external drive problems

[calebyoung1206]

Ok, I have a 2TB WD MyBook external hard drive it works great with my MacBook Pro that is running Leopard, but when I try to plug it into my wife's laptop that runs Windows XP, XP doesn't recognize the drive. I realize that it's technically a Windows problem, but I figured the Mac community would probably be more helpful. I'm not computer savvy at all so any help will probably have to be broken down like you are talking to a toddler. Thanks in advance!

 

[S.B.G]

Its very likely that XP won't recognize it because it was formatted for OS/X using Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition table. What you could do is split the drive into two partitions, one for OS/X and one for Windows.

Make half of it, or whatever storage capacity configurations you want, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and the rest MS-DOS (FAT). OS/X will recognize both partitions and Windows will only see the MS-DOS (FAT) partition.

From the Disk Utility help file:

To create new partitions on a disk:

Select the disk from the list at the left, and click Partition.

Select an existing partition in the Volume Scheme list, and click Add (+).

Disk Utility splits the partition into two, leaving the data in one of the new partitions. If the partition is less than half-full, Disk Utility creates two partitions of equal size. Otherwise, it creates one partition large enough for the data, and another partition with the remaining space.

Resize the partitions as needed.

You can drag the dividers between the partitions in the Volume Scheme list, or you can select a partition in the Volume Scheme list, and then enter a value in the Size field.

Choose how to format the partitions that will be erased or created.

For each new partition, select it, enter a name, and then choose a format.

Click Apply.

When you do the Add (+) in the steps above, you will choose MS-DOS (FAT) for one partition and then Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for the other. See attached screen capture.

WARNING: It is very important that you take any data currently on the drive and back it up on another drive before attempting to partition your drive. Partitioning will erase all data on the drive area you're working on.

 

[AppleNewton]

Making a Windows readable format partition is one helpful resolution.
I'm not sure now adays but when I was using Windows on a different I was able to install the bootcamp drivers on the Windows machine and was able to see OSX formatted drives, if you have your Leopard install DVD you can try that, otherwise the partition scheme may be the better option for you.

 

[compuwar]

Ok, I have a 2TB WD MyBook external hard drive it works great with my MacBook Pro that is running Leopard, but when I try to plug it into my wife's laptop that runs Windows XP, XP doesn't recognize the drive. I realize that it's technically a Windows problem, but I figured the Mac community would probably be more helpful. I'm not computer savvy at all so any help will probably have to be broken down like you are talking to a toddler. Thanks in advance!

You need HFS+ file system drivers for the Windows machine. You can read the drive using the free HFSExplorer found here. You'll likely have to pay for something like MacDrive if you want to be able to write to the drive from Windows. Alternately, you could share the drive on the network from your Mac, but that's more involved.

Paul