What Filesystem works both in mac and xp

FAT32, which if you're formatting the drive on your Mac via Disk Utility is called MS-DOS.

 

Doesn't FAT32 have a file size limit, that sort of kills it for use if you are looking at 8+GB files?

Unless you want to ZIP them into several pieces.

There is always http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/ or looking at some of the NTFS RW upgrades for Mac OS X. I think someone was playing with a beta here on the site.

Edit: though if you want from your Mac to any PC, it is a bit different since Mac Drive must be on each PC to read HFS+

 

FAT32 is cross platform so any OS can use it.unfortunately FAT32 has a file size limit of 4 GB.

you can format your external drive to HFS and then use MacDrive to allow read/write support in Windows or NTFS and then use Mac Fuse + NTFS3g to allow write support in Mac OS X.

simply put:

- FAT32 (MS-DOS) is cross platform but has a 4 GB file size limit.
- NTFS is read/write in Windows and only read in Mac OS X. install Mac Fuse + NTFS3g to add write support in Mac OS X
- HFS (Mac OS Extended) is only read/write in Mac OS X. use MacDrive to add read/write to Windows.

 

MacDrive is pretty sweet... I've used it and works well.

 

Yep it is pretty smooth, but also provides access to your Mac partitions/drives if you manage to get data destructive malware on the PC side, so extra care is certainly called for.