Sharing network drive: Not able to modified External HDD with FAT32 Partition

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SUNIKUMA

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Dear friends,

I am facing a problem with my External HDD formatted in FAT32 file system.
I have an external HDD that is formatted in FAT32 file system and I want to share this drive on my network so that my other MAC user can access this external drive.

I have two MAC mini with OSX 10.6 and 10.7.3 and one MAC Book pro with 10.7.3. All are on same network able to see each other share Drives. But they are only able to access the Public folders of all the users and Internal HDD of all the MAC books. They are also able to see shared external HDD but no one is able to open that external drive over network. Only the MAC book with external drive is directly connected is able to open it and make file and folder in that.

I have also noticed one issue with this external HDD whenever I try to share this drive via file sharing option its user permission is not highlighted.

Could anyone help on this matter how could I access this drive from other MAC book.

Please revert on my post if any have any suggestion on my problem.
SUNIKUMA is offline Reply With Quote
 
SUNIKUMA said:
I have an external HDD that is formatted in FAT32 file system
Click to expand...

That is you problem: it needs to be formatted for a Mac: HFS+

Goeth thou to Disk Utility, erase the drive--it will give you the ability to format it as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)."

Do that.

Then move your data you wish to share to it.

Profit.

--J.D.
 
Hello Doctor,

Thanks alot for your reply. I have already do that and with HFS+ partition it is working. But I want to use this drive with Windows PC as well. That's why I can not format it with HFS+ partition.

Is there any other way with that I can share it with FAT32 partition.

Regards

Sunil
 
I do not think that is possible--for both PCs and Macs to share the same drive. Sometimes Mac can read the PC files--like wav. video and Word/Excel documents, but otherwise neither translates the others.

To get around this, Mac users can run PC emulators such as Parallels or Bootcamp. Essentially, your Mac is booting into another system--Bootcamp has a separate partition on your HD and Parallels sort . . . of . . . like . . . creates a virtual PC. With either, you can read PC files that the PC reads--provided you have the PC software.

A lot depends on exactly what you need to share. .doc files can be made to be readable by both. .jpgs, pdfs. the same. Software is another story.

--J.D.
 
Hello Doctor,

I am sharing some common file on my external HDD like video, word/excel, jpeg etc. And I am also able to access this drive from my Windows PC without any problem. But I am not able to access this drive from my other MAC machine.

Basically I am not able to edit the user permission of this External Drive in MAC, because the '+' and '-' option is not highlighted in my machine. Is there any to edit the permission of FAT32 external HDD??


Regards

Sunil
 
The problem is the Mac does not recognize the FAT32 as far as I know. I defer to a GURU who has created an external drive recognizable by both Mac and PC.

Though . . . usually with Ext-HD and Thumb Drives I have not had a problem accessing some things like pictures and video other than you have to sometimes really look for the file.

--J.D.
 
Hello Doctor,

But I am not facing this problem with OSX 10.6. I also have one MAC mini with OSX 10.6.3 when I connect this external Drive with my MAC mini having OSX 10.6.3 its working fine. I that case I am able to access this External HDD from my other OSX 10.7.3 machine.

But I am only not able to access my external HDD when I connect it with OSX 10.7.3 and try to access it from other OSX 10.7.3 and OSX 10.6.3.

Do you have any Idea about this??

Regards

Sunil
 
Well, then you have reached the end of my knowledge
sorry.gif
. I do not use Lion. However, America is waking up now so I am sure someone who uses Lion will be here to help! :)

--J.D.
 
SUNIKUMA said:
... But I want to use this drive with Windows PC as well. That's why I can not format it with HFS+ partition.

...
Click to expand...
You are confusing issues. When you share a drive, the host OS handles the filesystem. The client goes through the host and does not worry about the native filesystem. If you want MacOS X to share a partition, then the partitition should be formatted HFS+. Enable Windows sharing on your Mac. Your Windows computer should have no [additional] problem reading and writing the shared drive.
 
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