Can I format my hard drive to use in mac without deleting the files

I have a 1TB external hard drive that I used with my windows laptop, now I noticed that I cant write to it through my macbook

I there a way to format my hard drive without deleting the files already in it. and after formatting it would I be able to use the drive in windows

Thanks

It must be formatted as NTFS

If you want it to have read write access in both windows and mac then either reformat it as FAT32 or install MacFuse to allow write access in OSX

macfuse - The Easiest and Fastest Way to Create File Systems for Mac OS X - Google Project Hosting

When you format a drive you erase it.
You probably have the drive formatted to NTFS which can only be read by a Mac.

Formatting destroys data, so no. If you wish to use that 1 TB drive both for Windows and Mac OS X, the best solution may be to install a driver on your Mac that will enable read and write access to the 1 TB drive.

Here's one that I and other folks recommend: Paragon NTFS $19.95

There is also a free alternative: NTFS - 3G. Note, however, that this particular driver has been known to cause data corruption and is somewhat unstable. Use at your own risk.

louishen I installed the software you recommended but I have no idea how to use it

I will try the Paragon ntfs - as I new mac user I hope is not hard to use

thanks

The software simply allows you to write to an NTFS drive, so you dont see anything. I would choose either Paragon ntfs or MacFuse but not run both

chscag - Thanks a lot paragon works perfectly