problem with external HD between OS's

I am having a small problem with my Lacie external hard drive, the problem being that i can use it with my Macbook but it will not work with a windows OS, even though the windows machine detects the hardware it does not appear as a useable disk.

Could this be a problem with the format of the HD, which is currentle set to Mac OS extended (case sensitive, journaled)? i know there is an option to format the disk to just Mac OS extended, but i cannot try this as my macbook hd is full and i have no other means of storing the info that is on the external.

Hopefully one of you guys can help, and if it a case of re-formatting i can then try to borrow an external from somebody.

Thanks in advance!

Its a format problem

HFS+, the mac format is not recorgnised by windows without extra software

FAT 32 (called DOS Format if you format using Disk Utility) will work with both but I think you cannot have any single file over 4 gig on that format

The only other format that the two can share is NTFS, but that would require you to format the disk on a windows PC and then add NTFS support for the mac

Go to the macfuse site and download the package for your os

MacFUSE-Core-10.4-1.5.0.dmg for tiger
MacFUSE-Core-10.5-1.5.1.dmg for leopard

http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/

additionally download the NTFS support from here

http://www.ntfs-3g.org/

this will allow write access to a NTFS drive

Click to expand...

So if you don't have files over 4 gig, go for FAT 32, if you have large files then NTFS will be your best bet

Windows cannot even read the MacOS file system. You have two options:
1) Format the drive FAT32 so that both OS's can access it
2) Format the drive in NTFS in Windows and get/buy an NTFS driver for MacOS so Mac can access the drive.

<louishen beat me to it>

That's cool bubba, good advice

BTW, MacFuse is open source so you get NTFS support for free

To the OP:

One solution everyone forgot to mention....

You can read and write to HFS+ from Windows using MacDrive 7.0. Go here for information and pricing:

http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/

This may be easier since it does not require re-formatting the external LaCie HD to FAT-32 or NTFS. Re-formatting the drive will destroy all the data on it which means you would have to backup everything before.

Give MacDrive a try.

Regards.

Cheers guys looks like i will be going for the FAT32 route as soon as i can find somebody with enough free time and space on their mac for me to back up my files to so i can format the external.

Cheers once again you guys have helped me solve a problem that has been driving me crazy for like 2 weeks!