PC -> Mac external HD issues

[djpeters]

So I have an external HD that I've been using to go back and forth from a mac to PC with no issues. Now today all of a sudden I can't get it to work. I can format it to work with a PC, and I can format it to work with a Mac, but nothing I do can get it so that I can go back and forth like I could before. Any help would be appreciated

 

[spinnerlys]

You can use the FAT32 file system, called MS-DOS in Disk Utility.

http://guides.macrumors.com/Drives_and_Filesystems

Or you can use the NTFS format and use NTFS-3G drivers to write to it in Mac OS X, or use the Mac OS Extended format (HFS+) and install MacDrive on Windows to read and write to HFS+ formatted HDDs.

 

[GGJstudios]

Mac Guide on External Hard Drives

Any external hard drive will work with PCs or Macs, as long as the connectors are there (Firewire, USB, etc.)
It doesn't matter how the drive is formatted out of the box, since you can re-format any way you like.
Formatting in HFS (Mac OS Extended) or FAT32 or NTFS-3G can be done with Mac's Disk Utility.

FAT32

• Read/Write from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
• No individual file larger than 4GB.

NTFS

• Read/Write from native Windows.
• Read only from native Mac OS X
• To Read/Write from Leopard: Install MacFUSE and NTFS-3G. You can install both with NTFS-3G for Mac OS X.
• To Read/Write from Snow Leopard: Guide: Enable native NTFS Read/Write in Snow Leopard
• (Be aware that some are of the opinion that enabling native NTFS in SL is unstable/unreliable, and favor the MacFuse/NTFS-3G method for Snow Leopard)

HFS

• Read/Write HFS from native Mac OS X
• To Read/Write HFS from Windows, Install MacDrive
• To Read HFS (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer