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hard drive help

lazyGUY
edited September 2008 in General
ok so i just bought a lacie 500 gb external drive that i wanna use with both my macbook and 2 pc's. Whats the recommended way to do this?
Should i partition 250 gigs for each type? should i just make the whole drive "free space"?
and how do i use disk utility on mac to reformat and partition?

Comments

  • NukeChem
    edited September 2008
    I believe all your computers should be able to see the drive. Try it, see if it works...
  • Agentbob
    edited September 2008
    I don't use Macs, but it uses the HFS+ file system and cannot be accessed by your Windows machine. Your Windows machine is mostly using NTFS, so a Mac can probably access it. You probably need some third-party tool to access your Mac partition on a Windows machine. However, FAT32 is cross-platform, so it can be used by both, but given that it's 500 GB, it won't support it.

    Does that make sense? Sounds confusing.
  • JayDub
    edited September 2008
    With my external HDD that is 1 TB here is what I do.

    With the Windows machine: I plug it in via the USB cord.
    With the Mac machine: I plug it in via the USB cord.
  • lazyGUY
    edited September 2008
    Agentbob;36146 said:
    I don't use Macs, but it uses the HFS+ file system and cannot be accessed by your Windows machine. Your Windows machine is mostly using NTFS, so a Mac can probably access it. You probably need some third-party tool to access your Mac partition on a Windows machine. However, FAT32 is cross-platform, so it can be used by both, but given that it's 500 GB, it won't support it.

    Does that make sense? Sounds confusing.
    ya i was thinking of making it just fat32 but isnt it supposedly slower (according to manual)
    if i make the whole drive ntfs its gunna be read only for the macbook
    i wont be able to install applications on this drive if i do wut jaydub does rite?
  • Kevin M.Kevin M.
    edited September 2008
    fat32 is fine for both
  • NukeChem
    edited September 2008
    Applications on an external HD? Sounds painful. :P

    But try what JayDub does just to make sure they can SEE the drive to begin with, first. No point formatting a drive if it's broken. :P
  • lazyGUY
    edited September 2008
    its not about installing applications, I just want to be able to access a mac/ windows file from the harddrive without having to move it over to may computers hard drive...the only way to do this is gunna be fat32 rite?
  • hikin
    edited September 2008
    fat32 or online server, or a NAS
  • lazyGUY
    edited September 2008
    is there a way i can attach is to a router and make it accessible to my whole network?
  • schmoey
    edited September 2008
    Uh I have an external HDD with some FAT32 partitions and some NTFS ones, and both my PC and Mac can access all the files
  • lazyGUY
    edited September 2008
    but the ntfs are read only for the mac rite?

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