Korean Job Discussion Forums

[NYC_Gal]

I got a new external hard drive on Saturday, and the box said that it wasn't formatted for mac. I plugged it in anyway, because sometimes things just work, and it did. I backed up everything that I needed to back up, and have used it on both of my macs.

However, today I brought it into work and it won't work on any of the PCs. It says that there are missing drivers. I tried some driver download, but it's a pain in the @$$ and these computers are in Korean.

The hard drive is Western Digital, if anyone can help me out with this.

Thanks!

[eamo]

I'm guessing your work computers are XP which won't have drivers for more modern devices built-in. Unlike Windows 7 which has installed everything I've ever plugged in to it.

You don't really have a choice but to download the drivers from the hard drive's manufacturers website and install.

[ttompatz]

[eamo]

I'd go with Tom's opinion......I haven't used XP in 3 years......

[NYC_Gal]

I use my other external hard drive (500gig partitioned into 1/2 for mac, 1/2 for PC. The PC and mac sides both open on mac, and only the PC side opens in PC. Macs are just better with this kind of stuff.) and a flash thumb drive all the time on all of these PCs at work, but this one just won't be recognized. I really don't want to have to partition it.

The box said that it was formatted for Windows, but it worked in my Mac. Now it won't open on any of my work PCs. Lame.

I've been trying to install drivers from the Western Digital site, but nothing seems to be working. I may have to just keep this as my Mac storage. I'm just annoyed because I got a teeny one so that I could carry it around.

If anyone can help, I love you.

[NYC_Gal]

Okay I think that the problem is that I set it up to be my time machine backup without partitioning it. I guess I'll just use it as a back up, and use my 500gig as a storage drive. It's just annoying that I can't hook it up to PCs. Ah well.

[nick70100]

I'm guessing that the first time you plugged it into your Mac the computer formatted the drive with a file system that Windows doesn't use. That's the only way that this makes sense. As others have mentioned, Windows XP has built in drivers for USB hard drives. It has to be a file system issue. Try reformatting the drive on the Windows PC (backup any important data first).

[NYC_Gal]

I've got everything backed up on a different drive anyway. The problem is that I can't format it on a PC, as I can't access the drive from PCs. I'm going to call Apple later and see if they can help me. I don't care if I have to wipe it clean and start from scratch, because I've got the files saved on a different drive anyway.

This is such a pain.

[Giant]

The issue is this...　MAC uses a different file system. on Windows you cannot read a MAC partition without using a 3rd party application...

Google is your friend....

[NYC_Gal]

I'm well aware of this, but I didn't partition anything. I plugged it in and loaded some stuff onto it. I didn't have this issue with my other drive, but I manually partitioned that one. This drive was formatted for PC. Somehow it's changed. I'll call the apple people later.

EDIT: I called Western Digital, and the guy talked me through reformatting it. Apparently, my mac did it automatically, thinking that I only wanted it for time machine. It works like a charm now.

[simonandmartina]

Easy answer: you formatted it the wrong way. When you format on the Mac, it defaults to Mac OS Extended Journaled. You need MS Dos formatting.

Plug in your drive, go to Disk Utility, then click on the Erase tab. In your drop down menu pick MS-DOS, and start. You'll lose the info you put on it now, but it'll work on both Mac and PC from now on. Supposedly it'll be a bit slower on your Mac now, since it isn't optimized for the Mac, but at least it's universal!