How To Format an External Hard drive HFS+ and NTFS?

jaimem · Feb 9, 2008

I have searched high and low for the answer to this question. I have tried many many manyyyyy times to accomplish this on my own and everytime something just doenst work out!

So my question is how do I format my Western Digital external hard drive for 305gb HFS+ (mac use) and 160 NTFS(or fat32) for my Windows computer?

_____
I have tried to format and partition it first on a Windows computer (using both Partition Magic and the Windows Disk Manager) and then take it to my Mac, but it doesnt say they are 2 different disks, rather just 2 volumes, therefore i cant format each one individually.

I have also tried to format using DIsk Utility and then take it to my Pc. It reads that there is a formated drive in My Computer but when i go to Partition Magic or Disk manager it reads as the entire drive is "Unallocated"

AND FINALLY...the closest i've come to completing this task is..when i went to My Computer->Manager and all that jazz, It showed up as 160gb and 305gb, so that is a step further than before. Now i just want to simply format that 160gb "Unallocated" area NTFS. But when a right click on that, go to New Partition, and go thru all the steps with that, when i'm finally ready to format it(and hit Format)...it says "The requested operation cannot be completed because the media is write-protected" (thats of course with my Pc) so i assume it is a matter of "un-write-protecting" the drive?

If anyone can help me out at all let me know! Thanks!

(using Windows XP and OS X Leopard (or could use Tiger if need be))

juanm · Feb 9, 2008

Disk Utility -> Partition -> 2 Partitions. You select a different file system for every partition.

I'm not going to try it (for obvious reasons) but it should work

jaimem · Feb 9, 2008

Juan Moro said:
Disk Utility -> Partition -> 2 Partitions. You select a different file system for every partition.

I'm not going to try it (for obvious reasons) but it should work

i've obviously tried that...and have sucessfully partitioned it but there wasnt an option to format FAT32. only HFS formats and "Free Space".

webgoat · Feb 9, 2008

are you running leopard? i recently made 3 partitions on my external hard using disk utility and then formatted 2 of them hfs+ from within disk utility... i then booted into vista and formatted the final partition ntfs using disk management

jaimem · Feb 9, 2008

did you just leave the 3rd one as "Free Space"?

b/c when i tried that it says(on Windows XP) when i try to format that "Free Space" that it is write protected and it cannon format it as NTFS.

webgoat · Feb 9, 2008

jaimem said:
did you just leave the 3rd one as "Free Space"?

b/c when i tried that it says(on Windows XP) when i try to format that "Free Space" that it is write protected and it cannon format it as NTFS.

i really can't remember off the top of my head... i did it christmas morning as the hard drive was a present... i may have formatted it fat32 in disk utility then reformatted it ntfs from within windows disk management

Neil321 · Feb 9, 2008

Why not just format the whole drive hfs+ and get macdrive 7 for windows?

jaimem · Feb 9, 2008

webgoat said:
i really can't remember off the top of my head... i did it christmas morning as the hard drive was a present... i may have formatted it fat32 in disk utility then reformatted it ntfs from within windows disk management

hmmm..well like i said i tried it, and XP says the drive is "write protected" and therefore cannot format it!

and to Neil321..ive used macdrive before and it just doesnt seem too reliable so i'm hoping to get this partitioned. thanks tho!

Neil321 · Feb 9, 2008

jaimem said:
hmmm..well like i said i tried it, and XP says the drive is "write protected" and therefore cannot format it!

and to Neil321..ive used macdrive before and it just doesnt seem too reliable so i'm hoping to get this partitioned. thanks tho!

Thats ok just thought id suggest it as it saves alot of grief,i use it and its never
let me down

juanm · Feb 9, 2008

jaimem said:
i've obviously tried that...and have sucessfully partitioned it but there wasnt an option to format FAT32. only HFS formats and "Free Space".

You don't see this?

jaimem · Feb 9, 2008

Juan Moro said:
You don't see this?

hmmmmmmm...

no i dont. i wonder whats going on? are you using Tiger or Leopard or something else?

juanm · Feb 9, 2008

Certainly not something else

It's Leopard...

richard.mac · Feb 9, 2008

in Leopard FAT32 is listed as MS-DOS (FAT) and in Tiger MS-DOS. then when in XP right click the external disk (only the FAT32 parition should should show up) and click format. a little window will open and select NTFS and quick format.

jaimem · Feb 10, 2008

the thing is when i partitioned it in Leopard it didnt give me any "windows" based options(Ms-Dos or Fat32) under the Partitioning tab. It gave a Ms-Dos under the Erase tab but in that case i'd have to format the entire disk. But i guess i'll try it again.

PITTM · Mar 19, 2008

I found this thread through a google search while trying to do something similar. I have a regular macbook, a desktop running xp and a 500gb external hd. I had originally backed up everything from my desktop and had about 200gb remaining, which was more than enough space to backup my macbook. But when I tried time machine it wanted me to reformat. So I looked into my options and decided to reformat in leopard to 2 partitions. A 320gb FAT32 partition and a 150gb HFS partition. This was okay but I couldn't use FAT32 for my desktop since I had files larger than 4gb and I have heard FAT32 cannot handle those. So, after I had done this formatting in leopard, I plugged my external back into my desktop and reformatted the FAT32 partition to an NTFS partition. This has worked perfectly for me and has allowed me to run both time machine and to backup my windows files to the hard drive. Being able to swap files between the two will be difficult and I think that perhaps I should have left a small(10gb or so) FAT32 partition for swapping files between partitions. We shall see.

wildmilne · Mar 19, 2008

Juan Moro said:
Certainly not something else

It's Leopard...

i have the same problem, have an external drive, created 2 partions, i dont see FAT option, just Windows NT Filesystem. I create 2 partitions...i only see the mac one on my PC (with macdrive). I see my unallocated space in the disk manager but if i try to format it i get write protected...

...Note: i want to use HFS+ so that my xbox can play over 4gb video files, but i would like to have a portion of the disk i can take wherever to a windows pc and copy files back and forth...thats the reason im not doing all hfs+ and macdrive.

wildmilne · Mar 19, 2008

I did see this article on Macdrives site, so i'm not sure its their software limiting it, or its just not possible with or without their software:

"Compatibility...Hard disks with multiple partition types (i.e. dual-format)
Dual-formatted hard disks are not supported. Neither Windows nor MacDrive will be capable of working with a drive configured in this manner.

With MacDrive installed you won't need to use two different formats (e.g. FAT32 and HFS+) to use your drive on both computers. MacDrive enables your Windows PC to seamlessly work with HFS/HFS+ disks."

So much for that great idea i guess....i guess i have to buy more hard drives

RMC2800 · Dec 20, 2008

Partiton your NTFS to HFS+ without losing data already stored on it

I figured it out, and it's relatively easy to do. You can partition your drive without losing any data already stored on it. This works if you have a hard drive that's already set as NTFS. You need both Windows and Mac to do this.

1. Download the Windows program Acronis Disk Director. This program will partition your hard drive and keep all the files intact!

2. Connect your external drive to windows and open the program. Choose the drive you wish to partition.

3. Set the partition size to whatever you want and set the new partition to be blank with no set file system on it.

4. The program will partition the drive. My 1 TB drive only took about 25 minutes to partition.

5. Connect the external hard drive to Mac and open Disk Utility.

6. In Disk Utility select the blank partition you just created and click on erase. From there you can choose to create the volume format as Mac OS Extended.

That's it. It is not impossible and relatively easy to do!

Juozavas · Dec 28, 2008

Hi all, i just got my new 500gb WD external hdd. I will mostly use it on my Macbook, since i do a lot of audio-recording stuff. But sometimes i must to connect my hdd to a pc. Because audio recording needs as high speed as posible, i can not use ntfs+paragon on mac. I would like to know, how to use HFS+ formated hard disk on windows? Is it true that the only way to do it is using MacDrive? Because once i did so and i lost all my data

Aren't there any other alternatives? Thanks for any ideas.

kastenbrust · Dec 28, 2008

Juozavas said:
Hi all, i just got my new 500gb WD external hdd. I will mostly use it on my Macbook, since i do a lot of audio-recording stuff. But sometimes i must to connect my hdd to a pc. Because audio recording needs as high speed as posible, i can not use ntfs+paragon on mac. I would like to know, how to use HFS+ formated hard disk on windows? Is it true that the only way to do it is using MacDrive? Because once i did so and i lost all my data Aren't there any other alternatives? Thanks for any ideas.

Simply partition the hard drive in windows disk manager (admin tools) however you want, 250GB/250GB or 100GB/400GB seriously whatever, then format the first partition NTFS or FAT 32 in windows (whichever floats your boat) and then plug it into your mac and format the unformatted partition to HFS+, its simple, ive done it hundreds of times, no problems, even a monkey or dolphin could do it.

Juozavas · Dec 29, 2008

Oh, sanctas simplicitas

God bless you, kastenburst

after all software downloading, terminal typing methods, finally it seems you don't have anything special

I have now two pure nice and clear partitions. Happy holidays everyone

ironhand41 · Sep 6, 2011

format external drive for NTFS & HFS+

I recall that one important consideration in formatting the two partitions on an external HDD is to be sure the first partition is formatted NTFS and the second partition HFS+. Apparently Winders has trouble recognizing the NTFS partition if it is not the first one.

i4k20c · Sep 10, 2011

RMC2800 said:
I figured it out, and it's relatively easy to do. You can partition your drive without losing any data already stored on it. This works if you have a hard drive that's already set as NTFS. You need both Windows and Mac to do this.

1. Download the Windows program Acronis Disk Director. This program will partition your hard drive and keep all the files intact!

2. Connect your external drive to windows and open the program. Choose the drive you wish to partition.

3. Set the partition size to whatever you want and set the new partition to be blank with no set file system on it.

4. The program will partition the drive. My 1 TB drive only took about 25 minutes to partition.

5. Connect the external hard drive to Mac and open Disk Utility.

6. In Disk Utility select the blank partition you just created and click on erase. From there you can choose to create the volume format as Mac OS Extended.

That's it. It is not impossible and relatively easy to do!

is there any way to partition in windows xp for free? there is no data on the drive, so i don't care about loosing anything.

How To Format an External Hard drive HFS+ and NTFS?

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