Can you format a hard drive for PC with disk utility?

[natatos]

I'm selling a hard drive that doesn't work when formatted for Mac so I need to sell it PC format. Will MS-DOS (FAT) work, and does it need to be set to Master Boot Record? I have a PC I can test it on but I just want to now what to do before I try it out so I don't keep having to switch between computers.

 

[iBookG4user]

If you format it to FAT32, then yes, it will work for PCs.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Disk utility is capable of formatting a disk as fat32, on paper. In practice, it never seems to work correctly. for me at least.

But rather, if you're not able to format it as HFS, then there's probably something wrong with the drive and you shouldn't be selling it as working... just FYI.

 

[Hellhammer]

NTFS is best format for Windows as it has no file size limit. However, you need NTFS-3G in order to format HDs to NTFS format with Disk Utility. Yes, put it in Master Boot Record, it's most trouble free

 

[celticpride678]

Format in FAT/FAT32 and it will work in Windows.

 

[GGJstudios]

Yes, you can format it as FAT32. You can also format it as NTFS, if you've enabled that in Mac OS X.


FAT32

• Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
• No individual file larger than 4GB.

NTFS

• Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
• Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
• To Read/Write NTFS from Leopard: Install MacFUSE and NTFS-3G. You can install both with NTFS-3G for Mac OS X.
• To Read/Write NTFS from Snow Leopard: Guide: Enable native NTFS Read/Write in Snow Leopard
• (Be aware that some are of the opinion that enabling native NTFS in SL is unstable/unreliable, and favor the MacFuse/NTFS-3G method for Snow Leopard)

HFS

• Read/Write HFS from native Mac OS X
• To Read/Write HFS from Windows, Install MacDrive
• To Read HFS (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer

 

[spinnerlys]

Yes, you ... ah dren.

Btw, how does it not work, when formatted with HFS+ (Mac OS Extended)? What kind of error message do you get? What steps have you taken to format it for Mac?

 

[natatos]

It wont mount mac formatted but does for MS-DOS, I bought it for PC cause I didn't think it would make a difference.

 

[spinnerlys]

It wont mount mac formatted but does for MS-DOS, I bought it for PC cause I didn't think it would make a difference.

An SMC reset helped me with those mounting problems. Have you made sure, you chose the right partition table while you formatted the HDD for Mac OS X?

 

[GGJstudios]

It wont mount mac formatted but does for MS-DOS, I bought it for PC cause I didn't think it would make a difference.

It doesn't make a difference. Any drive can be formatted for use with Mac, Windows or both.

 

[Pillar]

thanks guys. i needed the heads up on this aswell