Using the same external hard drive with PC and MAC.?

Jay

I just joined the apple club by getting a macbook. Before this I had been a PC user. I have an external hard drive for my PC that has a valuable set of files and folder saved in it.

Basically I would like to use the same external hard drive as a backup drive for my new Mac without losing the files and folders that I have saved in the external from my PC. Is this possible?

When I hooked up my external to the macbook it was detected but a message popped up telling me that the external needs to be formatted and if I proceed to do that I will lose all data currently on the external. I don't want to do that. Is there any way other than transferring all the files to another hard drive and then assigning this one to the mac? I don't have another hard drive with big enough space and really don't want to buy one because the one I have is appr. 400 gigs. Please help I'm new to mac.

Thanks,

Jay
thanks guys. I do intend to make use of Time Machines which needs the empty drive. But anyway I think like one of you have said I'll have to put all the stuff back on the pc and empty out the drive. But then once its formatted to Mac will the PC be able to read/write to it?

Answer
I use a standard NTFS external drive on both my mac and pc so it can be done easily. However, in your situation, your are limited because you don't wish to purchase another drive so.... Connect the drive back to the pc and offload the files there if you can. Use a buddies pc as well until you get all the files off. Put the drive back on your pc and then format it using Fat32 or NTFS. Copy the data back on to the drive and your mac will be able to read and write to it.

Help using an external hard drive with Mac AND PC?

Daniel

I've just brought an external hard drive (2.5" 120GB)
I need to use it on a PC (for home) and a Mac (for College)
I've plugged it into the mac and all my files are Read Only (and the drive)
Can anyone help? I am VERY new to macs and have only been using it for about a week or so
Also, I have no admin privileges on the mac
Also, it would be used regularly with a PS3

Answer
If the files are read-only, chances are the external drive is formatted with NTFS (which Macs can only read, not write). The PS3 can't recognize NTFS-formatted drives at all.

There is 3rd party-software which allows PCs to use Mac HSF+ formatted drives (MacDrive), and Macs to use NTFS-formatted drives (MacFUSE). But neither of those programs would help your PS3.

Reformatting the external drive as FAT32 (after copying your files off) would make it fully usable by your Mac, PC and PS3. However, FAT32 has some limitations: it's not as secure, there's a size limit of 4gb for any single file, it's more prone to corruption, access is slower when dealing with large files. But it's the most compatible format... and really your only choice if dealing with a PS3.

http://forums.cnet.com/7723-7591_102-336384.html
http://macfuse.en.softonic.com/mac

You'd either have format the external drive using your Mac, or use a 3rd-party utility like this one to format it using your PC. Windows itself won't format a FAT32 volume larger than 32gb.

http://www.tothepc.com/archives/format-drive-fat32-volume-larger-than-32gb/

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