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Portable Drive Apple/PC

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  • 11-08-2013 12:51am
    #1
    HorseSea
    Registered Users Posts: 490 ✭✭


    Hi

    I need to get some data from a friend with a Mac. I gave him a 500GB Verbatim drive I had formatted on a PC. He was unable to connect to it, it just said read only.

    Is there a way to format it that will work with a Mac. Do I need to do that from PC or can he do it to the disc I have already given him?

    Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


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    #2
    GreenWolfe
    Registered Users Posts: 1,731 ✭✭✭GreenWolfe


    I'll assume it's NTFS formatted - OS X provides read-only NTFS support. If they don't want to purchase extra software (like Tuxera or Paragon NTFS) you could try formatting the drive as exFAT or FAT32. Note that exFAT goes over the FAT32 4GB file size limit but you won't get journaling.

    There is also OSXFUSE but I have absolutely no idea if it's compatible or stable with more recent versions of Mac OS X.

    http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/06/review-is-microsofts-new-data-sharing-system-a-cross-platform-savior/

    The most relevant part of the article is this (for exFAT):
    Apparently, Apple’s block size was correct according to the standard, but different enough from Windows’ default to cause it not to be recognized on the Windows side. So Snow Leopard users were forced to use Windows to format the drive as exFAT, and then it would show up fine in OS X. This seems to be fixed in Mountain Lion (10.8) since I didn’t have any issues getting the Mountain Lion-formatted exFAT partitions to show up in Windows 7. On the Windows side, native exFAT support is built into Windows as of Vista SP1, and exFAT drivers are available for older builds like XP.
    Also, you may get better answers in the Mac forum.


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    #3
    HorseSea
    Registered Users Posts: 490 ✭✭HorseSea


    Great, thank you, I will try formatting it as exFAT and see how that goes.

    Cheers.


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    #4
    Torqay
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,835 ✭✭✭Torqay


    When using exFAT, you'll have to format the drive on a Windows machine, to be sure the drive is compatible with both platforms. If you need the drive to be compatible with older Windows versions, get the exFAT drivers here.

    If you don't need to copy single files larger than 4GB, FAT32 is your safest bet. In Windows you can't format large drives with FAT32 by default, use the HP USB Formatting Tool.


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    #5
    HorseSea
    Registered Users Posts: 490 ✭✭HorseSea


    It is possible that there will be files greater than 4gb as they are raw video files. I formatted is as exFAT and wait to hear back from him if it worked, fingers crossed. When formatting it asked for allocation file size, I went for default - I hope that is ok.

    The drive is suitable for windows or mac, so hopefully it will work, failing that I will try FAT32 next time. Thanks .


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    #6
    HorseSea
    Registered Users Posts: 490 ✭✭HorseSea


    Just collected drive and the data came onto PC no problem and there were some huge 20gb+ files. Thanks for the help.


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