Accessing saved files from osx on HDD using windows.


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So I sold my MacBook Pro. Before I did that I DID NOT do a time machine. I simply drag and dropped them onto the external drive. Now my issue is. How do I get these files from the external drive to windows? When I had the drive connected to the MBP I could see them and then the other files that were on the NTFS file system.

Seems like it's harder the other way around now.

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It amazes me that in 2014 there are still filesystem incompatibilities between the major OSs.

 

You need something like this to read the HFS (OSX native format) in Windows.

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MacDrive/MacDrive Pro has a free trial IIRC. What I'd do is just move everything off, reformat it, and move everything back.

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Strangely, I did this yesterday. You just have to install the bootcamp drivers onto your windows install, and you can view the drive (read-only) natively with no fuss.

 

Follow the instructions, under "Apple Boot Camp Drivers (Free)" on this page, it takes seconds, and is native:

 

http://www.macbreaker.com/2012/02/access-mac-os-x-partition-from-windows.html

 

I did this with a drive yesterday, with success

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sometimes old technologies work best. i don't like the idea of wasting money on 3rd parties file system converters (as well you shouldn't, as someone pointed out above), so i created a small FAT partition (32G capacity max) on my external drive to function as in-between for my win 7 and osx machines.

 

not a solution in this case. but for those looking for a solution.

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sometimes old technologies work best. i don't like the idea of wasting money on 3rd parties file system converters (as well you shouldn't, as someone pointed out above), so i created a small FAT partition (32G capacity max) on my external drive to function as in-between for my win 7 and osx machines.

 

not a solution in this case. but for those looking for a solution.

I'd recommend anyone using disks in both Windows and OSX to format their drives as exFAT.

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Just so I'm correct. Do I need a Mac to do any of this?

Jason using that method can I make copes?

 

Yep (copies), require a Mac - no. The drive is seen as a normal drive in Windows, you just cannot write to it. You can, however, copy files from it onto your windows drive, or access the files directly. I used this method to recover some documents from a MacBook drive - the mackbook was completely dead, so I removed the drive, plugged it into my windows machine, and copied the files off..

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Yep (copies), require a Mac - no. The drive is seen as a normal drive in Windows, you just cannot write to it. You can, however, copy files from it onto your windows drive, or access the files directly. I used this method to recover some documents from a MacBook drive - the mackbook was completely dead, so I removed the drive, plugged it into my windows machine, and copied the files off..

Awesome, so the drive will show up in windows. I can pull them over to my windows drive, then format and use the extra space for storage. 

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Strangely, I did this yesterday. You just have to install the bootcamp drivers onto your windows install, and you can view the drive (read-only) natively with no fuss.

 

Follow the instructions, under "Apple Boot Camp Drivers (Free)" on this page, it takes seconds, and is native:

 

http://www.macbreaker.com/2012/02/access-mac-os-x-partition-from-windows.html

 

I did this with a drive yesterday, with success

 

 

Did this, this did not work on my Windows 8.1

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I might be wrong but a Linux live CD probably can read both partitions. You could maybe use one to transfer the file from the mac partition to the windows partition.

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