Formatting an NTFS Hard Drive to Mac Format

http://AsktheTechies.com answer a viewer question about difficulty formatting an external hard drive from NTFS to Mac format.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• format
• hard
• drive
• ntfs
• mac
• osX
• extended
• external

[thestever]

So if I have my PC backed up on a NTFS external, when i buy a mac if i connect that external to it, it can transfer my files over to the mac? And afterwards, can I reformat that drive to mac and be able to read and write to it?

[AsktheTechies]

"THESTEVER":

You got it right. A Mac will be able to read that NTFS drive and so you can navigate and copy those files onto the Mac. Then you can erase the drive with Mac's Disk Utility program and format it for HFS+ Mac Extended.

[assyrianking44]

i installed a windows xp sp3 and i ended up formating it on windows 7 but when i put in in mac and try to boot snow leopard it wont eve show anything (on macbook)

[kothariv]

the guy in the red shirt is so annoying! shutup you stupid idiot and let us listen to the bald man who is giving us useful information!

[Jackalakadingdong]

@AsktheTechies I have a MacOSX Lion with a Bootcamp partition that loads Windows XP SP3 and using that I can read and format Mac OS Extended Hard Drives. But whenever I try reading the Mac partition it gives me the Blue Screen o' Death and I need to restart. I did however then make a backup of my HD on the Mac Partition using the special startup disk from when my Mac crashed and couldn't reboot and I used windows and that backup to recover 99% of my files. So I can use mac partitions on windows.

[sweetsweatyfeet]

I have a 500 gig powered USB drive formatted in NTFS that I want to use with OS 10 Tiger. The Mac wont even mount it. It doesn't show up in Disk utility. But I CN read it on a Windows Vista PC however there is no FAT32 option. What gives?--How do I get my mac to mount it or read it so I can reformat it?

[pixlejunkie]

The simple solution is to eject the volume, then your formatting options in disc utility are no longer grayed out. These are 'experts' in the video?

[Copecwby20]

@shine609video What is the name of the software?

[shine609video]

Actually, guys, with OS 10.4 or later and you can read/write to NTFS external drives just fine; download the open source freebie software (based on Macfuse) which treats the disk as a Network Volume : )

[crazyhorse9991]

In theory yes, but good luck getting hardware drivers...and i wouldn't try snow leopard, they've closed most holes that allow running on a non-Mac.

[drewthegnome]

i have the same problem. if someone tells u how to fix it please let me know.

[SkaZiiKx]

i just got a Macbook pro, my first mac so im a noob, i have all my old files on an external Hd which i used on my pc formatted to ntfs. now when i plug it into my mac nothing shows up, not even in disc utilities, please help me i need them files!