External HD to use with my MacBook and a PC

[FrenchPB]

Hi guys,


I wanted to know whether it was possible to use an external HD with a PC and a Mac (not at the same time). Do you need to format the disk a certain way so that the files can be recognized by the two OS?

Thanks in advance for your help

 

[Temujin]

Hi guys,


I wanted to know whether it was possible to use an external HD with a PC and a Mac (not at the same time). Do you need to format the disk a certain way so that the files can be recognized by the two OS?

Thanks in advance for your help

If you need both a Mac and a PC to read and write from and to a harddrive your one of two options is to format the drive in FAT32. The file size is limited to 4GB though.
You could chose NTFS, which support much larger file sizes, but such a format would limit OSX to only being able to read from the drive. Not write.

Your second choice is to get MacDrive http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive6/ I use it and love it. Works perfectly with my Lacie external drive.