Can the 1 TB PC formatted drive be re formatted so it can accept both PC files and Mac files?

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

Hi there,

I just recently purchased a 1TB  WD external drive (PC formatted).  I can’t seem to copy files (MP3) from my daughter Mac Book Pro - WD external drive to my Drive (above).  ?  is there a way to format the drive so it can accept both MAC files and PC files.

Please advise

Thx Gord

2

As far as I know, the NTFS file system is treated as “read only” by the MacOS.

If you’re not worried about losing the data on the drive, you can format it to HFS+, but then you’ll have the problem that Windows can’t natively access the drive.

So, you can either download Mac utilities/drivers which will allow you full NTFS access, or you can download Windows drivers which will allow you HFS+ access.

I’ve never used any, so I wouldn’t know which drivers to suggest.  Perhaps Google can help.

EDIT:

Sorry… my brain just turned on.  I just remembered that if you format the drive to FAT32, then both MacOS and Windows can have full access.

3

Can you do the re formatting for both Windows and Mac drives without losing saved files on My Book Essential 3.0?

4

No formatting will wipe out everything. If the external is formatted for Windows NTFS go to Apple’s site and find a utility called NTFS-3G and install on your daughter’s Mac and you should be OK then.

Joe

5

use windows disk manager and shrink the existing partition of your external drive by 32 GB.

now create a new partition using the newly freed 32 GB, and format it as a FAT32 partition.

now your derive will contain 2 partitions, the big one should contain all your existing information and be readable on both machines, and the small one will be read and writeable on both machines.

NOTE:

  1. i did not test this

  2. back up the information from the external drive before doing this. although windows 7 (and perhaps Vista) support changing partision sizes on the fly, it is not advised to do so without an up to date backup.