Newbie to Macs but not a dummy ... but need help

[ric5133]

I have attached a 320gb external HDD to the new PowerBook but it can't open or access the files. I am told as the drive is formatted as NTFS I may need to offload all material and reformat to FAT 32. Can anyone verify this please?

I also have added another external drive and formatted it with the Mac, but also it will not read on the PC thus I cannot copy all files to the external drives to be read on the Mac. Any ideas how to 'bloodlessly' move files from PC to Mac not as read only etc where the mac keeps telling me I do not have permissions etc.

[rayray]

from what I recall FAT 32 mac will be able to read and write to it....not sure about write but for sure read

[UpQuark77]

Originally Posted by rayray

from what I recall FAT 32 mac will be able to read and write to it....not sure about write but for sure read

You are both correct. NTFS can be READ(as long as the files were not encryped), but not written to.

So, off load, reformat as Fat32.

[Bluefish]

In fat32, you can't have files exceeding 4gb size, right?
My friend wondered why he could'nt store downloaded DVD's on his extern HDD He did use fat32

[Curiosity]

Originally Posted by ric5133

I have attached a 320gb external HDD to the new PowerBook but it can't open or access the files. I am told as the drive is formatted as NTFS I may need to offload all material and reformat to FAT 32. Can anyone verify this please?

I also have added another external drive and formatted it with the Mac, but also it will not read on the PC thus I cannot copy all files to the external drives to be read on the Mac. Any ideas how to 'bloodlessly' move files from PC to Mac not as read only etc where the mac keeps telling me I do not have permissions etc.

Apparently, neither Linux nor Mac OS can write to NTFS, but they can write to FAT32. I use a USB flash drive to transfer files between my PC and my Mac. I formatted it with the PC, as FAT32. Works just fine.

[UpQuark77]

The reverse is true too. If the drive is formated for MAC, windows cannot read it natively. There are 3rd party tools which allows windows machines to read/write to Mac (HPFS) drives, but not natively.

So, if you are going between mac and windows, fat32 is the right format.

[symphonix]

Originally Posted by Bluefish

In fat32, you can't have files exceeding 4gb size, right?
My friend wondered why he could'nt store downloaded DVD's on his extern HDD He did use fat32

According to Wikipedia, you are right. FAT32 has a maximum file size of 4 gigabytes.