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dimension10 · Mar 31, 2004, 08:05 PM

I just bought a WD 250 GB external firewire hard drive. Ideally I would like to format it so that it works on both a Mac and a PC, can copy large video files (4GB+) back and forth, and is reliable for back up. (asking a lot, I know!!)

I have done a ton of searches on the topic, but I have not come across a solution that everybody can agree works. Some of the topics also seem dated.

FAT32 was suggested, but some say that it is not a reliable format and that there are file size limitations on transfers. Others say that a Mac can only read a FAT32 partition less than 125 GB.

Others suggested third party software such as MacOpener or MacDrive to get a mac formatted drive to work on a windows machine. Most of these posts seemed to be dated.

Is there a new solution for formatting large hard drives to be cross platform?

BLAZE_MkIV · Mar 31, 2004, 09:14 PM

I have a firew wire external drive. If you want a single partition just format it FAT32 on a windows machine, OS X will handle it.

If you want HFS+ & FAT32 you'll heed to jump through some hoops. Let me know and I'll refind the instuctions.

dimension10 · Apr 1, 2004, 04:45 PM

Thanks, I saw the post of macosxhints about the dual format and it seemed a bit confusing.

Have you had any issues copying big files to the FAT32 drive?

I am using MacOpener on the PC. Seems to work OK for now.

SSharon · Apr 2, 2004, 03:07 PM

This is kind of related . . .
I had a friend format my 180gb firewire drive with XP to NTSC and it mounted fine but I had no write permissions at all. Aside from this oddity, I would just have someone with a PC format it for you but know now that it takes a long time for it to reformat a drive into a different format (actually had to go over all 180gb b/c it was hfs+), whereas it takes 30 seconds for it to reformat a drive in the same format (ntsc->ntsc). I only mention this b/c my drive got very hot after writing that much data continuosly.

reader50 · Apr 2, 2004, 04:40 PM

NTSC = the TV standard used in North America and Japan.

NTFS = M$'s NT File System, which Panther can currently read, but not write to. This might change with a later Panther or with 10.4

SSharon · Apr 3, 2004, 08:16 PM

hehe, sorry about the ntsc ntfs thing, I just wasn't paying attention I guess, but I do know the difference between ntsc and pal. Anyway, I hope Panther will be updated to write to ntfs soon b/c all I hear about is how unreliable fat32 is.

Another unrelated question. my hard drive has firewire and usb2, why is it that when both connections are plugged in 10.3.3 decides to mount the HD with USB2? Firewire is faster and came with my mac (usb2 pci card). Is there an option somewhere to change this? Not that I think there needs to be I can just unplug the usb cable, I had just left it in out of laziness one time.