Windows NT filesystem formatted disk???

B

barrowman

Registered
Hi

I've recently been given a Windows NT filesystem disk that does not allow me to write to it, only read? What can I do? Why is this the case? I always thought OSX was the best OS for being able to work with all formats.

Is there anyway around this?
 
OS X will only read NTFS, won't write to it. Format it in Fat then you will be able to write to it.
 
As bobw mentioned, this is the case with OS X, but not just OS X. Any other operating system that's not Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista will not be able to write to an NTFS formatted diskette or hard drive. FAT or FAT32 would be your best bet for cross-platform compatibility.
 
However, Fat32 does have a 4gb file size limit, so if you are transfering large files there isn't a viable solution for cross platform use.
 
jh2112 said:
However, Fat32 does have a 4gb file size limit, so if you are transfering large files there isn't a viable solution for cross platform use.
Click to expand...

That is true, but there isn't any other solution other than to just use HFS+, but that rules out Windows machines (Linux can read HFS/HFS+ partitions with the appropriate module loaded).
 
bobw said:
OS X will only read NTFS, won't write to it. Format it in Fat then you will be able to write to it.
Click to expand...
When you say that it will not write to NTFS, this does not include NTFS volumes that are on a Windows PC on my network, right? I can get to shared folders on my Windows PC, and I read and write files to those folders all the time. In fact, I use one of the shares specifically to store backup disk images created on my Mac.
 
dmetzcher said:
When you say that it will not write to NTFS, this does not include NTFS volumes that are on a Windows PC on my network, right? I can get to shared folders on my Windows PC, and I read and write files to those folders all the time. In fact, I use one of the shares specifically to store backup disk images created on my Mac.
Click to expand...

When you access a share, it's being accessed through SMB (through the use of Samba on the Mac), and that doesn't necessarily care about the filesystem type. This is the only workaround I know, but of course it requires a network which is no good when you are just dealing with volumes and not network shares.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top