01-20-2011, 03:58 PM

I have a new 2T external HDD and am finding out, apparently like everyone else, that if I back up to it on my Mac, I won't be able to read it on a Windows system later. Since the purpose of spending the bucks for backup IS to have access to one's files, this worries me!

So..........IS there a remedy?

Should we be backing up to DVDs instead? Would that solve the problem of going from Mac to Windows & vice versa? I'm not sure that's even plausible, not with all the music and photo files we have nowadays.

01-20-2011, 08:13 PM

If you're using a 2 TB drive to backup to from your Mac, why would you need or have occasion to read the files from it with your PC?

Now, if you want to use that 2 TB drive for both your Mac and Windows PC you can partition it into two partitions: 1 partition formatted as HFS+ for Time Machine backups and the other formatted to FAT-32 for common data.

BTW, I like your avatar symbol. (Menorah, Star of David, Fish)

01-26-2011, 02:38 PM

Thanks on all counts! You can copy the symbol from my blog if you like: Bible Apologetic



BTW, am merely making sure everything I back up on Mac can be read on Windows if need be, otherwise illegible backups are a waste of time

01-26-2011, 02:43 PM

Thanks. I just bookmarked the site.