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    Read/write between Mac and Windows drives

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by count_schemula, May 17, 2007.

  1. count_schemula

    count_schemula Notebook Deity

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    I have 160GB externals. Some Mac, some Windows.

    What are you peeps using to read write between these drives?

    I assume there is still software that lets Windows read write to Mac drives.

    Is it still a PITA to write to NTFS drives from a Mac?

    Thanks.
     
    count_schemula, May 17, 2007
    #1
  2. ageezee

    ageezee Notebook Consultant

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    I use Macdrive in windows to write to mac drives. I keep one external hard drive around formated as FAT32 just in case. All the rest are formated HFS+ because it is more robust than FAT32 and it is still a PITA to write NTFS drives from mac. If you must write to a NTFS drive from a mac the easiest way is to network it from a windows pc (or through parallels).
     
    ageezee, May 17, 2007
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  3. cashmonee

    cashmonee Notebook Virtuoso NBR Reviewer

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    Either get them on a network or use MacDrive so the Windows machines can read/write to the drives. Getting a Mac to write to NTFS is tough.
     
    cashmonee, May 18, 2007
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  4. ratiopharm

    ratiopharm Notebook Enthusiast

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    ratiopharm, May 20, 2007
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  5. Starlight

    Starlight Notebook Evangelist

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    I wish I had been aware of the existence of this Macdrive thing earlier ;)

    My 500GB external hd has one partition HFS+ for backup of OS X, one partition NTFS for backup of my XP partition (Boot Camp), and the rest is general file space so I made it FAT32. Now, that works fine for me really, but sometimes I do miss the ability to write larger files there. Will look at this Macdrive thing before formatting my next external drive ;)
     
    Starlight, May 20, 2007
    #5