Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

Hi all,

OS: XP home sp2

I know there are a million questions posted about assigning a letter ot an
external hard drive, but...

My external drive has been formatted (by a colleague who gave it as a gift)
for windows, but so far I've only used in on a Mac at work. I have lots of
data on it. I just got a Windows machine at home - XP home sp2. When I plug
in the drive it tis recognized as a plug&play device. I've goneinto disk
manager to partition it to add a drive letter, but I still can't access the
files. When I try to explore the contents, I am told that the drive has not
been formatted, and asked me if I would like to format it.

If I format it, will I lose my data? How can I gain access to a drive with
data on it without formatting it?

Thanks for your help,

Marc

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

If the drive has been formatted via a Mac Computer the information will not
be visible or usable on a Windows computer. To use the drive with a Windows
computer the drive must be formatted through a Windows computer, either as
fat32 or NTFS.

Yes, everything will be lost.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)

If you knew as much as you thought you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!


"Marc" <Marc@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C49CDD61-291F-48C7-A72B-AC7A5703DEFE@microsoft.com...
> Hi all,
>
> OS: XP home sp2
>
> I know there are a million questions posted about assigning a letter ot an
> external hard drive, but...
>
> My external drive has been formatted (by a colleague who gave it as a
> gift)
> for windows, but so far I've only used in on a Mac at work. I have lots of
> data on it. I just got a Windows machine at home - XP home sp2. When I
> plug
> in the drive it tis recognized as a plug&play device. I've goneinto disk
> manager to partition it to add a drive letter, but I still can't access
> the
> files. When I try to explore the contents, I am told that the drive has
> not
> been formatted, and asked me if I would like to format it.
>
> If I format it, will I lose my data? How can I gain access to a drive with
> data on it without formatting it?
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> Marc

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

Marc wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> OS: XP home sp2
>
> I know there are a million questions posted about assigning a letter
> ot an external hard drive, but...
>
> My external drive has been formatted (by a colleague who gave it as a
> gift) for windows, but so far I've only used in on a Mac at work. I
> have lots of data on it. I just got a Windows machine at home - XP
> home sp2. When I plug in the drive it tis recognized as a plug&play
> device. I've goneinto disk manager to partition it to add a drive
> letter, but I still can't access the files. When I try to explore the
> contents, I am told that the drive has not been formatted, and asked
> me if I would like to format it.
>
> If I format it, will I lose my data? How can I gain access to a drive
> with data on it without formatting it?
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> Marc


You don't know what 'formatting' means?! Have you tried the help and support
centre? There's an excellent article on formatting there - enter 'format',
hit enter, and then click the full-text search tab - it's the fourth article
down.

If the disk has been used exclusively with a Mac, then it has /not/ been
"formatted for Windows" it's been formatted for a Mac. You are asked if you
wish to format the disk because the Mac OS uses a totally different disk
structure to Windows (and, TTBOMK - though I'm willing to be corrected -
there is no way of converting the data, though there may be third-party
tools that will enable you to do so).

You can, however (though I have never done it) network a PC to a Mac, so you
could keep the external drive connected to the Mac, network it to the PC and
transfer the files that way (disk formats do not apply in a network
environment). However, there is a caveat here - much of the data may be
unreadable on a PC as the Mac uses many proprietary formats (.sit for fonts
springs instantly to mind, though there are many others). So, once you have
recovered the data from the drive, you may discover that there isn't much
you can do with a good deal of it, and you would have to weigh up the
importance of the data against the time, effort and expense you would have
to expend locating converters. It could transpire to be a very costly
affair.
--
Facon - the artificial bacon bits you get in Pizza Hut for sprinkling
on salads.

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

"Marc" <Marc@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C49CDD61-291F-48C7-A72B-AC7A5703DEFE@microsoft.com...
> Hi all,
>
> OS: XP home sp2
>
> I know there are a million questions posted about assigning a letter ot an
> external hard drive, but...
>
> My external drive has been formatted (by a colleague who gave it as a
gift)
> for windows, but so far I've only used in on a Mac at work. I have lots of
> data on it. I just got a Windows machine at home - XP home sp2. When I
plug
> in the drive it tis recognized as a plug&play device. I've goneinto disk
> manager to partition it to add a drive letter, but I still can't access
the
> files. When I try to explore the contents, I am told that the drive has
not
> been formatted, and asked me if I would like to format it.
>
> If I format it, will I lose my data? How can I gain access to a drive with
> data on it without formatting it?
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> Marc

If you've been using it from a Mac, it is likely formatted for Mac. YES,
formatting it will erase all data.

There are 3rd party utilities to allow Windows machines to read MAC disks.
For example:
http://www.macwindows.com/disks2.html

I have used none of these, so I am not endorsing any of them.

HTH
-pk

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

Thanks for all of your replies. I appreciate your time and effort.

Marc