Can this drive be reformatted to be compatible with Mac? I have both PC and Mac at home. I am wondering can this drive be formatted via disk utility with one partition HSF+ for time machine and another FAT32 for storage on both PC and Mac?Thanks for any feedback. Can this drive be reformatted to be compatible with Mac? I have both PC and Mac at home. I am wondering can this drive be formatted via disk utility with one partition HSF+ for time machine and... » Read More Can this drive be reformatted to be compatible with Mac? I have both PC and Mac at home. I am wondering can this drive be formatted via disk utility with one partition HSF+ for time machine and another FAT32 for storage on both PC and Mac?Thanks for any feedback. « Show Less
489052
Yes this drive is compatible with a Mac. I plugged it in, opened up Disk Utility, formatted it (Mac OS Extended (Journaled) to be exact) and it's working just peachy. I even partitioned it, about half for backups and the other half for other stuff.
489053
Just to throw in my 2 cents here, the Disk Utility reformat mentioned above in Andrew's post is spot-on. The drive so far as been great to use. However, I'm running Mac 10.5.6 and it was immediately recognized when I first plugged it in: it mounted and Time Machine asked if I wanted to use it for backups...I did the reformatting anyway as the apps on board are no use to a Mac owner.BTW, the $99 price was unbelievable!Fingers crossed on reliability,Yikesboy
489054
macs can read and write to pc hards drives but need to be formated in fat32 i think. i have a pc hard drive that is split for time machine and as a backup. my pc hard drives i can read them but cant write since they are in wrong format. but those hard drives if i wanted could be reformatted so i can write to them.
489055
I have the same question but it looks like the drive does not support Mac based on the spec on this page: http://freeagent.seagate.com/en-us/hard-drive/desktop-hard-drive/Free-Agent.html
457650
I specifically purchased to back up my MacBook. I am unsure if you can reformat it to use it with a PC.
1803946
Once you plug in the USB cable your Mac should recognize the drive immediately and you can just use disk utilities to reformat the drive to Mac format. Remember if you reformat it to Mac format. A PC may not be able to read the contents of the drive
1343641
From my experience, you just refuse Time Machine for the device once, and then you can use it as a normal backup/file transfer device. Although it is true that I reformatted the drive to work with Windows and Mac using eXFAT file system.
1944386
Yes. It can be reformatted if not in the correct windows format. I only two formats I know are FAT-32 (Mac and pc) and Windows NT (Mac read and PC readwrite).
493021
What I've read on the Internet, if you reformat it, you can. The programs that are on it are of no use to Mac user. You might check with the software co., itself:Customer SupportNTI Corporationhttp://www.NTICorp.comClick here for contact information or call (949)421-0720 from 9AM to 6PM Pacific Timeand see if they have anything for the Apple stuff, but I doubt, never hurt to try, though. Anyway, this drive comes already formatted for Windows NTFS. The included works great with Windows XP. It doesn't seem to agree with Windows 7 but you can back your Windows 7 with the software that is part of Windows 7, with no problem.Hopefully, I answered several questions. What I've read on the Internet, if you reformat it, you can. The programs that are on it are of no use to Mac user. You might check with the software co., itself:Customer SupportNTI Corporationhttp://www.NTICorp.comClick here for contact information or call (949)421-0720 from 9AM to 6PM Pacific Timeand see if they have anything for the Apple stuff, but I doubt, never hurt to try, though. Anyway, this drive comes already formatted for Windows NTFS. The included works great with Windows XP. It doesn't seem to agree with Windows 7 but you can back your... » Read More What I've read on the Internet, if you reformat it, you can. The programs that are on it are of no use to Mac user. You might check with the software co., itself:Customer SupportNTI Corporationhttp://www.NTICorp.comClick here for contact information or call (949)421-0720 from 9AM to 6PM Pacific Timeand see if they have anything for the Apple stuff, but I doubt, never hurt to try, though. Anyway, this drive comes already formatted for Windows NTFS. The included works great with Windows XP. It doesn't seem to agree with Windows 7 but you can back your Windows 7 with the software that is part of Windows 7, with no problem.Hopefully, I answered several questions. « Show Less
1120414
Hey, it's me again. I just went to there site and everything I saw said Mac compatible in the description, even though the Clickfree brand drives say "Multi-PC", I think one has to take the "PC" as a broad definition for any "personal computer", not just a windows. I still don't know if one can back up a Mac and a Windows computer on the same drive. The developers are REALLY bright from what I read in an article so I wouldn't be suprised! Just wanted to do some more research for you, but I still encourage you to go to there site as it is early in the morning and I'm getting ready for work... Cheers! Hey, it's me again. I just went to there site and everything I saw said Mac compatible in the description, even though the Clickfree brand drives say "Multi-PC", I think one has to take the "PC" as a broad definition for any "personal computer", not just a windows. I still don't know if one can back up a Mac and a Windows computer on the same drive. The developers are REALLY bright from what I read in an article so I wouldn't be suprised! Just wanted to do some more research for you, but I still encourage you to go to there site as it is early in the morning... » Read More Hey, it's me again. I just went to there site and everything I saw said Mac compatible in the description, even though the Clickfree brand drives say "Multi-PC", I think one has to take the "PC" as a broad definition for any "personal computer", not just a windows. I still don't know if one can back up a Mac and a Windows computer on the same drive. The developers are REALLY bright from what I read in an article so I wouldn't be suprised! Just wanted to do some more research for you, but I still encourage you to go to there site as it is early in the morning and I'm getting ready for work... Cheers! « Show Less
603307
I'm not sure about FAT32, but I was able to reformat mine to exFAT using Disk Utility on a Mac, and that allowed me to use the drive with both Macs and PCs. I'm fairly certain you could do the same for FAT32, by the same method. Good luck.
983909
Yes it works great with both, you just have to make sure it is configured properly from the start. If not, you will have to delete all files to reformat it. A simple google search of how to properly format drives can help get you through that. I may be wrong, but I think LaCie was originally designed for Mac but I have always used it for PC. My friend has a Mac with a split OS and it works on both sides for her.
2006924
This Drive is NTFS formatted so it will not work on MAC. For MAC system you will need either FAT32 or MAC journal formatted.
1259172
I talked about this in my review, actually, as my hd didn't come with the driver.. You have to install the driver in order for it to work on the mac unless you want time machine to reformat it for you (but then it won't work on a PC). There's also this link..http://blog.nolar.info/ntfs-3g-in-mac-os-x-lion-10-7-with-read-write-support/Hope that helps..
1944722
If you're running a mac, use the disk utility to see what format it is. If you need to reformat it you can use FAT32 or MAC OS Journaled. http://macs.about.com/od/applications/ss/diskutilformat.htm
2184714
I did not format the drive as it was from an older computer and I needed the files from it. If it was a new drive you may need to format it. Most new ones are formatted to use with a Windows computer. I have a Mac and they pretty much will read anything. If it was a new drive I would format it just to make sure it worked with my computer, Mac or PC.
1339934
@TonyI believe you could. You'd have to create two partitions on the drive, one formatted in HFS+ (for Mac) and the other in NTFS (for Windows). I have never done any such thing but it might be worth a try. Of course, as these drives have come so far down in price, why not just buy two, one for Mac and the other for Windows?
1929603
The drive for mac comes already formatted for an apple computer. The regular one would need to be formatted to use in a mac. This can be done by you after it is purchased in disk utility.
1370073
"Can I use it for switching back and forth between a Mac and a PC without reformatting?" - Only if you reformat with a filesystem that is compatible with both OSX and Windows. "If so, does this remove the option to use Time Machine?" - Yes and no. Time Machine requires HFS+ filesystem, and Windows cannot read/write to HFS+. However, it is possible to partition the disk and have part of the disk using NTFS and the other part using HFS+.
929835
Windows does not have native support for reading Mac formatted devices. Mac systems, on the other hand, can read and write FAT32 formatted drives and can read but not write NTFS formatted drives. If you want to use this drive to transfer files between Mac and Windows computers, re-format it as FAT32; or, purchase a drive that is already formatted for the PC.