my ext. hd to FAT32 be "unreliable" or what's the cons? There's some people who say FAT32 get corrupted easily blah blah.

Thanks.

edit: found out how to remove WD SmartWare software.

10-22-2009, 08:39 PM

If you format that drive to FAT-32 you will be limited to a single file size of around 4 GB. That means you will be unable to store movies or large videos to the drive. Either leave it NTFS or format it to HFS+. Of course either way you will need a third party driver to be able to use it both for your PC and Mac.

You didn't say which OS X you're using... Snow Leopard has a built in capability to read and write to NTFS but it's not turned on by default. It must be turned on via a Terminal command or another application called "ntfsMounter".

Regards.