How to access Time Machine on XP

[Alan Menhennet]

Hi all,
Unfortunately my 3 month old White Macbook was stolen from my house last week. Thankfully insurance has it covered, so when they decide to give me some money, hopefully before the end of 2011... all will have worked out. Even more thankfully new models just came out hahaha...

Now the problem is that I had a backup on an external hard drive using Time Machine (phew) so no data lost, just that my stolen Macbook was my first and only Mac, and none of my immediate friends own Macs and obviously I cant just plug in the HDD to my XP machine. (Which I have tried lol)

I was in the middle of applying for new jobs, I'd like to keep doing that but my resumes are all locked in the Time Machine backups

I've done some Googling and I've read that trying to access the files on XP could potentially lead to damaging or loss of the files. I've even tried booting up the ol Hackintosh I made before I went and bought my Macbook but even that isn't working anymore.

I'm hoping someone here has a solution for me!

Thanks in advance
-Alan

 

[Cave Man]

You'll need XP drivers for reading HFS+ or another Mac.

 

[RaceTripper]

Are you near an Apple Store. They might be able to help you out.

 

[gr8tfly]

It's more than just needing HFS+ access. The OS needs to support hardlinked directories, which, AFAIK, is currently unique to Leopard and later. I don't know if any of the current Windows tools include support for this.

A trip to an Apple store or other source of a Leopard equipped Mac is propably your best option.