Hard Drive
- Thread starter Melissa-
- Start date
nixgeek
Mac of the SubGenius! :-)
Mac OS X has support for HFS/HFS+ (Apple's Hierarchical Filesystems), FAT/FAT32 (Microsoft's File Allocation Table filesystem), UFS (UNIX file system is what I believe it stands for..used by the BSD Unices), and NTFS (Microsoft's NT Filesystem).
HOWEVER, Microsoft's NTFS is read-only on the Mac. THis is the same situation on any other Unix-like operating system out there as it would be illegal for the open source guys to write such a driver (that, and MS hasn't been forthcoming wiht information on how to support read-write access on NTFS). EVerything else is pretty much read-write.
If you need to make a particular drive (like a USB hard drive or flash drive for example) available to both the Mac and Windows computers, it's best to format it FAT32 and not NTFS. That way both platforms can write to the drive.
BTW, just so you know it's not polite to bump threads minutes after a first post. Your post will be answered, but consider that some people might not have seen the thread yet. In fact, you bumped the thread as I was replying to you, so rest assured you'll get an answer. If not, it's probably because either they haven't gotten to your question yet (considering the amount of posts that are made on this forum) or no one has an answer for you.
HOWEVER, Microsoft's NTFS is read-only on the Mac. THis is the same situation on any other Unix-like operating system out there as it would be illegal for the open source guys to write such a driver (that, and MS hasn't been forthcoming wiht information on how to support read-write access on NTFS). EVerything else is pretty much read-write.
If you need to make a particular drive (like a USB hard drive or flash drive for example) available to both the Mac and Windows computers, it's best to format it FAT32 and not NTFS. That way both platforms can write to the drive.
BTW, just so you know it's not polite to bump threads minutes after a first post. Your post will be answered, but consider that some people might not have seen the thread yet. In fact, you bumped the thread as I was replying to you, so rest assured you'll get an answer. If not, it's probably because either they haven't gotten to your question yet (considering the amount of posts that are made on this forum) or no one has an answer for you.
ElDiabloConCaca
U.S.D.A. Prime
Mac does not use FAT or FAT32 natively at all for booting. In order to install and boot Mac OS X, you must format the drive as HFS+. HFS+ is completely different from both FAT and FAT32.
While Mac OS X can read and write to FAT- and FAT32-formatted drives, you cannot install Mac OS X on a FAT- or FAT32-formatted drive. Your best bet is to use Mac OS X's native format, which is HFS+.
While Mac OS X can read and write to FAT- and FAT32-formatted drives, you cannot install Mac OS X on a FAT- or FAT32-formatted drive. Your best bet is to use Mac OS X's native format, which is HFS+.