Can Powerbk detect PC HDD?

Hey guys, i'm new to Mac, ( in fact VERY NEW just a couple of mth ) and err, because ive got this super drive, i'd like to knoe if powerbks can read hdd from pc?

I've got this pc hdd taken out from casing and placed in this USB deck thingy. and i was hoping to conect it to powerbk to burn data ffiles into DVD as backup.
Is that possible?

lunacy said:

Hey guys, i'm new to Mac, ( in fact VERY NEW just a couple of mth ) and err, because ive got this super drive, i'd like to knoe if powerbks can read hdd from pc?

I've got this pc hdd taken out from casing and placed in this USB deck thingy. and i was hoping to conect it to powerbk to burn data ffiles into DVD as backup.
Is that possible?

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If I understand this right. You have placed a PC formatted drive in an USB enclosure. Assuming an USB 1.2 connection, you should be able to connect the enclosure to the USB port. And if you are lucky the Mac should see the drive. It would not hurt to try.

rman said:

If I understand this right. You have placed a PC formatted drive in an USB enclosure. Assuming an USB 1.2 connection, you should be able to connect the enclosure to the USB port. And if you are lucky the Mac should see the drive. It would not hurt to try.

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Hi,
Thanks but erm im not very familiar wif the tech terms here (sorry ^^:,
Do u mean that Mac does not use usb 2.0?
cus i think most decks are using usb 2.0 or smth

The older Macs use USB 1.2. I am not sure which Mac has USB 2.0. Which Mac do you have?

rman said:

The older Macs use USB 1.2. I am not sure which Mac has USB 2.0. Which Mac do you have?

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theoretically none of the macs have USB 2 yet. But the G5 and the newer G4s seem to be able to support it with a software update.

Well, shouldn't any USB beable to use it, just not at the same bandwidth.. I often see USB 2.0 working with 1.2 ports... cables you can buy at cheap-mart are all 2.0 with 1.2 supported...

Graphite said:

Well, shouldn't any USB beable to use it, just not at the same bandwidth.. I often see USB 2.0 working with 1.2 ports... cables you can buy at cheap-mart are all 2.0 with 1.2 supported...

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yeah i forgot about that, USB should be backward compatible, unlike firewire.

To answer the original question, yep Mac will see external PC hard drive if fitted into a USB cradle. - As far as the hardware goes, they're nearly all the same thing anyway. Standard common or garden IDE drives.

There is supposed to be a MAC USB 2 implementation in the G5, but it does need software patches, as Apple seem to have messed it up a bit. (Not an anti Mac comment here! To me a computer's a computer)

Tim

Supposedly yes. 'cause the new G4 PowerBooks should be able to read both the NTSF and FAT32 formats of PC harddisk. However, I've read it somewhere that they're only able to write to FAT32 and not NTSF.