Technical problems - hard drive

Are there any computer geeks in here?

I have an external USB hard drive, 250GB, currently formatted in NTFS. It is "recognized" by my Mac OS X but will not write to it, presumably because of the file system. I thought OS X was straight Unix, which can read and write to NTFS partitions.

Should I format this thing to FAT32? Most USB flash drives are formatted FAT and work just fine on Macs. What is the drive size limit in FAT32? I thought it was 8GB or something. I really don't want 16 separate partitions just to get half of the drive space recognized by my Mac.

What do you use for your dual-configured offices so that one drive can hold both Mac and Windows data on the same drive?

Lastly, any tips for a Mac (OS 10.4) that seems to constantly freeze up and lock? It must think its a Windows PC - I've never seen a Mac freeze up this much.

hi Rimmer :D

NTFS is proprietory to Microsoft - Linux distributions today can read NTFS but writing to NTFS partisions is as far as I know still experemental code.

Formatting it FAT32 is the best choice to go with being able to access a media on all platforms

:develish:

Would one parition in FAT32 cover 250GB or do I need to break it down into smaller ones? I don't mind 2 or 3, but hoping I don't need more than that.

Thanks Develish!

according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat32 it is 8Terabyte - I recon if you use the large cluster sizes.

Fat32 can only handle 8,000 gigabytes? Well, I guess it'll have to do. :worker:

Isn't Wikipedia the best thing on earth? I should have looked there myself.

Now I'll have to research Macs that freeze and lock up for no reason.

Thanks again~!

did you do the OS X updates?
what version of OS X are you running?

OK listen to how much of a bitch this thing is being.

Don't know why, but my Linux program QTParted won't format the drive. No reason, it just says "completed" even though nothing got done.

Windows XP will only format in NTFS and nothing more. So I turn to good old command window and type

FORMAT H: /FS:FAT32

Things are humming along just smurfy. Nearly an HOUR later, at 99% completion, this thing tells me the drive is too large. I didn't see any option for choosing the cluster size. I imagine it needs to be 64K.

What am I missing? Another switch after /FS:FAT32?

:crazyeyes:

Here's my new command line. I'll know in an hour if it worked:

FORMAT H: /FS:FAT32 /A:64K

250GB divided by 64K = 3,906,250 which is supposedly now acceptable by Fat32.

We'll see.

I'm running Mac OSX 10.4.8 on a G4 with no problems. I have 4 Macs here and I've been using them for 18 years (not the same four, haha). I might be able to help if I knew just it was doing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rimmates.com

Here's my new command line. I'll know in an hour if it worked:

FORMAT H: /FS:FAT32 /A:64K

250GB divided by 64K = 3,906,250 which is supposedly now acceptable by Fat32.

We'll see.

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WOW - the drive is still too large for FAT32. This is fucked up. :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :anger: :anger:

I can't use FDISK because it doesn't exist, and Windows disk management only formats in NTFS.

SOMEONE HELP ME!!

:yeah:



Oh Steve... check your AOL email

MACs can't write to NTFS discs

FAT32 isn't good if you're using video files because you will be limited to, I think, 2 gigs per file under the FAT32 system. FAT32 is also limited on maximum disk size, and it's a less robust file system than NTFS. I would not feel comfortable reading and writing a large number of files, or big files, to a FAT32 drive... I've had too many problems.

The best solution is to format your drives using the Mac, then buy MacOpener which is about 80 bucks, I think. It installs easily on your PC, and then you will be able to read and write to Mac-formatted hard drives on your PC seamlessly. They offer a free 7 day trial so you can try it out... it's really brainless to set up and use.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rimmates.com

I can't use FDISK because it doesn't exist, and Windows disk management only formats in NTFS.

SOMEONE HELP ME!!

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You might try to find an old win98 or winME boot disk that has FDisk on it That should do the trick in FAT32 for you. I'm guessing you open a winXP dos window (CMD) and then switch to the location and then run FDisk like the old days.

Here's what I have so far. I split the drive in half and partitioned 119GB with FAT32.

Windows does not even recognize the other drive space, so it may as well just be a 119GB drive. I think I will try to format the rest of the space in Mac journaling fs for my video content.

Thanks gaybucks_chip for the heads up on FAT's 2GB file limit. I'll use FAT for my photos since there will be a lot of them, and the Mac partition for video files.

If this fails to fly, then I will just give up and format the whole thing in Mac and buy that Mac opener program.

I am pretty sure PartitionMagic will format partitions to FAT32 or NTFS (user selectable) and pretty much all hard drives come with a version of OnTrack's DiskManager software (usually crippled to only work with the manufacturer's specific brand of drives)

I have an old generic version of DiskManager that came with a Hitachi drive right after they bought IBM's drive business and before they got around to getting a custom crippled version. With the generic one, I can format, partition, and label any brand of drive in about 5 minutes (including format time) I bet if you dig around on Ebay or perhaps even check at OnTrack.com's site, you might be able to find a copy.