Do the Mac and PC have to be formatted to alter documents on the drive?
1842683
I may not be understanding the question entirely, but once I formatted the drive to Mac, I could edit and save basic documents to the drive. But my pc treats it like a read only drive. Hope that helps.
1842684
The configuration software asks you to define the capacity assigned to the Mac and PC part of the disk. It works as if you had 2 disks.
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.
900003
Edward, if you format the drive as NTFS, you would only be able to view its contents on a Mac. Writing to the drive would not be possible.
730074
yes, it comes formatted as Fat32. It can be used as is or reformatted using the disk utility in OS X
603727
Can't help with any specific advice as I am using my drive with a Mac, but I can't see why there would be a problem. If you received a drive pre-formatted for a Macintosh, then doubtless, you need to use a Windows program to reformat it. Good Luck!
149061
Yes you can - coming from being a Dell user I had tons of documents and external hard drives. I purchase Paragon www.paragon-software.com which allows you to use both types on both Windows and Mac. It cost me about $20.00! Well worth the cost if you don't want the hassle of having to re format your external drives and change your documents.
134559
Yes, You may have to format to work. The one I bought was exFAT. exFAT is compatible with Mac OS X 10.6.5 or newer, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.
735341
so if i were to put a mess of files from a pc on this drive, i will be able to access them with my mac?
2121924
Although it is formatted for mac, it was easy to format for windows. However, once formatted for windows, it is not completely functional on OS X without windows drivers (there are a few different companies that make the drivers). For my application, I partitioned the drive and split it in two. One partition is for mac, the other for windows. I also use Tuxera NTFS on my mac to be able to read/write to NTFS (windows format) disks. The drive is well built, it performs as expected. It should be simple to change the formatting, or to partition and format for both OS.
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.
953783
I think the question is does the drive come preformated for Mac or PC or do you have to format it for either OS and setup two partitions if you want to use it across platforms.
2136758
Yes, but accessing the data will depend on how the drive is formatted. I think (you'll have to check) the drive comes formatted in NTSF. For use with both PC and Mac, you'll have to re-format the drive in something like FAT 23. Both Mac and PC should recognize the drive, but FAT 23 has file size limitations.
135687
Can you further explain how to format this for Mac -- and can it be interswitched between a Mac and a PC?
1592527
The drive is formatted FAT32 out of the box so you can use it with Macs and Windows PCs equally.
1000243
Yes... but be advised... if you are trying to use it with a MAC, there needs to be some advanced formatting before hand.
643769
If you format the drive for the Mac, it will NOT be recognized by the PC. This is a limitation of the Windows operating system. It does not recognize Mac formatting. If you format the drive for the PC, though, you will be able to use it on BOTH platforms. Mac OSX will recognize PC formatted drives. You will be able to read and write to the drive from either your Mac OR your PC and transfer files between them. [Note: You will NOT, however, be able to run the PC software that's included with this drive on your Mac, unless you are using a program like Bootcamp or Virtual PC. While OSX will read and write Windows-formatted files, it will NOT run Windows programs on its own without one or another third-party helper programs. Hope this helps - RJLaue
576186
when i purchased mine it was formatted for mac. In windows i had to format it in disk management to fat32 to work for both mac and windows.