Western Digital Passport External HDs?

Could I save a buncha stuff from a mac onto a Western Digital Passport external hard drive, and then later put it onto a PC?

What I want to do is save EVERYTHING on my mac onto an external HD in case anything happens to my computer, and put stuff on there that I can't fit onto my computer's hard drive.

I have 2 more years left on my warranty, so if anything happens within the next couple years I'd be able to get it fixed. BUT, if it took a long time to fix, I would need to be able to get my important school files onto my other computer, which is a PC, so I could get my stuff in on time and everything.

Plus if my laptop gets screwed up after the warranty is up, I want to be able to get everything onto my PC because I don't know when I'd be able to afford another mac.


I was gonna get a regular Western Digital hard drive and not a portable one, but the 250 gb wd passport is on sale at Best Buy for $99 so I'm thinking about getting that one.

I'm just confused about how I would need to format it to get it to work on both a PC and Mac, and if that's even possible??

Oh and do any of you know if the wd passports work with macbooks without a separate adapter thing?

Pretty much any external hard disk with a USB interface would suit your purpose. The WD Passport fits the bill.

You're best off formatting it as FAT32 to ensure best compatibility between mac and PC as OS X and windows can both natively read&write to it. The biggest limitation being that no single file can be bigger than 4gb.

any ideas why files saved on a fat 32 WD passport from an imac would appear greyed out and inaccessible on a windows xp pc??