Thread: hDD reformat help

hi guys, i have just installed my new HDD into my enclosure and im trying to initilise it but when i have to reformat it it gives me different formats:
. mac os extended(journal)
.mac os extended
.mac os extended(case-sensitive, journal)
.mac os extended(case-sensitive)
.MS-DOS(FAT)

which format will allow me to use my HDD on both mac osx and windows?



and can someone please explain all of this to me :P

much appreciated

well if u want both then go for FAT dude

I have found this

Fat32 will work.But limitation u cant transfer <4Gb files.

And there are pretty good articles on the net that may help u like

How to format external hard disk for Mac and Windows - Techie Corner

How-to: Read and Write NTFS Windows Partition on Mac OS X - Stepcase Lifehack

There are many but I found these two very informative so go check it out.

Windows and Mac OS X require separate partitions. And Mac OS X can't be installed on FAT because FAT doesn't support UNIX file system permissions.

Here's all the information you'll need for setting up your HDD: http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/ Read the FAQ, it should answer all your questions.

Originally Posted by kitten

Windows and Mac OS X require separate partitions. And Mac OS X can't be installed on FAT because FAT doesn't support UNIX file system permissions.

That's obvious you can't even install different windows version on same partitions forget about windows and unix based.And as far as I know u cannot install one file system on another but you can mount windows file system on linux as linux supports FAT,FAT-32 but windows doesn't support ext3 or higher file systems currently used by linux (what a pitty).Though u can also view linux patitions on windows.
I don't know about Mac OS as i have not worked on it.

But what I get is he only want to use the HDD on both the OS.

Originally Posted by rockyboy

But what I get is he only want to use the HDD on both the OS.

Oh, I suck at reading. :(

In that case just remember that Mac OS X can read but NOT write to NTFS. It's best to go with FAT32.

Originally Posted by rockyboy

I have found this


And there are pretty good articles on the net that may help u like

How to format external hard disk for Mac and Windows - Techie Corner

How-to: Read and Write NTFS Windows Partition on Mac OS X - Stepcase Lifehack

There are many but I found these two very informative so go check it out.

For ease you would want to format it as FAT.

But... As mentioned earlier, FAT has file size limitations.

You can try to format it in NTFS so you can have larger files on the hard drive.

If you don't ever plan on having files larger then 4 GB on it then it won't matter though, and you can just format it in the FAT option.

One thing you have to remember though, if you DO format it in NTFS, each Mac computer you plug it into will have to be configured to write to the NTFS partition.

There is another solution - for Windows and Mac you can use... Linux partitions!
For Windows there are about 5 extfs drivers/programs. I tried all of them but I liked only one - Ext2 IFS: Ext2 IFS For Windows: Download
It is read/write ext2/ext3 driver. It supports both primary and logical partitions. It can serve many partitions at once. And it supports plug-n-play mounting that is very convenient for external HDD.
I use it for 1.5 years for my storage partition where all my data is located and external HDD. It works really excellently! Read and write speed under Windows is even a little more than to NTFS partition. There is one requirement for partitions - they must be created with -i 128 option. Latest versions of mk2fs by default format with -i 256 and these partitions can't be read with this driver.

If you google you'll also find ext2fs drivers for Mac. Read/write too. I am not Mac user so didn't try them but I hope they work. Here are a couple of homepages:
fuse-ext2 | Get fuse-ext2 at SourceForge.net
Mac OS X Ext2 Filesystem | Get Mac OS X Ext2 Filesystem at SourceForge.net

Originally Posted by PIKMIKY

hi guys, i have just installed my new HDD into my enclosure and im trying to initilise it but when i have to reformat it it gives me different formats:
. mac os extended(journal)
.mac os extended
.mac os extended(case-sensitive, journal)
.mac os extended(case-sensitive)
.MS-DOS(FAT)

which format will allow me to use my HDD on both mac osx and windows?

and can someone please explain all of this to me :P

much appreciated

As everybody in this thread said, MS-DOS FAT is the best option. I highly doubt you would have a single file that is over the FAT filesystem limit, 4GB. However, if you really need for a larger filesystem, you can format to NTFS using Hiren's BootCD to format. From there, it depends. If you have Snow Leopard , you can follow this guide:

10.6: Enable native NTFS read/write support - Mac OS X Hints

However, if you are not, you can use MacFuse with NTFS-3G.