80 GIG external drive help?

hey guys i recently switched from PC to MAC thank god!

and i was using a usb external drive for back up ect with my pc..

i cant seem to acccess it obviouslly when i plug it into my mac?

i wanted to know how if i could format it so i can use it ect..?

also, i brought a PowerBook 15" 1.5ghz and i was wondering if there was a hdd case or something of the sort i could use firewire with..

i only brought a Powerbook 15" instead of a new mac book cause i wanted the firewire 800 port lol

so i was hopeing someone could help me use it lol


cheers,

ben

Well I can tell you right now that your Mac cannot access the external drive possibly because it may be formatted in NTFS, which only Windows can read and write too. You want to format the drive to FAT32, which both Mac and Windows will be able to read/write to.

oh ok..

so just throw it in my windows pc and format it then it should be ok?

i hope so ive tried to transfer gigs and gigs of stuff over lol and ive had to start doing it by cd lol

You could try and use disk utility to reformat it. That way you wouldnt have to take it back to the PC. Im not at my mac at the moment, so Im not 100% sure if it would work. Anyway, yeah FAT32 would be good to use for both operating systems...

even it it were ntfs it should mount. you just would not be able to edit or delete files on the drive.

are you sure it's not showing up in finder or on your desktop?

yeah its not showing up anywhere

but ill go home and try and format it with my pc..

is there a way i can buy axternal cases that are firewire?

its just a hdd/external case in a 3.5" casing..

im excited about the use of firewire.. as im a mac virgin..
and reall really want to use it..


and im only running 10.3.9 and im already excited about my os lol

i cant imagine what tiger to be.. and we wont even talk about leopard lol

and im not even using the new intel based macs yet..

oh so much excitment lol

OS X should still be able to see and grab files from an NTFS drive. Sometimes if there's an error on the disk it won't mount, but will still show up in Disk Utility (Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility), where you can repair/format it. If it's not recognized at all, there could be a problem with the disk, cable or the port it's plugged into. Best check it on your Windows system and work your way through the possibilities.

You can get FireWire HDD enclosures, but they will be more expensive than USB (because they usually include a USB port aswell as 2 FireWire ports [one to connect to the computer and one to connect other FireWire devices to in a "daisy chain"]). If you're meaning FireWire 800, then they too are available, but in my limited experience its usually cheaper to buy a ready-made external HDD with FireWire 800 than buying the case and HDD separately.

thanks so much, i threw my hdd onto my pc last night and it reads/writes ok..

so im going to try and format it? whats the best way to do so? i tried to format it through my pc and it will only allow me to format NTFS.

will i have to you the command box and do it that way..?

and i think ill do as you say and might just hold off on the external hdd, i want to get an airport and soon be able to back it all up on that..

but even then is it only usb isnt it? so ill still have slowish transfers..

slower then firewire obviously? im still new to firewire and havent even be able to use it yet lol