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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Hfs+

dusti_n - Jun 10, 2005 - 5:46 am

Is there a way to use an external FW Hard Disk on both mac and PC ?

/D

Tetano - Jun 10, 2005 - 5:53 am

Hi Dustin,
it is possible, but you should format the Disk in FAT (or FAT32), as your PC cannot read or write from a HFS+ formatted hard drive...
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Stefano
Thanks for choosing macosx.com

dusti_n - Jun 10, 2005 - 6:09 am

Thank you Stefano for you reply. Do you mean that
I should format my 500GB disk in FAT or FAT32 and that would work on MAC ? Isn't there a disk limit for FAT32?
I've heard something about it but I'm not sure.

Thanx again for your fast response.

/Dustin

Tetano - Jun 10, 2005 - 6:14 am

I know that FAT is recognized on MACs, since my pen drive sholud be formatted in FAT to work on both my systems... I'll check about the size limit you're talking about...

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Stefano
Thanks for choosing macosx.com

dusti_n - Jun 10, 2005 - 6:27 am

Hi Stefano, obviously the limitation is on windows. Windows XP cannot format larger disks then 4GB but however if you format it on another system, like unix or mac or whatever OS that can format larger FAT32 then Windows can mount that
Filesystem. It's funny isn't it ? It's windows what more
can we expect. It's still evolving.

Please let me know if you find other kind of info, likte
if it's possible to format FAT32 on the MAC ?

/D

Tetano - Jun 10, 2005 - 6:48 am

Ok, I've found some info about the FAT problem, theoreticattly a FAT volume can be 8 terabyte, but Windows can't format a volume larger than 32 GB...
In disk utility you can select to format a drive also for MS-DOS, but I'm not sure which format it uses... I need to check additional things later at home where I have an external drive... BTW, you can also set the disk to be shared between the computer if you connect them using an ethernet cable...
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Stefano
Thanks for choosing macosx.com

Tetano - Jun 11, 2005 - 9:27 am

I have a basic question, what do you exactly need with this dirk? are you going to use it sa an archive, or to share files between the machines?

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Stefano
Thanks for choosing macosx.com

dusti_n - Jun 12, 2005 - 6:22 pm

Hi Stefanfo, I'm going to use it as an archive, however I don't see how that matters.

I'm going to try to format it by OSX see maybe I can it
work on both systems.

/D

Tetano - Jun 13, 2005 - 3:45 am

I was thinking about partitions, because if you don't need to share the files in the archives, you can create two partitions, one for the mac and one for the PC...

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Stefano
Thanks for choosing macosx.com

dusti_n - Jun 13, 2005 - 4:54 am

Oh I see, yes that would be cool too. I just want to understand if it's possible or not to have a file system that would be accessable on both OS's.

Did you say that you knew if OSX can format the disk in two
fat32 or not ? I haven't had time to explore the OSx features yet.Soon hopefully.

Thanx
/dustin

Tetano - Jun 13, 2005 - 5:11 am

Well, I remember that Panther did offer this opportunity, now Tiger speaks about a generic 'MS-DOS file system', which I'm not sure if refers to FAT32 or if Apple has improved the OS in order to read and write on NTFS disks... I think that a good try can be select the Unix file system, since the sharing servers we use here at work are formatted with this file system to work with both Mac and PC...
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Stefano
Thanks for choosing macosx.com

dusti_n - Jun 13, 2005 - 5:14 am

I'll try that. Thank you.

dusti_n - Jun 13, 2005 - 5:29 am

Ok Stefano, I found the info I needed. OSX understands FAT32, so does Windows ofcource. The only problem is that you cannot create big partitions on Windows, ( Ironic ) but you can make it under OSx. Here is a link that shows you how. Funny thing, the guy is anonymous.

http://macosxhints.com/article.php?s...30613121738812

Later
/Dustin

Tetano - Jun 13, 2005 - 5:38 am

I knew windows was a problem, and actually a very strange problem, since the limit for FAT32 is 8 Terabyte... Pen drives are formatted in FAT32 to work with both operative systems.. Remember that when you delete a file from a FAT32 disk with your Mac, you should also empty the trash to free the space on the drive.
The guy at macosxhints.com uses the terminal for the procedure he describes, you can also use disk utility, which provides a GUI for the commands he uses...
I prefer it, since my knowledge of unix commands is not so good...
Tell me if it works!

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Stefano
Thanks for choosing macosx.com

dusti_n - Jun 29, 2005 - 7:59 am

Hi Stefanm, I just wanted to say that it works now. You just have to format it on Mac Osx as MS_DOS and then you are on-

/Dustin