Windows On Mac :: How To Format My External HD To FAT32/NTFS
Oct 27, 2007
I was using my external hard drive with my mac and its formatted in the MAC HF(something like that) file system. I would like to format that external hard drive such that the file system is either NTFS or FAT32 so that I can use it on my windows partition running on boot camp. I am asking this question since I am planning to get a new HD for my mac and use the old one with windows.
I'm going to buy my first Macbook this weekend and I'm trying to get myself ready so that I don't have to waste precious playing time on stuff like this I have an external hard drive filled with music, videos and files. I would like to keep using my drive on my mac to access my files and save backups etc. The hard drive is in NTFS format and from what I understand the mac will be able to read but not write to it - which isn't what I want. Ideally I don't want to lose the content on the drive, but if I have to I could slowly copy it all onto dvds. If possible I also want the drive to be compatible with Windows so I can plug it into parents/friends/uni's computers and still be able to view/add content on rare occasions. What format should the drive be and how do I do that? (I think I can manage to do it once someone points me in the right direction)
I have an external multimedia disk currently formated in NTFS microsoft format. I'd like to be able to copy content to it from my Mac and a PC so I thought to format it in FAT 32. can anyone tell me if there is a size limit to FAT32. what are the major limitations of FAT 32 vs NTFS
i have a 500GB HDD which has two 250GB partitions, one which is working for time machine, and another one for storage, that one for storage is NTFS, so i can just read but not write files, which is very annoying.
Can i just reformat that partition without loosing my time machine files? I already copied the Storage files to my internal HDD, also which is the best format? I want to be able to read/write stuff both on PC and Mac
Is there a way to copy my Time Machine files to my computer, reformat that partition too to FAT32 and pass them back?
Simply looking for an application, preferably free, that will allow me to write to my NTFS external HD. I had this external as FAT32 before which was not problematic until I started downloading 720 and 1080 .mkv movies that were larger than 4gb. So I reformatted to NTFS which will accept files larger than 4gb but realized that OSX don't be got the ability to write to NTFS.
I have a fall 2008 model macbook, 2.4 GHz 4GB ram, etc. I run windows XP SP3 on bootcamp, with a fat32 partition. I believe the external harddrive I run games from is also fat32 formatted.
I've had enough problems with transferring files over 4GB that i've decided to attempt to convert from fat32 to ntfs. I'd like to do it while on my windows partition, with the CONVERT C: /FS:NTFS in the command prompt. What precautions should I take before I attempt this? How difficult will it be to also convert my external drive to ntfs? Will anything be deleted in the process? Will I still be able to use parallels?
im running windows 7 allongside osx but the problem is natively osx has no ntfs write driver only read so there are 3rd party drivers but im getting tiered of them being slow and/or corrupting data and on the windows side i use macdrive has issues aswell so i want to convert the ntfs drive to fat32 i heard there were ways to get vista to run on fat32 even though it wouldnt install so im hoping this is the same
anyone know how i could achieve converting the driver from ntfs to fat without loosing data?
I have two external hard disks, one formatted as FAT32 and another formatted as NTFS .Both cannot be seen in Finder when plug in. Only another one formatted MAC OS extended can. how to dispay my drive in the Finder (I don't want to reformat it as I have lot of contents and need to be read in my window computer.)Im running Mac OS 10.7.3 on my iMAC
I am using this guide to get a new HD into my PS3: [URL:...] It says that the HD I back my PS3 up to needs to be formatted to FAT32. I have an external HD that I use with my mac, its partitioned into 4 parts. I have one partition which I don't use which I want to back my PS3 onto. In Disk Utility I select that partition and I only get 4 option under the Erase tab, 4 different Mac OS Extended options.
I am in need of a data recovery app that can recover data off a Fat32 drive and save the recovered data to a NTFS drive (I use NTFS-3G). I have PhotoRec but can't seem to navigate to my NTFS external to save the data (the only drive big enough to save the data too is my girlfriend's 500GB external and it is NTFS).
Any tips to getting photorec to navigate to the drive (I am pulling from one external to another). Photorec sees the one I want to save too I just can't get it to select it. Also if there are any other programs yall recommend, I will give them a shot.
Probably about 10 years ago I was a big techie with DOS and all that, and now I seem to have forgotten how to do anything!
Two questions.
i) My iMac, which I bought last year has run out of HDD space. What can I do to extend it? I really can't work out what I have filled it up with as I have only
8.5gb in my applications folder 4.7gb in the systems folder 9.1 GB in the libary 40.18GB in the users bit (of which 32gb is music on iTunes)
Other than the standard applications I have a DOS emulator, Office and Spore.
But apparently I have used 200gb?!?!? I can't find where this disk space is being used up. Any ideas on what I can check to clear this out? I put a partition in to possibly install windows, how do I check that's been removed correctly?
Also if I plug in a USB drive to extend the memory how can I get the mac running as if this was actually the normal drive for this computer?
And question ii)
I have a PS3 which I want to back up my info on, but its on a FAT32 format. Can I format a USB HDD in FAT32 using my Mac?
I'm using an external drive through FireWire 400 on my MacBook Pro with 10.5.5. It's a 320GB with 22GB in "free space" and the rest formatted with HFS+ (used as a Time Machine backup drive). I want to setup that 22GB as a FAT32 partition to be writable in both Windows and Mac. Normally, it sounds like I'm supposed to use Disk Utility on Mac and just choose MS-DOS(FAT). Unfortunately, that choice is not presented. I can choose four different Mac-based file systems, but not FAT. Why doesn't that show up as a choice? I've tried leaving it as free space and using a PC to format it. I've tried formatting it as a Mac-based drive and using the PC to format. I've even tried installing MacDrive on the PC and using that to format it as FAT32.
i'd like to format my lacie external hard drive with two partitions:
1. HFS+ partition as a bootable clone of my internal drive
2. FAT32 partition readable by any windows (and mac) machine
i'm creating my partitions with disk utility, but i hit a snag when choosing a partition scheme...apparently i cannot choose a different scheme for each partition.
so when i format the drive with GUID, the FAT32 partition is not even recognized by windows XP. but when i format the drive with master boot record (MBR), the HFS+ partition is not bootable...
I noticed in disc utility that under the erase tab it has the option to format a drive to fat32. If I create a windows partition using bootcamp and then go into disk utility and erase to fat32 will this allow a boot into the xp drive? My xp disc keeps restarting before it gives me the opportunity to format the drive to either a ntfs or a fat so I need a way around this?
I have an external hard drive that I was previously using on PC, having attempted to use it on a Mac, it will not write to it. I've found that I have to format to FAT32, which I think i can just about manage (yes, im a girl) but my concern is, if i format through the MAC, will i then lose what's on the hard disk as the tab says 'erase'? I have a lot of images on the hard disk so am a little petrified! Any advice for this really basic question would be appreciated!
Does anyone know how can i install Vista home premium on my imac? ive been using boot camp to do all the steps but im stuck at where i should choose NTFS format partition had disk. Seems like mine is FAT32.
This is what ive done; 1.Open up bootcamp assistant 2.Partition, divide equally(116GB each) 3.Insert Vista disk and start installation 4.Install Vista and insert CD key 5.custom installation 6.Now this is where i stuck
I have 4 options, and i should choose the last one which says bootcamp 116gb, but i cant click it since it says the disk need to have NTFS format. How can i set so that i partiton it to NTFS?
On my MacBook i am having a little trouble actually installing windows on a bootcamp partition. When installing XP it just installs and then when i boot into the partition it just says 'disk error press any key to reboot' and when i try to install windows 7 it says i cant because it needs to be NTFS formatted, so how can i format it to NTFS?
After trying to install Windows 7 on a 32 GB partition using Boot Camp Assistant, I received an error message saying that Windows 7 needs to be installed on a partition formatted as NTFS.
How do I format the Windows 7 partition as NTFS?
The steps outlined by Boot Camp Assistant don't seem to include an option to format a partition as NTFS.
I can't manage to format my Seagate 500GB external HD correctly so it can be readable with my Macbook. I formatted like six times already in Windows 7 and XP to NTFS and still my macbook won't read it...only my Windows computers can read/write it. What am I doing wrong?
I'm trying to install Windows 7 on a spare disk (in bay 1). Do I need to format the disk in NTFS or MS DOS (FAT) before installing Windows 7? The computer currently tells me that the drive is not formatted for installing Win 7 on it. I had used this drive before for Leopard, cloned it to another drive (bay 2), upgraded to Lion, and erased and formatted the drive in bay 1, but not for the NTFS or MS DOS (FAT).
Some time ago I had a problem with my iMac. Turned out my internal HD was broken so I got a new one.
The problem is that after I got my iMac with the new INTERNAL HD back, I was unable to write data on my EXTERNAL (Toshiba) HD, which until then I had no problems with. When I checked the format of it, it now says NTFS.Â
As I have more than 1 TB of data on it which would take forever to back up, is there another way to change it's status and write on it again? I was once able to do it, so I don't know where the problem is.....Â
I'm intending on buying an iMac in a few days, just waiting for Macworld to come and go.
My question is this. I currently have 3 external Hard Drives on my PC. 2 x 360GB and 1 x 500GB. These contain MP3's, Photos/Videos, FLAC (Uncompressed Audio) respectively. Each disc is probably around 2 thirds full. They are all in formatted to NTFS.
Is there anyway that I can convert them to FAT32 without losing the Data so that the iMac can Read and Write to them when I swap them over to the Mac? (and is this even a good idea as I understand that FAT32 is extremely inefficient with volumes of this size)
The only alternative I can think off is to copy everything from the disks to the internal mac drive, reformat the USB drive for the mac and then copy everything back..
i am trying to install Windows on my Mac. i created the partition (+/- 20gigs) and ive inserted the Windows disc. the installation works fine although i noticed that i don't get the page that gives me the option to choose between ntfs or fat32... yet it continues, and says windows is installed... but when it reboots, it goes directly to my mac-osx
im not too good with computers but i've managed to find a lot of threads that were talking about my problem but none of them could really correct the problem.
some people said that it might be the version of windows that could be the source of the problem. i have Windows Xp Corporate version. might that be the problem?
I receive my new iMac (27', 16GB Ram, 3.4Ghz i7, 2GB Graphic card). Time machine restore was perfect. Then I ran Bootcamp Partition. Then I have launched win 7 DVD install, Quick Format in NTFS and restore from win7 backup. Well Win 7 run well (with bootcamp 4.0). I can restart under Mac OS X Lion. And there the BootCamp Volume appears empty as a FAT32 Volume. I have tried to unmount it, then try a mount_ntfs (i/o error message in terminal). So annoying with that because I can't browse my NTFS Vootcamp and can't launch my BootCamp Win 7 through Vmware fusion (4)!
Was just wondering that are there any backup apps similar to Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper that support formats others than HFS+. I did search via MRoogle but couldn't find anything. I would just like to have an automated backup of my home folder that can be accessed with a PC as well
i'm looking into buying a 500GB WD My Passport Studio Edition for my 17" MacBook Pro...
I've been reading online that people are having issues with the FAT32 Formatted Passports not being recognized with the FireWire but work fine via USB 2.0...
is there truth to this problem with the FireWire and is anyone else having such issues? I've been all over and see the problem, but no solution or results.
i've installed a new Hard disk on My G5 that was before installed in a pc (NTFS), now i'm trying to format it in FAT32 in the Mac!! no way!! i don't know how!