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    Fat Format Compatible with MAC?

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by wobble987, Oct 9, 2006.

  1. wobble987

    wobble987 Notebook Virtuoso

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    hi, is the FAT and FAT32 file compatible with mac? coz recently i bought a USB pocket HDD and it says that sharing files between windows and mac are not recommended. is that true? (how do i share files between windows and mac?

    and can i install program using a USB thumbdrive (formated w/ FAT) without problem? i recently do this but i think i read somewhere that this might cause problem.

    thanks
     
  2. zadillo

    zadillo Notebook Virtuoso

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    FAT32 is (I think FAT16 is too, but I'm not sure).

    With most USB pocket drives if they are in a format like that it should work just fine. I had a firewire drive i formatted as FAT32 and used it between my Mac and PC with no problems.

    I don't see why installing a program from a thumb drive formatted with a FAT filesystem would cause a problem, really.
     
  3. xbandaidx

    xbandaidx Notebook Deity

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    I have a thumbdrive I use between my MacBook and my schools windows machine, the thumbdrive is formatted in Fat32 and is definitely fine being used cross platforms.

    Just remember, the only Windows partition format that the Mac can read and write to is Fat32. Fat16 is just plain not used anymore these days.