hi - i'd like to format an external hard drive (80 gb) that i can use for both mac and pc (just for sharing some files, not for music making). surprisingly i find different opinions and they're not very clear for an average computer user like me.
the solution i read the most is : "format the drive in OSX as fat32". will this do the trick?
formatting an external drive for PC and Mac
You can also format it in windows as fat32. What's important is that it's fat32, and not NTFS or HFS+.
Although, I should note that protools 7.3 comes with a really rad little tool that lets you read and write to HFS+ filesystems, which is the native OSX format. Dunno if you're a PT user, but I was pleasantly surprised by this little gem, and I've even installed PT on a few machines without digi hardware just to use the kernel extension.
Although, I should note that protools 7.3 comes with a really rad little tool that lets you read and write to HFS+ filesystems, which is the native OSX format. Dunno if you're a PT user, but I was pleasantly surprised by this little gem, and I've even installed PT on a few machines without digi hardware just to use the kernel extension.
i too was wondering about this.
Does anyone know if i can share a network hard drive between a mac and pc and run live on both machines?
Lets say i loaded a wav. file and warped it with live on the pc, then saved it onto a nework drive. Could i then open the file and load it onto live on the mac? Would it read it? Im assuming it would?
Does anyone know if i can share a network hard drive between a mac and pc and run live on both machines?
Lets say i loaded a wav. file and warped it with live on the pc, then saved it onto a nework drive. Could i then open the file and load it onto live on the mac? Would it read it? Im assuming it would?
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ejectorset
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you either need macdrive (i think thats the name of the software) for the PC, or you have to use a lame old format like fat.
macs i think can read ntfs but not write to it.
both can use fat.
macdrive works good.
id rather have my discs in HFS+
macs i think can read ntfs but not write to it.
both can use fat.
macdrive works good.
id rather have my discs in HFS+
13" 2.0 gHz core 2 duo macbook, live 6, korg poly 800 (w/ moog slayer mod), roland rs-09, rhodes mark 1A stage piano, mattel synsonics analog drum machine
Macdrive is great, but there were (not sure if there still is) a few quirks regarding ejecting disks and stuff like that. Also, last time I used it MD wasn't 100% compatible with Journalled HFS+ volumes, so if you want to use it with MD you will have to make sure it is Non-Journalled HFS+.
At the end of the day if you want simplicity without dicking around, just use FAT32. It's old tech, but it will ensure compatability with basically everything.
At the end of the day if you want simplicity without dicking around, just use FAT32. It's old tech, but it will ensure compatability with basically everything.
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drumroll57
- Posts: 148
- Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 12:13 pm
Some useful information for you
Microsoft put some severe limitations on the FAT32 formatting tool which is included in Windows XP, namely
that you can only format a partition up to 32 Gigs and that's it.... (they're pushing their own proprietary NTFS
format as another way to 'lock-in' customers, since no other operatins system can read and write to it reliably,
except for a few still-arcane Linux utilities.)
Partition Magic will allow for FAT32 partitions of up to 192 Gigs, but no more than that. Why? no clue.
However, there are some free tools that will enable this to happen, just used one recently, it is called
fat32formatter (click) and you can use it to partition a drive up to 2 Terabytes.
Another important limitation to keep in mind is that a FAT32 partition will not allow files with a size > 4 Gigs.
So don't count on it to store .iso files of DVDs or that sort of thing.
Other than that, it is fully cross-platform OS-X/Windows/Linux and therefore a perfect medium for shared
removable storage.
D.
that you can only format a partition up to 32 Gigs and that's it.... (they're pushing their own proprietary NTFS
format as another way to 'lock-in' customers, since no other operatins system can read and write to it reliably,
except for a few still-arcane Linux utilities.)
Partition Magic will allow for FAT32 partitions of up to 192 Gigs, but no more than that. Why? no clue.
However, there are some free tools that will enable this to happen, just used one recently, it is called
fat32formatter (click) and you can use it to partition a drive up to 2 Terabytes.
Another important limitation to keep in mind is that a FAT32 partition will not allow files with a size > 4 Gigs.
So don't count on it to store .iso files of DVDs or that sort of thing.
Other than that, it is fully cross-platform OS-X/Windows/Linux and therefore a perfect medium for shared
removable storage.
D.
stay groovy!
I recently formatted an external drive MS DOS FAT 32 on OSX and it worked fine on the mac but the XP was no go- so I reformatted the external drive hooked up to XP under disk manager and formatted the same way, just from XP- it assigned it a drive letter and formatted, asking how I wanted to partition. After that, the drive worked perfectly on both---
no prevailing genre of music:
http://alonetone.com/glu
http://alonetone.com/glu
"MS-DOS" = FAT32 on the mac. I have no idea why they labeled it this way.pieter wrote:hi i didn't find a way to format in FAT32 using disk utility of OSX.
but...
in disk utility i selected "MS DOS" format. i formatted the hard drive. it seems to work with my Mac. i suppose it's going to work with PC as well...
or will this method give me some unpleasant surprises?