sharing an external HD between mac/win

i just recently purchased a 250gb HD, and for some reason was completely oblivious to the fact that they read/write to different formats. Is there anyway that I can just easily swap usb to usb?

Format the drive as FAT32 as both your Mac and PC and read and write to that or format it as HFS+ and buy a copy of MacDrive for your PC.

I'd go with the later as it's more secure and efficient

HTH

doesnt fat32 only support 32gb partitions at a time or something? and files above 4gbs cant be created. or was someone pulling my leg?

There is no partition size limit that I am aware of, but there is a file size limit. I *think* it is 2 Gb.

By the way, Peakoverload has good advice - use HFS+ and get MacDrive for your PC. HFS+ is a much better file system - it supports file ownership and permissions (important security considerations) AND it is journalled, making it far more resistant to corruption caused by things like sudden power failures, and faster to auto recover from any corruption that may occur due to other causes. Plus of course, it is the best supported file system on the Mac!

maanico1 said:

doesnt fat32 only support 32gb partitions at a time or something? and files above 4gbs cant be created. or was someone pulling my leg?

Click to expand...

Formatting a drive to FAT32 under Windows will only let you go up to 32gb.. That's why you need a program like Partition Magic to format the entire thing.

The drive will certainly do more. I am presently doing a backup of my work PC onto a USB external FAT32 drive which is 80 GB. Not sure where I formatted it though!