Now you can use your external hard drive with both Windows and Mac OS X. But, remember, your Mac will only be able to write to the OS X partition while your PC can only write to the NTFS-formatted Windows partition. If you need to overwrite files on the Windows partition using the Mac, for instance. But if you try to use an external hard drive that's been formatted for Mac OS, you'll find that it will not work on your PC. To convert an external hard drive from.
I have a seagate freeagent external hard drive and i've been using it with a PC. It's been fine and dandy, but when I try to back up files from my macbook, it says that the freeagent can not be modified. I know this can be fixed by reformatting the hard drive, but that would delete everything already on it, right? I have a seagate freeagent external hard drive and i've been using it with a PC.
It's been fine and dandy, but when I try to back up files from my macbook, it says that the freeagent can not be modified. I know this can be fixed by reformatting the hard drive, but that would delete everything already on it, right? I don't want to do that.
So is there any way that i can use it with both a mac and a pc without deleting everything? Best Answer: Well I work at best buy and along with routers, external drives are my favorite thing to sell to people. If I'm not mistaken, the freeagent drives require Windows to work so odds are they wouldn't work with your Mac even if you did reformat.
I won't guarantee that though because some things say they shouldn't work and they will anyway but I can say that I doubt there's a way to make it work for both without reformatting because I'm pretty sure Windows and Mac use two different file compression types. I'm going to google this for a second and if I find something else to add I'll edit.
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/2/5/4/125481538/743585624.jpg)
Hope this helps and sorry for the bad news! Windows OS to Macintosh OS: It is only possible to read FAT and FAT32 formatted drives in a Macintosh with OS 10.2 or earlier. Using a FAT32 formatted drive within the Macintosh environment is only recommended for a short period of time to transfer data. Data corruption will very possibly occur when using FAT32 over an extended period of time in a Macintosh.
Also keep in mind, that you will have a 4 GB file transfer limitation. Do not use NTFS formatted drives. Mac OS X 10.3 Panther or later, works with local NTFS-formatted volumes. The volume will be read-only. You will be able to copy data from, but not to the external hard drive.
With FAT32, it is recommended that the volume/partition size of the external hard drive not exceed 32 GBs. Data corruption will be prevalent when using FAT 32 over an extended period of time in a Macintosh. NTFS formatted drives cannot be used in a Macintosh (except as read-only with Mac OS X 10.3 as noted above). If you attempt to use a NTFS formatted disk, upon starting up the Mac OS will prompt you to format the drive. Do not format the drive, doing so will erase the contents of the drive. If you have an NTFS formatted disk, you must use another method to transfer the data from the PC to the Macintosh. Please also see the following Macintosh article: How to transfer data from a PC to a Macintosh I've included the article for you to check out if you want.
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Updated: by Computer Hope For a Windows computer to be able to read a hard drive, it needs to have a format that is compatible with Windows. File systems compatible with Windows include. A hard drive formatted for use in a Mac has either a or HFS+ file system. For this reason, a Mac-formatted hard drive is not directly compatible nor readable by a Windows computer.
The HFS and HFS+ file systems are not readable by Windows. What are my options? Using a application, it may be possible for a Windows computer to read a Mac-formatted hard drive. A few of the more popular applications used by Windows to read a Mac hard drive are listed below. Free-to-use program and requires to be installed on the Windows computer. It allows for access to files on the Mac hard drive. Updating or deleting files on the Mac hard drive from the Windows PC is not possible.
Available as a 5-day free trial and can be purchased for $49.99, MacDrive allows users to view, update, and delete files on the Mac hard drive. MacDrive can integrate with for easier browsing of the hard drive's files. This program is available as a 10-day free trial and can be purchased for $19.95. Like MacDrive, users can view, update, and delete files on the Mac hard drive. It also integrates with Windows Explorer.