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ISedlacek · Feb 9, 2004, 11:29 AM

Last week I needed to transfer datas between Mac and PC, so I formatted my FW disc in Disc utility. I selected Erase and have chosen MS DOS format (there were 3 others: Mac Os journaled, Mac OS extended and UNIX). Everything worked perfectly.
Today I wanted to do exactly the same thing - but MS DOS option disappeared, just the other three were there ! I could not believe my eyes ...
It is a mystery to me. How could that disappear under exactly the same conditions ? Or am I doing something different ?
WHat shall I do to format a FW disc in a way Windows XP can see or to erase it in such a way that Windows would see at least a blank disc ??
Advice highly apprecciated ...

Developer · Feb 9, 2004, 11:34 AM

Are you selecting the volume or the disk?

SSharon · Feb 9, 2004, 11:36 AM

I just noticed the same thing when trying to format a usb flash drive. I ended up having a friend format it on his pc since it said unreadable disk, but it would be nice to do that myself.

(10.3.2)

ISedlacek · Feb 9, 2004, 11:45 AM

Originally posted by Developer:
Are you selecting the volume or the disk?

Oh yes, I was selecting a partition (volume). When I select the whole disc, it is there. The only problem is I have no place to put all the 100 GB from the WD disc. The small 2,5 FW disc does not get power from PCMCIA laptop card.
No way to format a volume that would be readable for PC ?

dwishbone · Feb 9, 2004, 11:57 AM

well problem is you might run into troubles with this on Windows too.
i have an external 120GB FW drive. i tried to format it as FAT32 on a pc so i could use it on my mac and PC. well XP cant format FAT32 over 32GB. they want you to partition it or use NTFS (which macos can read but can't write...useless to me). im like screw that. i need this for FCP and other video work. one scratch file might be bigger than that. i ended up having to use kazaa and find a program (i used Partion Expert...much better than Partition Magic...and much smaller) to do the job. i formatted it as a ful 120GB HD. i hate doing that...but i refuse to pay money for something that is crippled by the OS.
you can format normal HDs using an old 98 or ME boot disk, but they don't support firewire drives.

ISedlacek · Feb 9, 2004, 12:21 PM

I am truly confused. Last week I formatted the small 40 GB FW disc on MAC in MSDOS format, brought it to W XP and we easily exchanged the datas both sides.
Today finally I manage to format WD 120 GB in MS DOS. WHen connecting to W XP laptop - it reported it is not formatted , I did and eneded in NT format, in which mac cannot write.
Why the same thing behaves differently ??
Why this time W XP refused to read MS DOD formatted disc ?

ISedlacek · Feb 9, 2004, 12:32 PM

I got it !! If the option "install Mac OS9 drivers" is cancelled, then it works both ways- after formatting the disc in MS DOS format on Mac.

Now I wonder - is this a reliable platform for storing important Mac data on such formatted disc ? Or it does not matter at all ?

tooki · Feb 9, 2004, 01:50 PM

Storing Mac files on a PC-formatted disk works, but it's slow, and you must be aware that Mac OS X and Mac OS 9 and earlier save files on PC disks very differently: they're not compatible.

tooki

posthumanus · Feb 9, 2004, 11:38 PM

so an ext.HD can�t be split into 2 partitions where one is formatted as Mac and the other as MSDOS?

that would be so convenient if possible

ISedlacek · Feb 10, 2004, 05:04 AM

Originally posted by posthumanus:
so an ext.HD can�t be split into 2 partitions where one is formatted as Mac and the other as MSDOS?

that would be so convenient if possible

No, it does not seem to work. You can of course, format the whole disc in MSDOS with two partitions and the to format one volume in Mac OS. The problem is that Windows will not be aware of such a disc ...