External HD Not recognized on XP

[Lost_Lady]

Hey everyone,

I'm new to the external hard drive, so I apologize in advance if this seems too simple for some.

I have a WD external HD 1tb I recently bought and am testing it out, but am having problems. I "tested" it last night and transferred a music file from my XP laptop to the external, then opened on the MBP and worked great! Next, I decided to backup with time machine, and that worked great! All files backed up fine. Now, As I try to transfer the rest of my files from my XP to external and open on MBP, it doesn't work.

The XP recognizes the external as "USB connected" in the bottom right, but when I open "My Computer" I get no icon for the external drive....All files are still recognizable on the Mac, but I get nothing on the XP. Any suggestions?

 

[chscag]

With the new 1 TB drive attached to your MBP, go to "Applications", Utilities, and select "Disk Utility". Highlight the 1 TB drive. What format is it using?

Sounds like it may be formatted to HFS+ (Mac format). (It probably is since you used Time Machine to back up to it.) If it is, your XP machine will be unable to "see" it or mount it without special software.

What I think happened..... When you used Time Machine to back up to the new drive, it formatted the drive to HFS+ which is the only format that works with Time Machine.

Regards.