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  • OT but help! Mac USB hard drive not showing up on my WinXP

    Posted by Graham Quince on March 10, 2007 at 3:45 pm

    Hoping this doesn’t turn into a platform wars thing but…

    A friend of mine has just sent my a USB hard drive full of Quicktime files ready for me to add FX too. Unfortunately, he’s on a Mac (guessing OSX) and I’m on WinXP.

    When I plug the drive into my PC, it doesn’t show up. In disk management the drive is highlighted as unallocated.

    Does anyone have any ideas about what I should do?

    Graham

    https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
    ——–
    https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

    Frank Hardie replied 17 years, 11 months ago 3 Members · 6 Replies
  • 6 Replies
  • Steve Roberts

    March 10, 2007 at 3:57 pm

    The drive might be formatted for Mac.
    You might need to format the drive to FAT: if I recall, that’s the only formatting that can be read and written by both platforms.

    Make sure your friend has copies of the movies, because formatting the drive will erase all data on it.
    Then you’ll have to go back to your friend’s place to get the movies put back onto the drive.

  • Frank Hardie

    March 11, 2007 at 3:57 am

    Check out MacDrive 7. It allows read/write access to HFS+ formatted external drives. There’s a free trial version available.

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

    Hope this helps.

  • Graham Quince

    March 12, 2007 at 10:24 am

    Hi guys

    Thanks for all your advice. Unfortunately MacDrive didn’t seem to want to play (seemed geared up for CD-roms not usb hard drives) and the guy’s based quite far away, so popping down isn’t an easy option. Next plan is to use a friend’s mac to get the files off and then reformat the drive and put the files back on.

    Thanks again

    Graham

    https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
    ——–
    https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

  • Frank Hardie

    March 12, 2007 at 12:45 pm

    “Unfortunately MacDrive didn’t seem to want to play (seemed geared up for CD-roms not usb hard drives)”

    According to their website:

    “MacDrive works with just about anything you can throw at it including hard drives, CD-R/RW, DVD RW/ R, floppies, iPods, flash drives, Zip, Jaz, MO, DMG virtual disk files and more.”

    It’s possible that the trial version has some functionality disabled. I’ve never seen the sense in this approach with trial versions. If you can’t try out the full functionality, how do you know if it will suit your needs?

    There are other Mac emulators available, however. A google search might provide you with a suitable solution.

  • Frank Hardie

    March 12, 2007 at 12:57 pm

    From the MacDrive support page:

    MacDrive System requirements
    Microsoft

  • Frank Hardie

    March 15, 2007 at 7:41 am

    I came across this review of MacDrive 6.

    https://www.microfilmmaker.com/reviews/Issue12/MacD6_1.html

    After reading through it, I would guess that you didn’t actually try MacDrive, rather just assumed it was geared toward CD’s. I’ll be giving it a try myself, as soon as I can borrow an external hard-drive from a friend. Based on the review, MacDrive is a must-have for anyone who needs data to be accessible from both Mac and PC.

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