Question about External HD

[nvmeplz]

I just got a Western Digital 80 gig external HD.
The reason for geeting it is because I am switching to PC.
I am running OSX 10.3.8 currently.

I am using this external HD to back up videos, music, pictures, and other files.

My question is this. Will this external HD be able to run on Windows XP with out having to reformat it to Window? And will I be able to transfer the files from the external HD to Windows XP?

Any help would be great.

-Rich

[nvmeplz]

I have already loaded a few gigabytes onto the external hd so if I need to use Fat32 or whatever will it earse eveything on there already?

[ElDiabloConCaca]

You need to use FAT32 format if you want a Windows-based PC to be able to read it.

You cannot switch formats without reformatting the hard drive, so if the hard drive is in HFS+ format or some Macintosh-only format, you will need to reformat the drive -- and lose all the data already on there.

Anohter option is to simply network your Windows computer and your Macintosh computer and turn on "Windows Sharing" in the System Preferences and simply copy the files over the network.