How do I get a usb portable hard drive to work?

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I bought a verbatim usb Portable Hard Drive to store information on from my old pc with windows XP to my new pc with windows 7. I can not get the usb hard drive to show up on either pc. It shows a blue light on but otherwise it won't do anything.

Answer
a few possibilities:

A) it only has a usb cord, and it needs more power. Try a usb port on the back of the computer.

B) it has been corrupted. It will need formating. Here is a howto http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/format-usb-ntfs/

C) it's dead.

Is there some way to access files from a portable hard drive formatted for a MAC on a PC?

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I use a Seagate portable hard drive formatted for a MAC. Is there some way I can access these files on both a PC and a MAC without reformatting the external drive/erasing my files?

Answer
You can either use this, which isn't that great but it's free. http://hem.bredband.net/catacombae/hfsx.html

Or you can use this, which isn't free. http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/

Or, if you have access to an OS X Snow Leopard install DVD, you can try and find the HFS drivers on there.

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