best external hard drives for mac and pc image
Fi
I have a seagate usb 2.0 external hard drive and have tried to reformat it to FAT32 but it won't be reformatted, the option of FAT just doesn't come up when i try to do it, how can I get the external hard drive to work on both a mac and a pc?
thanks!
Answer
Actually, there's no reason why you should have any problems at all, so long as the external drive is just for storage. Since the hardware on an Intel Mac and a PC are virtually the same (the Mac's having the better quality components) there's no reason why either wouldn't be able to recognize the drive.
But since you seem to be having a problem anyway, I'd recommend the following...
1.) If you have a firewire port on your external, connect it to a mac using a firewire cable and use disk utility in the utility folder to format the drive as "Mac OS Extended Journaled".
2.) Make sure your computers aren't so old that they can't recognize the drive if it's really big. Older computer firmware sometimes can't recognize larger drives and require partitioning them into halves or thirds. (Although this usually isn't a problem when connecting via USB.)
3.) Check to see if your drive is NTFS formatted. If I'm not mistaken, this is the only format Vista accepts. So if your Mac is old (not an Intel Mac) it might have trouble reading it.
4.) Finally, check the jumpers on the edge of the drive. See if it's set as a master or a slave or something in between and change it accordingly.
These days, there's no reason why a piece of hardware wouldn't be interchangeable in terms of platform. So long as the proper software or firmware is there.
Good luck.
Actually, there's no reason why you should have any problems at all, so long as the external drive is just for storage. Since the hardware on an Intel Mac and a PC are virtually the same (the Mac's having the better quality components) there's no reason why either wouldn't be able to recognize the drive.
But since you seem to be having a problem anyway, I'd recommend the following...
1.) If you have a firewire port on your external, connect it to a mac using a firewire cable and use disk utility in the utility folder to format the drive as "Mac OS Extended Journaled".
2.) Make sure your computers aren't so old that they can't recognize the drive if it's really big. Older computer firmware sometimes can't recognize larger drives and require partitioning them into halves or thirds. (Although this usually isn't a problem when connecting via USB.)
3.) Check to see if your drive is NTFS formatted. If I'm not mistaken, this is the only format Vista accepts. So if your Mac is old (not an Intel Mac) it might have trouble reading it.
4.) Finally, check the jumpers on the edge of the drive. See if it's set as a master or a slave or something in between and change it accordingly.
These days, there's no reason why a piece of hardware wouldn't be interchangeable in terms of platform. So long as the proper software or firmware is there.
Good luck.
How do you format an external hard drive from Mac to PC?
Allie
I bought a Fantom 1TB external hard drive that someone had formatted for a Mac. I have Windows XP and am trying to reformat the drive. The drive does not show up under My Computer. I pull up the disk management window and try to select the drive. All it will let me do is view the properties, but it won't let me select format drive. Any suggestions?
Answer
Connect your Fantom 1TB external hard drive and depending on what version of Windows you are currently using (mine is Windows 7), right click on your Computer icon on your Desktop and click on Manage. Then select Storage then Disk Management. You should be able to see all the drives including the Fantom 1TB external drive. It will probably be labeled as unknown. Right click on it and you should be able to see Delete Volume. Click that and you will get a warning that all data will be erased. Acknowledge OK and the volume will be deleted. Once done, do the same but this time you should see Create Volume and after that, just format.
Good luck and I hope this helps.
Connect your Fantom 1TB external hard drive and depending on what version of Windows you are currently using (mine is Windows 7), right click on your Computer icon on your Desktop and click on Manage. Then select Storage then Disk Management. You should be able to see all the drives including the Fantom 1TB external drive. It will probably be labeled as unknown. Right click on it and you should be able to see Delete Volume. Click that and you will get a warning that all data will be erased. Acknowledge OK and the volume will be deleted. Once done, do the same but this time you should see Create Volume and after that, just format.
Good luck and I hope this helps.
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