Can Mac OS read an NTFS formatted external HD

Hi

My PC has currently 2 hard drives installed. I just bought an external enclosure to put that second hard drive in and plug in my mac.

I was wondering however if it would be able to see the files already on the drive, since it's NTFS formatted.

I plan on reformatting that drive once i plug it in my mac, but there's files i'd like to grab from that HD before doing that

Thanks!

You have read access to NTFS partitions but no write abilities, so in short, yes you can get your files off of it.

There is some third party software which allows read/write access to NTFS drives. I'm not sure what it's called tho…lolz

As long as i can read off of it, that's fine. Thanks!

I had the same problem. I copied all of my files off of my HD onto my desktop then I reformatted it then dragged it back into the HD. There's probably a better (faster) way to do it, but that worked for me!

Well I won't be able to try it tonight. The enclosure I bought is IDE only, my HD is SATA. The box clearly says IDE/SATA, so I hope the store I bought it at will reimburse me or at least exchange for the right product.

shahvikram123 said:

There is some third party software which allows read/write access to NTFS drives. I'm not sure what it's called tho…lolz

Click to expand...

Paragon. Do a search here at Mac Forums for a whole lot of info on Paragon.

I use an external NTFS drive attached to my old laptop as a file server, and I can read and write to it.

I just connect to server using the PC's IP address and I can do whatever I want. I have the shared and have "allow users to change my files" checked. but it works great.

dtravis7 said:

Paragon. Do a search here at Mac Forums for a whole lot of info on Paragon.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that.

Turns out I have a lot more files than I thought. So I think I'll just use that instead, and that way i'll be able to use it on the PC too if i want.

Is there any kind of disadvantage of keeping an NTFS partition on a Mac?

shahvikram123 said:

There is some third party software which allows read/write access to NTFS drives. I'm not sure what it's called tho…lolz

Click to expand...

http://www.ntfs-3g.org/

Here you go, Use it on my MacBook Pro, forget I even have it installed now a days since I never think about what formats my drives are unless I am wiping them.