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    Accessing Apple formatted HD in Windows

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by tiger1234, Jun 30, 2007.

  1. tiger1234

    tiger1234 Notebook Geek

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    I just sold my PowerBookG4. The problem is that I have an external HD that I used to store music/data/videos etc. It is formatted for OSX so I cannot access it when I connect it to my HP laptop. I will be buying a new MacBook in a couple of months but I need a way to access the external HD somehow till I buy a MacBook.
    Are their any applications that I can use to access that HD using Windows?
    I will appreciate any answers.
     
    tiger1234, Jun 30, 2007
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  2. bczera

    bczera Notebook Geek

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    MacDrive is one application to access your OSX HD using Windows
     
    bczera, Jun 30, 2007
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  3. tiger1234

    tiger1234 Notebook Geek

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    Thanks for the info
     
    tiger1234, Jul 1, 2007
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  4. masterchef341

    masterchef341 The guy from The Notebook

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    yeah im using macdrive at the moment. it works great.
     
    masterchef341, Jul 1, 2007
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  5. taelrak

    taelrak Lost

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    Yep, MacDrive is nice. You do some slower write times but it's nothing horrible.
     
    taelrak, Jul 1, 2007
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  6. wave

    wave Notebook Virtuoso

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    Here is what I want to do:

    1. Partition OSX (HFS+)
    2. Partition XP (NTFS)
    3. Partition My Documents from XP, Mac documents, movies ... etc

    Should I make the 3. Partition FAT32 or HFS+ and use Macdrive for access under windows? Which would you recomend? I might have some images over 4GB which I am not sure if they are supported by FAT32. With Macdrive can HFS+ partitions be accesed like any other drive under XP?
     
    wave, Jul 2, 2007
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  7. basskiddanny

    basskiddanny Notebook Evangelist

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    If you dual boot into Windows on a Macbook and split the HDD 50/50 with half being NTFS formatted and the other half in the Mac file format. Would I be able to read the files saved on the Windows partition when running Mac OSx without any additional software???

    I know that under Windows I need software to read the MAC formatted files. But all of my music and video are on an external 400GB HDD which is formatted NTFS (I have a laptop now but buying mac book soon).

    Can MAC OSx read from an NTFS drive? If it can not write to it thats not a problem.
     
    basskiddanny, Jul 2, 2007
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  8. wave

    wave Notebook Virtuoso

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    OSX can read NTFS. To write to NTFS you need extra software.
     
    wave, Jul 2, 2007
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  9. taelrak

    taelrak Lost

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    Also, one thing no one mentioned because it's probably not a huge issue for most. MacDrive has some problems reading files and folders written in foreign languages.

    I ended up just setting up a 50-50 vista-osx partition and skipping the data one. The more I use my MBP, and the more I consider what I'll do on it, the less I see a need for Vista to see any of my data files at all.

    Vista ended up becoming nothing more than a front end to play games on for me since I dislike console games. Ah well, what an expensive front end :( I guess it's cheaper than a PS3
     
    taelrak, Jul 2, 2007
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  10. thegsrguy

    thegsrguy Notebook Deity

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    I actually use my external hard drive for a "shared" space. It's a 32GB FAT32 partition. No drivers or goofy software needed.

    If I need more than 32GB, I can just create another 32GB FAT32 partition.
     
    thegsrguy, Jul 2, 2007
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  11. @dam

    @dam Notebook Guru

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    Will Leopard solve these issues? What software do you need for OSX to write to NTFS? Does Parallels come with the necessary software to read/write to any format from any format?
     
    @dam, Jul 2, 2007
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  12. taelrak

    taelrak Lost

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    Leopard didn't mention anything about NTFS write capability, but it will include Boot Camp.

    As mentioned, Parallels, Fusion, and MacFuse can write to NTFS from within OSX.

    Parallels lets you write to NTFS within its virtualization window just fine. It also lets you write to NTFS directly using an outdated version of MacFUSE.
     
    taelrak, Jul 2, 2007
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