os x format external hd from windows?

[sk3pt1c]

i just got an external hd as a gift for renewing my internet connection.
it says on the box that it works with both mac and pc.
so i connect it to my pc to take some backup apps and put them on my mac but when i connect it to my mac, it starts ticking (maybe the playhead is doing something) and does not show up.
is there any way i can format it to mac os journaled from my pc to make it work on my mac?

 

[sk3pt1c]

did a bit of reading up and it seems that macs have a problem reading NTFS drives, and that's what mine is.
but there's no option in windows that i can see to format it in another type, fat32 or ms-dos.
i have large files so i guess fat32 is out of the question, it has a size limit for single files right?
so how do i format it as ms-dos in windows?
is there an app i can download or something?
thanks

 

[sunfast]

MacDrive lets you read Mac OS formatted drives on windows machines. You have to pay for it though I'm afraid (though you can use the demo if you need to do a few one off transfers)

 

[tersono]

If you format it FAT32, your Mac will read and write to it just fine. Just bear in mind that very long filenames will be truncated and FAT32 cannot handle files of over 4gb. It works acceptably well for most folks, though.

Other options:
Windows can't read HFS-formatted drives (Mac), but there's a couple of workarounds:

1. Connect the drive to the Mac and use SharePoints to share a directory with Windows - that way you can back up from your Windows machine via a network.
2. It costs, but MacDrive is a piece of software that allows Windows to read/write Mac-formatted drives. It depends on how much you're going to use it as to whether it's worth the expense, though

 

[sk3pt1c]

i'm using testdisk to fix it and convert it to hfs+ and then i'll get macdrive for the suggested use, thanks guys

 

[sk3pt1c]

right, so using macdrive 7 i convert the disk to hfs+, unplug from the pc, plug into the mac, and the same **** happens, it does not appear anywhere...

any ideas before i destroy it?

 

[Star Destroyer]

I have an external drive that i pulled from my PC a while back, its an 80GB WD. I wanted to use it as a go between for my PC and macbook. So what i did is i hooked it up to my windows PC and did a complete reformat, and i used FAT32 to do it with. The catch however, is that FAT32 cannot reformat a drive bigger then i think 30GBs so i had to make three partitions and do each one individually. I ended up with 2 30GBs and 1 20GB partition. It works flawlessly between the two computers.

 

[torpy]

I'm more likely to believe there's some compatibility issue with the drive hardware and the mac. Even if the drive was NTFS it should at least show up as read-only in Tiger. I know mine does..

 

[sk3pt1c]

that was actually my first thought, but it said on the box that it works on macs too...
dunno what's going on...

 

[Star Destroyer]

It says on the box that it works for both, most likly that depends on how its formatted. So the only thing that both windows and mac will write to is Fat 32

 

[markssss]

Using external power?

Hi,
Just a basic question, but are you using a power adapter for the external harddrive? I have a smartdisk usb external drive. The usb port on my G5 and on most PCs provide adequate power for the drive, but the usb ports on my G4 laptop do not. The led lights and the disk spins with a ticking sound as you describe, but does not mount. The operating system does not display a warning dialog box that the device is underpowered as it does with some flash drives - it simply ticks without mounting. But it works fine when the external power transformer for the usb drive is plugged in, rather than trying to power the disk from the usb port.