Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Mr.Bullitt

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 15, 2009
173
2
Hi guys!

Since I made the switch to Mac, all my external drives have been formatted for it.

Now I have this problem with my office Laptop - It can not read the Mac file system.

Is there a driver, plugin or something else 3rd party that would let med just read the external drives without risk???
 
Nov 28, 2010
22,670
30
located
MacDrive (commercial) and HFSExplorer (free):

FAT32 (File Allocation Table)
  • Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
  • Maximum file size: 4GB.
  • Maximum volume size: 2TB
NTFS (Windows NT File System)
  • Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
  • Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
  • To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X: Install NTFS-3G for Mac OS X (free)
  • Some have reported problems using Tuxera (approx 33USD).
  • Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard, but is not advisable, due to instability.
  • AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support NTFS
  • Maximum file size: 16 TB
  • Maximum volume size: 256TB
HFS+ (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended)
  • Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
  • Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner backups of Mac internal hard drive.
  • To Read/Write HFS+ from Windows, Install MacDrive
  • To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer
  • Maximum file size: 8EiB
  • Maximum volume size: 8EiB
exFAT (FAT64)
  • Supported in Mac OS X only in 10.6.5 or later.
  • exFAT partitions created with OS X 10.6.5 are inaccessible from Windows 7
  • Not all Windows versions support exFAT. See disadvantages.
  • exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
  • AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support exFAT
  • Maximum file size: 16 EiB
  • Maximum volume size: 64 ZiB
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.