mac/windows external hard drive?

[jskopek]

Appologies if this is in the wrong forums

I've been backing up all my movies to ISO recently because I love the convenience of having my entire library on one hard drive, but I've always wanted to be able to play them on my mac laptop. Currently I use DVD Shrink for the PC, storing the images on a 120 gig internal hard drive. I recently went out and purchased another 120 gig hard drive and a firewire enclosure so I could copy the contents onto an external drive to view on my powerbook. I formatted the drive under windows with NTFS and copied the files over with no problem. Viewing the files on my powerbook posed no problem, but as soon as I tried to copy a backup I had only laptop I realized I couldn't copy back. The only disk configuration I know of that lets me copy stuff from Windows or the Mac is FAT32, but it only supports transfers up to 4 gigs, which rules it out in my case. Anyone know of a format that works fully with both windows and mac?

[chmsant]

ever since 10.3.9 OSX has supported NTFS volumes...

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/mac...update1039.html

[jskopek]

odd... even writing onto them?

I'll try reformatting it on windows then

thanks for the quick reply =)

[Senseotech]

FAT32 is it, unless you want to get MacDrive for the PC, which lets you read and write to HFS+ (OS X) partitions.

[jskopek]

macdrive is working great. guess this means shelling out more cash though :p

[1337.g4M3R]

i found the best way to transfer files between the mac and pc is using a network cable.

you will want to format the firewire drive from your mac in hfs journaled, then over the network, copy over all of your images to the drive.

works like a charm.

[Yvo]

I agree with the last post, over network is the best thing to do.

What would work even better is to purchase a NAS solution or NSL product such as this one: http://www.linksys.com/products/product.as...cid=43&prid=640

[Southern Patriot]

ever since 10.3.9 OSX has supported NTFS volumes...

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/mac...update1039.html

585930128[/snapback]

You, along with everyone else who keeps referencing that statement in the release notes, are misinterpreting it. 10.3 had support for reading NTFS from the start. The combined updater release notes are going to mention ALL of the improvements from 10.3.1 through 10.3.9, and one of those was improved support for NTFS volumes. That does not mean that it can write to them though. Even 10.4 won't do that.

[Toastyone]

You, along with everyone else who keeps referencing that statement in the release notes, are misinterpreting it.  10.3 had support for reading NTFS from the start.  The combined updater release notes are going to mention ALL of the improvements from 10.3.1 through 10.3.9, and one of those was improved support for NTFS volumes.  That does not mean that it can write to them though.  Even 10.4 won't do that.

585943398[/snapback]

That is right, you can see files and such but it will not let you put files on a NTFS drive. The only way that will work is if it is FAT32 ;)

[Yvo]

That is right, you can see files and such but it will not let you put files on a NTFS drive. The only way that will work is if it is FAT32 ;)

585944912[/snapback]

Yup and I have heard some reports that FAT32 can sometimes be a little unstable under MacOS X (primarily during the (un)mounting process)

[Southern Patriot]

Yup and I have heard some reports that FAT32 can sometimes be a little unstable under MacOS X (primarily during the (un)mounting process)

585944944[/snapback]

I've never had any problems with that.

[Bennifer]

I had loads of problems with Fat32 on my external drive - not mounting properly or reliably, crashing out during data transfer etc. Reformatted it in the Mac filesystem as journalled and its been perfect ever since :)

Just transfer over a network? Networking lets you access the drive whatever format its in as long as the computer its plugged into can access it of course :)

[Yvo]

I've never had any problems with that.

585944956[/snapback]

However there are many variations of setups... that there poses is the problem. In my line of work (IT support at a company) I have to find a solution that works with all setups. Sure FAT32 poses no problem on your system but what about the other people... at that point a new solution is needed.

I had loads of problems with Fat32 on my external drive - not mounting properly or reliably, crashing out during data transfer etc.  Reformatted it in the Mac filesystem as journalled and its been perfect ever since :)

Just transfer over a network?  Networking lets you access the drive whatever format its in as long as the computer its plugged into can access it of course :)

585946831[/snapback]

I agree xfer over the network either with NAS or just being plugged into a router and sharing a folder with the other computer. It is just the best form of sharing data between a windows & mac os x.