If you simply want to have a data drive that can be shared across Mac and PC just format the drive in ExFAT. External drives come partitioned, you simply want to reformat it with an ExFAT partition. Just make sure you are using SP1 or later in Vista to enable ExFAT. Hard drives formatted to exFAT or FAT32 can read and write data on both Mac and PC operating systems, though FAT32 is limited to a 4-gigabyte-per-file size limit.

1. How To Configure External Hard Drive For Xbox One
2. Internal Hard Drive For Macbook Pro
3. How To Format Your External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc

How To Configure External Hard Drive For Xbox One

I just bought a Seagate 200 GB external hard drive which I plan to use on a MAC for digital video storage, but I would also like to use it with my PC at home to back up my files, for games, and for additional storage. I know I can partition the hard drive for whatever size I need each to be, but the question is what should the hard drive file system be formatted to in each the PC partition and the MAC partition, NTFS or FAT32, or does the drive need to be partitioned at all? The OS for the PC is XP Pro and for the MAC is OS X. I setup a 30GB external hard drive for my girlfriend.

Internal Hard Drive For Macbook Pro

She needs it to scan her pictures and slides at school on a MAC. I plugged in the hard drive on my XP PC and formatted it in FAT32 format. Then, she uses it on the MAC at school and bring home her files and edits them in Photoshop on a XP PC. It works fine and great. The only thing she told me was that you had to eject(?) your external hard drive in MAC before disconnecting it, otherwise you may lose some data.

Possibly the best solution to using a hard drive with both Windows and Mac without the use of third-party software is creating two partitions on the drive, one for Windows and one for Mac.

How To Format Your External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc

AS STATED FROM A WEBSITE: If it is possible to remove a device physically without ejecting it, (for example, unplugging a firewire hard drive or USB pen drive) -DON'T Always eject the device first, unplugging active devices can lead to corruption or loss of data.