can't write to USB drive

[redryder]

Hi, a lot of the time I get a friend's USB drive plugged into my macbook, and I can't write files onto it. Is it because the drive is formatted in NTFS and Mac doesn't work that?

Is there any workaround? Its really a bummer when you need to collaborate with windows using people.

 

[spinnerlys]

Yes, as Mac OS X can't natively write to NTFS formatted volumes, you need the free NTFS-3G drivers (link in quote below):

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 and Snow Leopard: Install MacFUSEand NTFS-3G. You can install both with NTFS-3Gfor 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