Time Capsule and NTFS drives - problem

[DaQuark]

Hi folks,

I have a Time Capsule and I want to plug in a 500GB external drive via USB. The problem is that the Time Capsule doesn't recognize NTFS drives. I can see the drive in my Airport Utility but I can't mount my drive.

The problem is, that Time Capsule can recognize Fat32 but I DONT want Fat32 on my 500GB drive - I have large files up to 10GB's and as we all know Fat32 is just supporting 4GB. I also don't wanna format my drive to a MacOS file format because I'm traveling with this drive a lot and connect it to Windows computer.

I researched a lot, google, forum's, etc - no solution yet. Does anybody know a solution how I can make TC recognize my NTFS USB drive?

Much appriciated and Thanks!

 

[stomer]

Forget about it. NTFS is a closed proprietary file system that isn't supported by Apple's hardware products.

 

[DaQuark]

so which file format should I use? I guess it won't be easy to find one because I'm sharing files with Windows users sometimes. But any workarounds?

 

[stomer]

You're going have to make compromises, either:

1. Store those 4GB+ files elsewhere and format your drive in FAT32.
2. Give up on the idea of moving around you 500GB drive and format it in HFS+
3. Buy MacDrive for the PCs and format your drive in HFS+.

 

[DaQuark]

found a solution

Thanks stomer! I found a solution that works for me.

I formated my drive into two partitions. One HFS+ for Mac which is not seen by Windows. And one partition simple and plain FAT - this one is just a few MB big enought for MacDrive Installer on it.

So whenever I'm on the road and connect to a new Windows Machine that can't read HFS+ file formats than at least the FAT partition will be seen. And there is the driver on it - install and you can see everything.

Hope that helps someone!

Cheers

p.s.: Time Capsule detects my drive just fine now