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
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.
2079170
Yes. Just need to format it in a format thats appropriate for Windows. Like exFAT. There are some formats that will be read/write for both Mac/Window. These will be most versatile
1765380
Yes, but... As it comes, the drive is pre formatted as a single HFS+J partition for compatibility with Mac OSX operating systems. To use the drive with Windows operating systems you must: 1) Reformat the drive to a single NTFS partition; 2) restore the WD SmartWare software and disk image. For me that sounds complicated. You have to go to http://support.wdc.com and refer to Knowledge Base Answer ID 3865 for information about reformatting a Mac 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.
2167745
I love this drive, but do not own or have used it with a Mac, but I think you made a good decision to use Time Machine, from what I read it looks like a nice system. I am using my Seagate with Linux and do my full backups using REDO backup, and my incremental with either a cp -u command manually or drag & drop from the GUI. Hope this helps.
2210799
Technically, YES, it can be formatted to FAT32, but with the filesize limitations, as well as the cluster size for the filesystem, I must beg the question of WHY format it to FAT32? If you want it to be read/write with Mac/PC, then format exFAT. If you want to install DOS/95/98/ME on it, why? Truly, your best option would be exFAT if NTFS is not suitable for your needs.
1538002
This drive is compatible with Mac OSX 10.8, so I imagine there are no problems with somewhat earlier releases of OSX like what you have. I always do my own drive reformatting/partitioning since drives arrive from the factory in Apple Partition Map/APM partitioning (because it's compatible with the old PowerPC based Macs), but I prefer the GUID Partition table/GPT partitioning scheme because it's what's required to boot from an Intel-based Mac (all Macs for the last several years). All of these can be easily changed with the "Disk Utility" software that comes with every Mac. You can reformat, repartition, etc. In any case, even if you don't repartition or reformat it should work just fine with your Mac This drive is compatible with Mac OSX 10.8, so I imagine there are no problems with somewhat earlier releases of OSX like what you have. I always do my own drive reformatting/partitioning since drives arrive from the factory in Apple Partition Map/APM partitioning (because it's compatible with the old PowerPC based Macs), but I prefer the GUID Partition table/GPT partitioning scheme because it's what's required to boot from an Intel-based Mac (all Macs for the last several years). All of these can be easily changed with the "Disk Utility" software that comes with every Mac. You... » Read More This drive is compatible with Mac OSX 10.8, so I imagine there are no problems with somewhat earlier releases of OSX like what you have. I always do my own drive reformatting/partitioning since drives arrive from the factory in Apple Partition Map/APM partitioning (because it's compatible with the old PowerPC based Macs), but I prefer the GUID Partition table/GPT partitioning scheme because it's what's required to boot from an Intel-based Mac (all Macs for the last several years). All of these can be easily changed with the "Disk Utility" software that comes with every Mac. You can reformat, repartition, etc. In any case, even if you don't repartition or reformat it should work just fine with your Mac « Show Less
1985365
Yes it can. Look it up online, (even before you get it) and you can figure it out. Basically using a PC format the drive to FAT or exFAT file system. This can be read on Mac and PC. I did this. Had a Mac, it broke and I switched to a PC, used this to transfer my backed up files afer formatting it correctly. I also have since used it to transfer docs between other's Mac's and my PC. Works great.
135686
in the paper that comes with the drive it directs you to seesupport.wdc.com --> knowledge base article #287The 2TB version I just bought was pre-formatted for NTFS (which Disk Utility recognized just fine...I reformatted for Mac just for the better file system)
952049
Of course. The drive comes preformatted for HFS+, the standard Mac HDD formatting system, but all you have to do for Windows is reformat the drive in your chosen Windows format. Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2jn9_ZvIkM
457650
I specifically purchased to back up my MacBook. I am unsure if you can reformat it to use it with a PC.
2202175
Here is a quick tutorial for reformatting this drive to work on a Mac. Very easy and helpfulhttp://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/291/#exfatmac
2081754
I wrote you a response (which is below) but I realized you might be confused as to what this product is. This isn't an external hard drive. It's a hard drive enclosure, it's basically an empty shell that holds a hard drive. You have to buy the actual drive separately You should be good in that direction PC to Mac. Windows uses the NT File System on it's drives, Mac's can read those files and copy them to the mac, but mac's can't write to a NTFS drive. So you couldn't add or save anything on to the drive. A solution for this would be to make a partition that's FAT32 both mac and windows can read and write to that, it's the file system flash drives usually have. Sometimes there's a 32GB limit on FAT32 drives so you might not be able to turn the whole drive into it. But you can partition one drive into multiple parts.
577669
Hi Shiki, This is very helpful. Is it easy to partition the drive? I just ordered this so I don't have the drive yet, but when it comes I'd like to back up both my Mac and PC... Do you know where to find information on how to partition? Thank you!
1573880
No. Simply plug in the drive and start copying files. It may be necessary to reformat the drive depending on your preferred file system (I reformat to "HFS+" for my Mac), but you absolutely do not to install software to use this. I believe both Judith and Vitalino are speaking of device drivers (on a Windows system), rather than the software included with the drive.
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.