Formatting external hard drive

[NikonNick]

Hi,

I've just bought a Mac Mini a few days ago after finally making the switch from windows & so I'm still very much feeling my way around the Mac world.

I have a Samsung 500gb usb powered external drive that I usually have attached to a Western Digital TV Live unit which is connected to my TV by HDMI which worked fine when I was using it on my PC to copy files to.

On connecting it to my new Mac and found i couldnt save files to that drive and figured that I needed to format it somehow so I could copy .avi files to it on the mac and that the WD TV can then read them.

I've tried a couple of formatting options using the disk utility on the MAC and can now copy files to it but the WD TV won't register the newly formatted drive when i connect it via the USB.

Sorry for such a newbie query & any incorrect terminology but I'd be real grateful for any suggestions that might help.

Cheers

Nick

 

[JamesMB]

I don't know how you formatted the drive, but I bet that the WD TV needs to see FAT 32. If you format the Samsung as Fat 32, the Mac will still be able to read and write to it.

 

[agentphish]

it sounds like the drive is formatted as NTFS, which natively, OS X can not write to, but can read from.

You can use disk utility for format as MS-DOS Formatted FAT32, or you can do it on Windows too.

 

[GGJstudios]

FAT32 (File Allocation Table)

• Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
• Maximum file size: 4GB.
• Maximum volume size: 2TB

NTFS (Windows NT File System)

• Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
• Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
• To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X: Install NTFS-3G for Mac OS X (free)
• Some have reported problems using Tuxera (approx 33USD).
• Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard, but is not advisable, due to instability.
• AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support NTFS
• Maximum file size: 16 TB
• Maximum volume size: 256TB

HFS+ (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended)

• Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
• Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner backups of Mac internal hard drive.
• To Read/Write HFS+ from Windows, Install MacDrive
• To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer
• Maximum file size: 8EiB
• Maximum volume size: 8EiB

exFAT (FAT64)

• Supported in Mac OS X only in 10.6.5 or later.
• exFAT partitions created with OS X 10.6.5 are inaccessible from Windows 7
• Not all Windows versions support exFAT. See disadvantages.
• exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
• AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support exFAT
• Maximum file size: 16 EiB
• Maximum volume size: 64 ZiB