MacBook Pro Share files from External HD to PC and Mac

[smknSRT8]

I want to take large files from my PC to my Mac. I have a 500Gb MyBook, but when I have the file on my PC, and I want to copy it to the Mac it does not even know that the External HD is connected.

I initially setup my MyBook to use as my "Time Machine" on Leopard. Any thoughts. I read some articles online about this not being as straightforward as I want it to be.

Another question I have is, if I do it with a flash drive it works. So why won't my really big 500Gb "flash drive" do the same?

 

[dturner]

Don't mean for this to sound like it is going to, but is time machine "on".

 

[smknSRT8]

I might not have been clear with what I am trying to do.

I have an external HD that ever since I got it brand new, has been used as my Time Machine backup, and the place I put all my music and movies. But I use my PC, to rip music and DVDs, and what i want to do is just add them to my external HD. When I connect my external HD to my PC, it does not even register that the HD is connected.

Does that make a little more sense?

 

[dturner]

I might not have been clear with what I am trying to do.

I have an external HD that ever since I got it brand new, has been used as my Time Machine backup, and the place I put all my music and movies. But I use my PC, to rip music and DVDs, and what i want to do is just add them to my external HD. When I connect my external HD to my PC, it does not even register that the HD is connected.

Does that make a little more sense?

Might be a little more confused now. Only because of what I have in bold above. How did they get there in the first place if PC doesn't recognize the HD?

 

[dturner]

OK. Been up since 4am this morning. Don't have any businesss trying to help anyone.
I get it now. You want to go from PC to HD to Mac. and PC doesn't recognize the HD.
So HD doesn't even show up in explorer?
It will work because I did the same thing to get info off PC when I got my MBP. But it has been so long since I have fooled with a PC that we will have to hope someone else hops in with some answers.
I have my HD way before the mac and the only thing I really remember is that the HD came with a CD for drivers.

 

[420greg]

If you were using the external drive for time machine then it is formated OS X Extended. Windows will never see it. It has to be reformated to fat32 if you want both your mac and your pc to be able see it.

Move off all your media with the mac.
Open Disk Utility and click the erase tab.
Change the volume format to MS-DOS Fat and click erase.
Move your media back.

Now you can move the external drive to the pc.

 

[DemonHunter]

Have you tried assigning the hard drive a new drive letter? Sometimes in windows when you connect an external hard drive to a PC, it has a drive letter pre-assigned to it and that may conflict with an existing drive already assigned to that letter. Use the steps below and it may fix your problem. Just because it doen't show up in "My Computer" doesn't mean it's not there.

For Windows XP: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844

For Windows Vista:

Right click Computer and select Manage,
Select Disk Management,
Go to full screen to see all of your drives,
Right click the drive you want to change,
Select - Change drive letter and paths.
Follow the screen prompts.

Hope it helps.

 

[420greg]

It will work because I did the same thing to get info off PC when I got my MBP. I have my HD way before the mac...

There is the answer.

Since it was hooked to a PC first, it was formatted on a pc. Macs can see pc drives but windows can not see mac drives.

 

[smknSRT8]

If you were using the external drive for time machine then it is formated OS X Extended. Windows will never see it. It has to be reformated to fat32 if you want both your mac and your pc to be able see it.

Move off all your media with the mac.
Open Disk Utility and click the erase tab.
Change the volume format to MS-DOS Fat and click erase.
Move your media back.

Now you can move the external drive to the pc.

So let me get this straight. Since Mac can read a PC drive, but a PC cant read a mac drive, i need to format for pc, since the mac can see both?
Correct?

When I copy the "mac" files back to the hard drive, will i still be able to use time machine?

 

[420greg]

The drive for time machine can only be used on the mac since it has to be formatted OS X Extended. You may want to get a smaller external drove for time machine.

 

[acosmichippo]

at the risk of confusing you more, it is possible to "partition" your MyBook so part of it is formatted as "OSX journaled (extended)", and part of it is formatted as FAT32. If you do this, it will show up as two separate drives in Finder... the MAc formatted partition you would be able to use as your Time Machine backup, and the FAT32 partition you could use for transferring data between OSX and Windows.

if that makes sense to you, i can post a little tutorial.

 

[jnowaczyk]

try macdrive on the pc http://www.softpedia.com/get/File-managers/MacDrive.shtml

 

[smknSRT8]

at the risk of confusing you more, it is possible to "partition" your MyBook so part of it is formatted as "OSX journaled (extended)", and part of it is formatted as FAT32. If you do this, it will show up as two separate drives in Finder... the MAc formatted partition you would be able to use as your Time Machine backup, and the FAT32 partition you could use for transferring data between OSX and Windows.

if that makes sense to you, i can post a little tutorial.

If you don't mind that would be awesome. I am reading up on now via googling. Thanks in advance!

 

[acosmichippo]

If you don't mind that would be awesome. I am reading up on now via googling. Thanks in advance!

sure, i'll be able to whip somethin up later tonight (heading to work right now).

 

[acosmichippo]

Ok, i hope this helps you out a bit. The first thing you'll need to be aware of is that this process will erase everything on your MyBook, so be sure to transfer everything you wish to keep onto another hard drive (or computer) temporarily.

Everything you need for this whole process is in an app included in OSX called "Disk Utility". You can probably just type that into spotlight, or you can open finder and go to applications->utilities->Disk Utility.

The first thing i would do there is exactly what i mentioned earlier. Erase everything and start from scratch. To do this Click on the drive in the left column (mine says "37.3 GB Samsung..."), click on the "Erase" tab at the top, and pick "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". You can name it if you want, but it'll get overwritten later anyway. Then click the "erase" button.

Once that finishes, click on the drive again (the top one where mine says "37.3 GB Samsung...", not the one under it). Then click on the "Partition" tab, and under "Volume Scheme" choose "2 Partitions" (although you can certainly make more if you wanted to). Slide the middle bar around to adjust the relative size of the two partitions. Then click "Apply", and "Partition" in the windows that pops up.

Next we need to rename the partitions, and change one of them to FAT32. To do this, in the left column, click on the partition you want to use as your Time Machine Backup (where mine says "Untitled 1"). We don't have to reformat this one, so we'll just rename it something a little more helpful for identification. Go to the "Erase" tab, enter a new name, and then click the "Erase" button.

Next, we'll reformat and rename the Partition you want to use to transfer files. So select the other partition in the left column (where mine says "Untitled 2"), and then click on the "Erase" tab. For this partition, we will have to choose a different "Volume Format". Choose "MS-DOS (FAT)" here. Then enter a name for the partition, and finally click on the "Erase" button.

(continued below)

 

[acosmichippo]

That's pretty much it. Your two partitions should look something like these when you're done:

And in finder they'll show up as two separate drives.

But in Windows Explorer, only the "Windows-OSX" partition will be recognized.

Anyway, hope that helps you out a bit.

 

[smknSRT8]

BIG ThANK!
Takes a really good person to take the time out and make a tutorial for a person. You Rock!

 

[tesh]

great how to! since im migrating from pc to mac, this'll be a breeze thanks to you

 

[acosmichippo]

glad it helps. let me know how it goes for ya.

 

[iMerlin]

Damn hippo, you are all sorts of helpful around here. Im gonna do this with the external USB we have been talking about getting. Ill pick up a 1tb and split it, one for backups and one for media.
My question is, can the Windows machine use the MS-DOS partition for its backups as well as a network drive?