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Need to re-format WD drive without losing data

S

SuDenom

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 5, 2009
5
0
I have a WD Passport drive which I have been using on my PC. I have approx 100GB of 300GB used and I do not want to lose it.

I can read and write to the drive from my PC and read from it on the Mac

I want to transfer large files (15GB+) from my PC to my Mac using the WD Drive. I do not need to write to the drive from the Mac. However, I am restricted by the 4GB file size thingummy.

When I go to 'Format' drive on the PC the only option I am given is NTFS which is how I presume it is formatted now.

How do I re-format (or initialise) the drive so I can:-
1. Not lose any of the current data
2. Write large files to it from my PC
3. Read only from my Mac (copy from drive to Mac)

Many thanks in advance.. :O)
 
SuDenom said:
I have a WD Passport drive which I have been using on my PC. I have approx 100GB of 300GB used and I do not want to lose it.

I can read and write to the drive from my PC and read from it on the Mac

I want to transfer large files (15GB+) from my PC to my Mac using the WD Drive. I do not need to write to the drive from the Mac. However, I am restricted by the 4GB file size thingummy.

When I go to 'Format' drive on the PC the only option I am given is NTFS which is how I presume it is formatted now.

How do I re-format (or initialise) the drive so I can:-
1. Not lose any of the current data
2. Write large files to it from my PC
3. Read only from my Mac (copy from drive to Mac)

Many thanks in advance.. :O)
Click to expand...

Transfer all of the files off. Reformat. Transfer files back. That's the only way.
 
I thought that might be the case.

Is there a format option that would let me read/write files of unrestricted size on both PC & Mac?
 
Thanks for the quick responses.

Is there a format option where I can write large files from PC and read-only from Mac (without additional software?)
 
Am I back where I started then?

If I went out tomorrow and bought a new WD drive, there is no way to format it so I can write large files from PC and read on Mac?
 
If you only need read only access on the Mac, then NTFS will do what you're looking to do. Mac OS can read NTFS disks, but can't write to it.

FAT32 allows both Macs and PCs to read and write to the drive, but there is a 4 GB limit to the filesize.

HFS+ is only supported by Mac and will not be read by PC without third party software (which also allows PCs to write to the disk).

As well, Macs can write to NTFS formatted disks using third party software.

These pretty much are your only options, so determine what it is you need it to do and go from there.
 
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