New external HDD for use with xp and os x

[mac17]

I bought a WD Mybook 250gb external hard drive and i want to use it for both windows and mac (mostly os x) is there a way i can do this in disk utility without making partitions?:confused: I want to be able to read and write on both OS' also i want to use firewire for my MB and usb for my windows machine. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.:) :apple:

[eyebeaz]

You just have to reformat it in Disk Utility to FAT32. To do this you select the MS-DOS option when reformating.

[mac17]

thanks, i read somewhere that, that format (Fat32) is not so reliable with a big hard drives is that true??

[theBB]

I believe WD externals come with FAT32 formatting, so I don't think you will have to do anything. However, you won't be able to have any file larger than 4GB in size, which is usually not a big deal for anything other than video files.

Oh, another drawback: whatever you save on that disk will have write permissions for everybody.

[mac17]

hmm i do have an imovie file or two that are almost 18 gb imovie editing takes alot of space is there any other possible way i can do this?Also what do you mean when you say writing permissions is a drawback?

[mac17]

ok so i made a partition so i can transfer large files using journeld format and another using fat32, but why does it only recognize it when the usb is plugged in and not firewire?


ps: never mind its working now thanks for the help.

[showtime]

but doesn't fat32 not store files bigger than ~4gb? Maybe you can partition the drive, say like have half of it partitioned to ntfs and the other half to hfs.

[mac17]

but doesn't fat32 not store files bigger than ~4gb? Maybe you can partition the drive, say like have half of it partitioned to ntfs and the other half to hfs.

i partitioned it to 50 gb journeld for large files and 200gb fat32 for everything else, should be good no?

[dschiller]

I haven't personally used it, but I've heard good things about MacDrive (http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/). You install it on your Windows computer(s) and they become able to read Journaled formated HDs. Maybe you should give it a try:apple: