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External Harddrive Questions

post #1 of 13
10/9/05 at 3:25am
Thread Starter 
Hey guys,

Im a complete newb to Apple. If I get an external drive for my Powerbook G4, can I just plug it in (USB) and use the disk utility (OSX 10.3) to configure it for use? Also, I plugged in a friends external that was hooked up to a Windows XP system, transfer some files from my powerbook to the external, but when I plugged it back into the Windows XP system, it says the harddrive needs to be formatted. Did I need to unmount the drive from the powerbook first?
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post #2 of 13
10/9/05 at 4:57am
Most external drives should work right out of the box on a Mac.

In the case of your friend's drive...if it was hooked up to an XP system and you hooked it up to your Mac to transfer files you wouldn't've been able to write anything to the drive without formatting it in FAT32 or HFS. If you're connecting it back to the Windows machine and it's telling you you need to format it it means that you formatted it with the Mac already.
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post #3 of 13
10/9/05 at 11:06am
Windows cannot read or write HFS or UFS. The Mac can read NTFS on 10.4 but cannot write as of yet. Both can read and write FAT32. Could be a format problem. Also, you ejected the disk instead of just unhooking the USB cable right?
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post #4 of 13
10/10/05 at 7:04pm
Thread Starter 
You're right Kakaze. It was a 200gb hardrrive which windows xp will only format in ntfs, but after it was plugged back in from the apple it was reading fat32, so I just reformatted it taking the loss of some files after I recovered ~90% of it. So If I bought an regular IDE internal Harddrive and an external case, put it together, and hook it up to the mac, would the mac be able to read it from there, formatting its own file system?
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post #5 of 13
10/10/05 at 7:30pm
You need this. FAT32 drives can only be 132GB (I think, in that area anyway) so your 200GB would be wasted in FAT32.
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post #6 of 13
10/10/05 at 8:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tnynyn
You're right Kakaze. It was a 200gb hardrrive which windows xp will only format in ntfs, but after it was plugged back in from the apple it was reading fat32, so I just reformatted it taking the loss of some files after I recovered ~90% of it. So If I bought an regular IDE internal Harddrive and an external case, put it together, and hook it up to the mac, would the mac be able to read it from there, formatting its own file system?

Yeah...I have a setup like that. 250 gig WD in a Macally firewire enclosure. Works poifectly.

If you think you'll want to transfer files back and forth between the Mac and PC set up a small FAT 32 partition and format the rest of it HFS+. If not just do the whole thing HFS+.
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post #7 of 13
10/10/05 at 10:29pm
So if I wanted to transfer files between my mac and pc what would be the best setup? I am having that problem right now since my current external hard drive cannot be wrote to using my mac because of the ntfs file system.
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post #8 of 13
10/11/05 at 1:51am
how full is your iPod and what are u planning on storing? if it's relatively small stuff u could just use your iPod to move thing around w/o needing an external drive. if it's Mac formatted however u'd have to potentially wipe it and make it FAT32, but if u have all of your music on the PB then it's not a prob. u'd just drop it over again once it's all setup.

for those who value any degree of mobility u could opt for a 2.5" solution. it's more spendy per GB, but it is oh so sweet to have the drive powered by the firewire port (and USB if needed, but it takes 2 cables for that). also the smaller drive size means the FAT32 format would be a viable option.
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post #9 of 13
10/11/05 at 2:04am
The easiest way to transfer files is over a network. I've never been able to successfully connect my Mac to the PCs here at home through SAMBA, but I've been able to turn the Mac into an FTP server and transfer files that way.

Barring that you can get an external drive and format it FAT32, or format a portion of it FAT32.

Then, of course, there's email, cds, floppies or zips if you have an external drive.

Oh, or memory keys. These are probably the best things to use for stuff under a gig or so.
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post #10 of 13
10/13/05 at 4:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by benroethig
Windows cannot read or write HFS or UFS. The Mac can read NTFS on 10.4 but cannot write as of yet. Both can read and write FAT32. Could be a format problem. Also, you ejected the disk instead of just unhooking the USB cable right?
I'm in a similar spot. I recently got a 160 GB WD external drive (USB, no FireWire), and had to format it in order to plug it into my PowerBook G3 (running OS X 10.2.8).

However, what I want is to be able to use it just like my 128-MB jumpdrive -- plug it into either a PC or a Mac and it just works, like a huge zip disk.

I don't remember seeing FAT32 as an option in Disk Utility. Did I miss it, or is this in later flavors of OS X? (later than 10.2....)
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post #11 of 13
10/13/05 at 8:46pm
You have to format it as MS DOS, Trogdor.

THat's why flash drives work crossplatform, cause they're formatted fat32.
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post #12 of 13
10/14/05 at 11:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kakaze
You have to format it as MS DOS, Trogdor.

THat's why flash drives work crossplatform, cause they're formatted fat32.
Ahh, very well, very well. But last night when I looked in Disk Utility, it gave me the options of Mac OS Extended, Mac OS (something else), and Unix.

Or, are you saying use a Windows machine to format it MS DOS? Sorry if that's a dumb question, just trying to be sure.
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post #13 of 13
10/14/05 at 2:59pm
When you see the drive in Disk Utility you should see the name of the hard drive itself and directly under it and to the right will be the names of any partitions. If you're going to format the whole thing as FAT32 select the drive itself and not the partitions and it'll give you the opportunity to format as MS DOS.

It looks like, however, if you want a partition that's FAT32 and and another partition in another filesystem that you'll have to format it on a windows computer or use a terminal command as Disk Utility for some reason won't let you format a partition as FAT32.
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