Topic: Computer reading External HDD
I recently bought a 500gb WD Passport external HDD, and it connects just fine on my Mac but I can't get the damn thing to show up when connected to my PC. Anybody know why this is and how to fix it?
- Kenak
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- Crast
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Re: Computer reading External HDD
Did you format it mac only?
Format it as a PC drive, and it should work on both. With a drive so big, there'll be some tradeoffs though depending on the filesystem you choose.
"Throw away logic and kick reason to the curb"
Re: Computer reading External HDD
To further what Crast said, PCs don't read HFS+, which is the Mac format.
Also, Macs can read, but not write to NTFS.
You are stuck with FAT32, which doesn't allow files bigger than either 3 or 4GB (I don't remember).
- Crast
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Re: Computer reading External HDD
Pissingintowind wrote:
Also, Macs can read, but not write to NTFS.
This is only partially true now!
http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/
The only 'downside' is that NTFS-3g is pretty slow. You can't exactly play games off an NTFS-3g drive but it's very stable, and won't corrupt any files; so for using as storing data/media/backup this is by far the best cross-OS solution.
If you use NTFS, you can plug the drive into any win2k/XP/vista PC, and it works fine read-write. You can plug it in to any mac, and access it read only. And if you plug it into a mac with NTFS-3g, you can read-write.
You are stuck with FAT32, which doesn't allow files bigger than either 3 or 4GB (I don't remember).
It's tough to find a system to properly format FAT32 on such a large drive, also. Windows XP / Vista refuse to format FAT32 on drives >32gb (or was it 64?) Either way, it's way less than 500. You can do it with special partition tools, though.
Either way, I would not recommend FAT for anything but portable memory sticks and other small <30gb partitions; the filesystem has some rather undesirable properties at large sizes like very slow block allocation and lookup (it just wasn't well designed for handling such large partitions, even if the spec technically supports it)
"Throw away logic and kick reason to the curb"
- Kenak
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Re: Computer reading External HDD
So how would I go about formating the drive to my PC? I apparently fail at google, and going into the Disc Manager fails to format it =[
Last edited by Kenak (2009-03-23 13:10)
Re: Computer reading External HDD
start, run
format D: /FS:NTFS
Where D is whatever the drive is.
- Kenak
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Re: Computer reading External HDD
How can I find out what the drive is? Under my Disc Manager, it doesn't have any label at all. Should I use "WD 5000BMV External USB Device"? That is the only title I can find for it.
- Kenak
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Re: Computer reading External HDD
So does no one have an answer? Every google search I do always refers to a drive letter, which mine just doesn't have. Trying to reformat gives an error, and nothing I do changes that.
- Crast
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Re: Computer reading External HDD
Kenak wrote:
So does no one have an answer? Every google search I do always refers to a drive letter, which mine just doesn't have. Trying to reformat gives an error, and nothing I do changes that.
You probably need to overwrite the partition table. To do this, you may need to find a windows tool to low-level format the drive. That or pop it back into the mac, go to Disk Utility, and re-partition the drive with one partition in 'DOS' format, and make sure you go to advanced and select BIOS/MBR Partition Table. Then go back to the PC and go to Disk Management and format the new partition.
"Throw away logic and kick reason to the curb"