Newbie To Mac's - Need Help W/ Hard Drive Question!!

Hi All:
I recently got a hand me down Powerbook G4 12' 867mhz from my brother, and I'm totally lost on the correct formatting required for my external hard drive (180 GB) to be read correctly by both Windows XP and MAC OS X 10.2.8.
Is it true that Mac OS can read FAT 32 formatted drives? Currently my hard drive is NTFS format..please advise on how to go about doing this> I'm also having problems reading my DVD backups (Photos) on my prowerbook..keeps saying its not recognizable.
Thanks in advance

I dont know if 10.2 can write to FAT 32 but i know it can read it. Panther and Tiger i KNOW can write to FAT 32.

Your best bet is to let Windows format the drive. the Mac will read FAT 32, but Windows is pickier about the format than the Mac is.

baggss said:

Your best bet is to let Windows format the drive. the Mac will read FAT 32, but Windows is pickier about the format than the Mac is.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips. although, I was able to format the drive in OS X. (XP did not give me an option to format that HD into FAT 32..strange).but, the problem now is that it only recognizes it as a 128 GB HD instead of the 180 GB..any thoughts on this?
Thanks

Maybe you only formated a 128 GB partition instead of the whole 180 GB. Try formating it again.

Is this a USB or FireWire external Drive? I suspect it has to do with the controller for the external drive and is most likely a limitation of the iBook itself.

Its a USB external. Also, I tried to change the size during formatting, but it wouldn't let me. I know that HD's of 150 GB and more are recognized in Win Xp after the SP's are installed. Perhaps, upgrading to Tiger will sort this out?
Thanks for the help guys.

I'm not sure Tiger will help. I still think it may be a limitation on the machine itself.

My Ibook see's me 250gb external firewire drive just fine ... try doing the format again and check that you select the maximum size you can have ... I think it might actually be a limitation of the FAT32 system itself thats preventing it from been seen as larger than 128gb ... just do a google on it

d-funct said:

My Ibook see's me 250gb external firewire drive just fine ... try doing the format again and check that you select the maximum size you can have ... I think it might actually be a limitation of the FAT32 system itself thats preventing it from been seen as larger than 128gb ... just do a google on it

Click to expand...

Thanks..I'll give it a try tonight.