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Apple Computing Products:
macOS - Operating System
Portable Hard drive works on Mac, but Not on PC
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<blockquote data-quote="Lifeisabeach" data-source="post: 542965" data-attributes="member: 38864"><p>As jc said, you need to format the drive in a file system that both OSes can read and write to. While OS X does support FAT, it's a pretty lousy file system. </p><p></p><p>If your Windows PCs are running a Windows NT variant (Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista), then I'd suggest, as a free alternative, installing some software in OS X that will enable it to read/write to NTFS-formatted disks. To do so, you need to install 2 different packages: MacFUSE, then NTFS-3G. A tutorial is here:</p><p><a href="http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/</a></p><p></p><p>AFAIK, you would have to use Windows to format a drive in NTFS still, but once done, OS X will read/write it just fine with those packages installed. And NTFS is a much more robust, safer file system than FAT is. Now... there are other commercial programs that will let Windows read Mac-formatted drives and vice versa, but this solution works very well.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lifeisabeach, post: 542965, member: 38864"] As jc said, you need to format the drive in a file system that both OSes can read and write to. While OS X does support FAT, it's a pretty lousy file system. If your Windows PCs are running a Windows NT variant (Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista), then I'd suggest, as a free alternative, installing some software in OS X that will enable it to read/write to NTFS-formatted disks. To do so, you need to install 2 different packages: MacFUSE, then NTFS-3G. A tutorial is here: [url]http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/[/url] AFAIK, you would have to use Windows to format a drive in NTFS still, but once done, OS X will read/write it just fine with those packages installed. And NTFS is a much more robust, safer file system than FAT is. Now... there are other commercial programs that will let Windows read Mac-formatted drives and vice versa, but this solution works very well. [/QUOTE]
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Apple Computing Products:
macOS - Operating System
Portable Hard drive works on Mac, but Not on PC
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