Comments on: How to Format a Drive for Mac & PC Compatibility

By: Rory

Rory — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 11:54:46 +0000

I’m looking to do this as I want to use my external hdd on windows and mac, but what’s this thing about a partition?

Do I need to do this and if I do (so all the bases are covered), does it have any disadvantages?

Thanks

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 05:01:45 +0000

How can I password encrypt my external hard drive when it’s format is MS-DOS so it can securely work on a PC and Mac?

By: Benzamin watson

Benzamin watson — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 10:21:56 +0000

To format a hard drive for compatibility of both Mac and windows you can use FAT32 format which has both read/write capability on win/Mac respectively. Although we know its limitation of 4gb file size only. Means if one want to transfer movie or any stuff greater than 4gb it can’t be done in this format. So, after an hour research I am able to find three solutions for it:
1.If moving files one way, from Mac to Windows, use HFS+.
To move files from Windows to Mac, use NTFS. if moving files both ways, use either.
2.Chosse either FAT32 or exFAT for gaining compatibility in Pc as well Mac.
3.Create two partitions on your hard drive to use with each OS, separately. You can create,delete,format,resize boot camp partition,repartition without any data loss, can make bootable DVD by Stellar partition manager. I found this tool really easy to use and efficient.

By: Curtis

Curtis — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:07:10 +0000

Thanks! I appreciate the help!
– Curtis

By: How to Format a Drive for Mac and PC Compatibility with a Gotcha « Advanced Learning Technologies @ GSU

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:58:20 +0000

[...] they’re a little nerdy, but sometimes that’s just what you need, as in this case: a dead-easy how-to guide to formatting a USB drive (or USB key or flash drive or thumb drive or whatever you may call it) for use on both a Mac and a [...]

By: Prk60091

Prk60091 — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:07:33 +0000

Zfs for os x was killed when some licensing issues arose.

By: Kavi Ugl

Kavi Ugl — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:44:52 +0000

OS X doesn’t even have good FAT32 support! Read/write speeds with USB memory sticks are so slow I might as well be using USB 1.1 levels. And this is with every Mac I’ve tried. It’s a real irritation when even worn-out old Windows XP machines are four times faster or even better.

By: How to Format a Drive for Mac & PC Compatibility « iPhone tips & tricks

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:53:36 +0000

[...] Via OsxDaily [...]

By: Joshua K

Joshua K — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:26:19 +0000

I personally found exFAT faster than NTFS-3g drivers and handled large files, so it worked well for me.

I wish there was a universal filesystem everyone could use natively without these trappings on each individual OS.

By: vdiv

vdiv — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:41:49 +0000

FAT was designed for external media called a floppy disk, remember these?

I seriously doubt that anyone pays loyalty fees to M$ for using FAT. The reality is we all live in a world of mixed platforms, always have and probably always will. Many have multiple OS installed, either directly on the HDD on in VMs. The OS that has the widest support usually becomes the most popular. For MacOS X not to have a built-in FS R/W support for NTFS and ext3/4 and to force users to jump hoops is retarded. It’s another reason for users to switch to Linux.

By: Kilian

Kilian — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:09:41 +0000

Could Ext4 (and coming newer versions) be a perfect candidate for this? It supports very large files and (as far as I can see) isn’t licensed by anyone in particular. The only problem that persists is that it’s supported by nothing but Linux.

It’s always nice to have a standard. It’d be great if there were only a very limited amount of different batteries, different cables and whatnot. But there aren’t. I always have to think of this particular XKCD comic when talking about this http://xkcd.com/927/

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:50:44 +0000

Setting to MBR is generally necessary when wanting to boot a drive with Windows, but you’re right some older versions will prefer to use Master Boot Record.

The article has been updated, thanks for pointing this out.

By: Ricardo

Ricardo — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:35:56 +0000

I never messed with MBR and I can use a USB stick on Mac and Windows, doesn’t it format automatically when you go with NTFS or MSDOS?

By: Makka

Makka — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:30:15 +0000

No, why should an operating system support the file systems of other operating systems? HFS+ can be used for Mac volumes, NTFS can be useed for Windows volumes and Ext3 and Ext4 can be used for Linux volumes. There should be no need for Mac OS X to support NTFS, Ext3 and Ext4 and there should be no need for Windows to support HFS+, Ext3 and Ext4.

I say “there SHOULD be no need” and I’ll explain why:

In my opinion it’s absolutely ridiculous to use a file system which was designed for an operating system from the last century on our external media. FAT was never designed for external media and it’s outdated. There should be a file system which is designed for external media and supports large files and large volumes, just like all other modern file systems.

FAT was designed by Microsoft and is patented by Microsoft. Every who wants to use FAT has to pay Microsoft. Almost all external devices you buy (hard drives, USB key, flash cards, etc) are pre-formatted as FAT (because it’s the only file system which works on almost every device they have to use FAT), so some money goes to Microsoft for almost every external device you buy. They have to pay Microsoft to use FAT.

Almost every device supports FAT. Almost every device you buy (a Mac, a NAS, a router which has a USB port to connect a hard disk to, a digital camera, a radio which can play songs from USB or flash card / simply put: every device which can read from a hard disc, USB key or flash card) has to buy a license at Microsoft to be allowed to use FAT and and additional license to be able to use NTFS.

I’ve been wondering for years now: Why didn’t they develop a file systems for external devices, just like they did with CD’s? I can burn a data CD (MP3 files on a data CD) and it just plays everywhere: in my car, in my DVD player, in every operating system. Every device just supports it. Why didn’t they do the same with external devices.

In my opinion it’s ridiculous to use a file system from the last century, which was designed for an old operating system and which is patented by Microsoft. They should have introduced a completely new, open and completely independent file system which is designed for external devices and is free to use by everyone.

By: vdiv

vdiv — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:23:18 +0000

MacOSX needs to get full NTFS support.
Windows needs to get HFS support.

Both need ext3, and ext4 support.

Seriously, how can we have a modern OS without supporting modern FS?