Unable To Read External Hard Drive On Pc After Formatted For Mac

• Unable To Read External Hard Drive On Pc After Formatted For Mac Free

I have a western Digital external HD formatted in FAT 32. It reads quite well on my apple and windows computers. Now, I can open and read a NTFS HD connected to my mac. I can even drag files from it onto my mac. I just can't write to it.

For a hard drive to be able to be read and written to in both a PC and Mac computer, it must be formatted to ExFAT or FAT32 file format. FAT32 has several limitations, including a 4 GB per-file limit. This is a file system limitation that affects both Mac's. Feb 6, 2018 - What to do if an External Hard Drive is not recognized on Windows and Mac? Before 90s, drives were not fitted inside the computer. Now, right click on that device and read the error message after selecting properties. Sometimes, your drive is formatted with the ext4 file system of Linux, NTFS file.

But, I also have a Seagate FreeAgent Go that I formatted just for use on my mac. I use this for storing large projects and software to transport from school, to work, to home. When I plug it into a windows PC running XP. It won't even be recognized as a hard drive. That is why I asked.

If reformatting to FAT 32 for a PC to be able to read apple produced files is the only way, then it is the only way. I will grant that I could have asked if there was a windows utility to allow a MS machine to read an apple formatted HD or that I could have been more descriptive of just what I wanted to accomplish. I may know a great deal about some complicated pieces of audio/video and graphic software but I am extremely ignorant about what makes my computer actually work. Thus, telling me that FAT32 is my only option would have been a wee bit more informative than stating 'then do that' was. If you did the initialization, format, inside Disk Utility, you are done. It does not take much more that 30 seconds or so to initialize a disk. You can check by going to the System Profiler, Apple menu/About this Mac and then clicking More on the resulting window.

Then choose the type of connection your external is using, Firewire or USB, and you will see details of everything connected using that method. You are looking for HFS+(journaled) Just as an FYI, Firewire is the preferred method of connecting external drives, including optical drives, to a Mac. I had a problem getting files from my old PC (Win 98) to my new iMac. I finally borrowed a HDD enclosure (Icy Box). Put my old HDD in plugged it in and hey presto got everything I needed except my address book.

I didn't even need to move the jumpers to 'slave'. I then thought about re formatting the disk for Mac OS using Disk Utility but then realised there may be a problem for PCs to read or write to the disk. It is formatted in FAT 32 and the Mac has no problem reading or writing to it. It is connected via USB 2 so probably not the fastest transfer but.

FAT 32 seems to work well for both platforms. I hope this is useful to some of you. It's not really a flaw, but FAT32 wasn't really designed to be used on large hard drives.

In your case, Win 98 must've been a small HD, hence why FAT32 would work perfectly for your needs. I have a 200GB HD and FAT32 slowly degrades in performance over time. Also, there would be a lot of wasted space by using FAT32 on a larger HD. I just wanted to say that I solved my problem by following the Macfuse method.

I had to save my data to another hard disk, then format the drive in Mac format, transfer the files back to the newly formatted HD, and use the network and/or flash drive if I needed to transfer any data to/from a Windows computer. I decided not to get Macfuse because I barely use my Windows PC anymore. Again, this method works for me because I'm on the Mac most of the time.

Advertisement Updated by Tina Sieber. Windows and Mac OS X use What is a file system and why do they matter? Learn the differences between FAT32, NTFS, HPS+, EXT, and more. Windows uses the NTFS file system for its internal drives, while Macs use HFS+.

External hard disks and USB drives are generally formatted with the Windows FAT32 file system for maximum compatibility — most devices, including Macs, can read and write from FAT32 devices. Some Mac drives may be formatted with the HFS+ file system — some drives marketed to Mac users may even come pre-formatted with HFS+. Windows can’t read this file system by default, but there are ways to read that HFS+ drive from Windows.

We show you how to access your Mac-formatted drive on Windows. Install Apple HFS+ Drivers If read access to the files is all you need, you can install the Apple HFS+ drivers for Windows.

Be sure to remove Paragon or MacDrive before proceeding. Download your, then follow these steps.

You’ll probably want to use HFSExplorer for this. Unlike all the other options available here, HFSExplorer is completely free. You can use it to access Mac file systems from Windows without paying a dime. Note that you need to run it as Administrator in Windows.

HFSExplorer does require installed. We generally recommend against having Java installed, but it’s necessary here unless you want to spend money. Be sure to disable the Java browser plug-in after installing Java to stay as safe as possible. This tool is fairly simple to use.

Connect your Mac-formatted drive to your Windows system, open HFSExplorer, and click File Load File System From Device. HFSExplorer can automatically locate any connected devices with HFS+ file systems and open them. You can then extract files from the HFSExplorer window to your Windows drive. Note that HFSExplorer is read-only, so you can’t actually modify files stored on your Mac drive or delete them.

It also doesn’t integrate with Windows Explorer or File Explorer — files are available in the HFSExplorer application and you must copy them elsewhere. Price: $20, 10-day free trial Paragon HFS+ for Windows is a paid application, but it distinguishes itself with additional features. Unlike HFSExplorer, Paragon HFS+ for Windows provides full read/write access to Mac drives and promises high performance. It even integrates HFS+ file systems with Windows Explorer or File Explorer on Windows.

Any Windows program can read from or write to the Mac drive. This application does cost $20, but it also offers a 10-day free trial. If you just need to recover files from a drive, 10 days is plenty of time to install this file system driver, copy your files over, and uninstall it. If you want to use Mac drives on Windows on an ongoing basis, paying $20 so you can use the drive properly is a pretty good deal.

As a bonus, Paragon HFS+ doesn’t require you have the insecure Java installed. Readers noted that this cool caused them an inaccessiblebootdevice error. The fix appears to be to Inside the BIOS you can change basic computer settings, like the boot order. The exact key you need to strike depends on your hardware.

We have compiled a list of strategies & keys to enter., setting SATA mode to IDEA, Safe Mode is an inbuilt troubleshooting feature that allows you to fix issues at the root, without non-essential applications interfering. You can access Safe Mode in various ways, even if Windows 10 no longer boots., doing a System Restore, followed by switching SATA mode back to AHCI in the BIOS. Price: $50, 5-day free trial (trial appears to no longer work) MacDrive is another fairly popular option here. It’s a paid application and is both more expensive and has a shorter free trial than Paragon HFS+. Like Paragon HFS+, MacDrive offers full read/write access via Windows File Explorer fast performance.

Unable To Read External Hard Drive On Pc After Formatted For Mac Free

It also offers disk repair and partitioning tools for working with and creating Mac file systems. These are additional features, but you probably won’t need them.

This tool is a bit pricier than Paragon HFS+, so you’ll likely want to stick with Paragon HFS+ if you want a paid application. If Paragon HFS+ doesn’t work well for you for some reason, you may want to go with MacDrive. Luckily, thanks to the free trials, you can try it out to see if that extra $30 over Paragon HFS+ is actually worth it. Workaround: Linux Live USB Price: free The next best way to access and copy your Mac drive on a Windows system requires a little workaround called Linux Live CD / USB. The concept is simple: You run Linux from a Live CD or USB drive, which will recognize your Mac device. Now you can copy the files to your Windows computer.

Use to create a Installing an operating system from a USB drive is quick and portable. We test a few ISO to USB tools to find the best one for you. , then reboot your system — make sure your BIOS is set to Learn how to change the boot order of your computer. It's important for troubleshooting issues and tweaking settings, and it's a lot easier than you think. — and boot into Ubuntu, where you should be able to read your Mac-formatted drive.

Bonus: Format the Drive Let’s say you have a Mac drive lying around and you no longer have a Mac. You’re not stuck with the Mac file system forever. After recovering the files from your drive with one of the tools above, you can then format the drive and convert it to a standard FAT32 partition that will work with most devices. Formatting will erase all the files on your drive, so be sure you’ve recovered your files first. To format the drive, just use the dialog that appears when you connect the drive to your computer.

You can also Your external hard drive may not show up in Windows 10 due to partition, driver, or many other issues. We'll help you fix it! To erase the Mac partition and create a new partition.

Explore more about:,.