• Apple OS X

  external HD formatting for use on mac and windows

  Posted by Tom Tucker on August 9, 2010 at 4:00 pm

  Morning all;
  I in a jam and cant seem to recall how to do this.

  I have a new western digital 500gb firewire external hard drive.

  I need to format it for use with large video file for use on both windows and mac paltforms.

  Its a long story, but i’d like to use this drive for passing back and forth between myself and a producer buddy. He’s on apple and im on windows. having a drive we can pass back and forth just makes work flow easier for us both.

  So if anyone can get back with me quickly on how to format this drive, I’d be eternally grateful.

  I have access to a powerbook g4 laptop if that will work for formatting as well as a HP windows 8600 tower for formatting.

  thanks in advance.
  Tom

  Craig Alan replied 16 years ago 4 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Zane Barker

  August 10, 2010 at 12:16 am

  Well there are a couple of options. The easiest is fat32 but it will have a 4gb file size limit. The best option would be to get a peace of software for your windows machine called MacDrive https://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/ this will allow your Windows machine to use a Mac formatted drive.

  **Hindsight is always 1080p**
• 

  Jean-christophe Boulay

  August 11, 2010 at 1:25 pm

  Another option would be to install Paragon NTFS For Mac on the Apple machine.
  https://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/

  It’s time for a Windows-Mac war to see who will be master and who will be slave.

  JC Boulay
  Technical Director
  Audio Z
  Montreal, Canada
  http://www.audioz.com
• 

  Tom Tucker

  August 11, 2010 at 6:57 pm

  thanks for the tips/links.

  question is, do i need both? each on is respective computer? or can i get away with 1 or the other and be able to read/write from on both computer platforms without file size limitiations?
  I dont have any problem at all buying software if it will eliminate this headache. Would rather not have to buy both, but will if necessary for the comps to play nice with each other while using this drive.
  thanks
  tom
• 

  Craig Alan

  August 17, 2010 at 12:08 am

  https://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive.

  just 1. try the demo.

  OSX 10.5.7; MAC Book PRO (EARLY 2008); Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30, Sony vx2000/PD170, Canon xl2; Pana, Sony, and Canon consumer cams; FCP certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

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