Using an Iomega External (USB) with both a Mac and XP

[Jack Gillis]

I recently bought an Iomega External HD (100G) drive to use primarily on my
XP systems. I came out of the box formatted FAT32. As I understand it from
Google Groups, this drive can be plugged into a Mac and used for both
reading and writing to share files between the XP and Mac machines.

Is this correct?

 

[Jack Gillis]

I recently bought an Iomega External HD (100G) drive to use primarily on my
XP systems. I came out of the box formatted FAT32. As I understand it
from Google Groups, this drive can be plugged into a Mac and used for both
reading and writing to share files between the XP and Mac machines.

Is this correct?

I've been boxed in most of my life but what I meant to say was 'It came out
of the box....', not 'I came out of the box....'

 

[Paul]

I've been boxed in most of my life but what I meant to say was 'It came out
of the box....', not 'I came out of the box....'

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75320

"Moving hard drive

While it is possible to move some IDE PC hard drives into some model Macintosh
computers, this is not the recommended method of transferring data and it should
only be used by experienced computer users who understand how to install and
format PC hard drives. It is only possible to read FAT and FAT32 formatted drives
in a Macintosh. Do not use NTFS formatted drives in a Macintosh computer.

Mac OS X 10.3 and 10.4 work with local NTFS-formatted volumes. The volume will be
read-only.

Warning: NTFS formatted drives cannot be used in a Macintosh (except as read-only
with Mac OS X 10.3 and 10.4 as noted above). If you attempt to use a NTFS formatted
disk, upon starting up the Mac OS will prompt you to format the drive. Do not format
the drive, doing so will erase the contents of the drive. If you have an NTFS
formatted disk, you must use another method to transfer the data from the PC to the
Macintosh."

FAT32 is recommended here as well, for externally connected disks.

http://images.apple.com/macosx/pdf/MacOSX_Windows_TB.pdf

The best way to search the apple site, is not using Apple search engines.
I use http://www.altavista.com/web/adv , set domain to "apple.com" and
enter the search terms in the top line. This method is also recommended
when searching sites having crappy search facilities such as the old ATI
or AMD.

Paul

 

[Jack Gillis]

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75320

"Moving hard drive

While it is possible to move some IDE PC hard drives into some model
Macintosh
computers, this is not the recommended method of transferring data and
it should
only be used by experienced computer users who understand how to
install and
format PC hard drives. It is only possible to read FAT and FAT32
formatted drives
in a Macintosh. Do not use NTFS formatted drives in a Macintosh
computer.

Mac OS X 10.3 and 10.4 work with local NTFS-formatted volumes. The
volume will be
read-only.

Warning: NTFS formatted drives cannot be used in a Macintosh (except as
read-only
with Mac OS X 10.3 and 10.4 as noted above). If you attempt to use a
NTFS formatted
disk, upon starting up the Mac OS will prompt you to format the drive.
Do not format
the drive, doing so will erase the contents of the drive. If you have
an NTFS
formatted disk, you must use another method to transfer the data from
the PC to the
Macintosh."

FAT32 is recommended here as well, for externally connected disks.

http://images.apple.com/macosx/pdf/MacOSX_Windows_TB.pdf

The best way to search the apple site, is not using Apple search engines.
I use http://www.altavista.com/web/adv , set domain to "apple.com" and
enter the search terms in the top line. This method is also recommended
when searching sites having crappy search facilities such as the old ATI
or AMD.

Paul

Thank you.

I must not have made my question clear and I apologize. The Iomega External
Drive I am talking about is an USB drive factory formatted to FAT32. Does
that make any difference? I expected maybe I could just plug it into the
Mac's USB port and go.

 

[Paul]

Thank you.

I must not have made my question clear and I apologize. The Iomega External
Drive I am talking about is an USB drive factory formatted to FAT32. Does
that make any difference? I expected maybe I could just plug it into the
Mac's USB port and go.

Yes, plug and go with a USB FAT32 drive.

The only minor caveat, is you'll occasionally find that the MacOS adds files
to the folders visited. That records things like Finder viewing information.
I don't remember all the details now.

There was a time, when you could plug in the drive, but there would be issues
with long file names. As far as I know, you should be in reasonably good
shape on that account. If you plan on using extremely long file names, you
may want to research what the limits are on MacOSX and Windows, to see
if there are minor differences in max length. Back in MacOS 9, the length limit
was really annoying.

The reason I looked up the above, was to see if NTFS support had changed.
And it doesn't really look like it.

Paul

 

[Jack Gillis]

Snip

Yes, plug and go with a USB FAT32 drive.

The only minor caveat, is you'll occasionally find that the MacOS adds
files
to the folders visited. That records things like Finder viewing
information.
I don't remember all the details now.

There was a time, when you could plug in the drive, but there would be
issues
with long file names. As far as I know, you should be in reasonably good
shape on that account. If you plan on using extremely long file names, you
may want to research what the limits are on MacOSX and Windows, to see
if there are minor differences in max length. Back in MacOS 9, the length
limit
was really annoying.

The reason I looked up the above, was to see if NTFS support had changed.
And it doesn't really look like it.

Paul

Thank you very much.