Unable to access External Drive

[itsgrandpa]

So i just built a new rig and I want to be able to transfer my music and movie's to my second 1TB drive. So I loaded everything onto my external.
So I the first issue was that my external HD was not showing up, I went to disc management and was able to assign a letter to it. But now when i try to open it, it prompts me to format the disc...

Currently the files on my external drive are NOT backed up. So I do not want to risk loosing anything. Is there a way to access my files safely?

By the way, I tried connecting the computers directly, the mac would not show up on the PC and from the mac I wasn't able to access the files, but it acknowledged there was a connection.

I'm not familiar with formatting hard drives. I've read that its safe but i'm very uncomfortable veering too far off the main road. If my only option is the format the drive, what programs should i use to revive my files?

Any feed back is appreciated. thank you guys =]

 

[baddad]

If you format that drive all files will be lost. Are you saying you backup files from a mac system and are trying to copy them to a windows system?

 

[itsgrandpa]

Nothing is backed up right now....
I'm copying
movies: .avi, .mp4,
music: .mp3, .wmv

the mac(laptop) only has 80GB's on it so basically about 50GBs of free space
My external is 250GB's and about 220GB's full.
I want to place everything onto my PC which has two 1TB internal hard drives.

 

[Duesouth]

common man, what are you doing? you say you got 2 pc in your home. one is a mac and the other is running windows. so you have them connect thru a router right? and you can not browse the mac from the windows computer. you did not setup your home network (LAN or intranet not internet) properly. you are very capable of creating a folder in windows and having it with shared privileged. read and write. I have 2 pc here and a ps3. I am capable of browsing both pc from my ps3 and browsing the ps3 and the other pc from one pc. one is a file server running ubuntu and the other is windows xp. you must set your network properly.

oh and as for the external harddrive. you will need to format it to fat 32 for both mac and windows to see the files. I had a similar issue before. backup everything that is on the eternal hard drive back to the original pc whether mac or windows. clean it out smartly and once it is empty reformate it fat 32.

I am able to browse my external hard drive that is formated to fat 32 on my ubuntu file server / gateway. hence 1 router 2 network cards in the pc and then a switch. nice way to be protect. one fail then goodluck hacking ubuntu which is linux. behind a router and the linux firewall. lol anyways, just format the drive only once everything is properly remove.

use a router or a switch. you will need to setup the network properly, gateway, ie matching ip address well alsmot..... 192.168.1.1 for the mac and 192.168.1.2 for the windows pc, and the router 192.168.1.0, do not forget the gateway and the sub net. you must enable file and printer sharing on both machine and create a folder called shared. you then need to right click in windows and then go to the option of sharing this folder.

and the rest is history.

do not forget to properly config the router for static ip and not dhcp. that can be a problem but not often.
another solution
or buy yourself another external hard drive.

later

 

[itsgrandpa]

This might be an issue with Windows 7 RC... I opened up my networks, made everything public and allowed my computer to be shared.

I've been trying to connect it directly using an ethernet cable. For whatever reason the PC doesn't find the mac, but on the mac the network shows my PC file but its gray and faded out.
When I try to open the file i'm prompted by "SMB/CIFS File System Authentication"
the group/username are already filled in . Typed in password then I get:
"The alias "PC" could not be opened because original item cannot be found."

I've opened up file sharing from both computers, from my PC I've made sure it doesn't need a password to access files. I've gone into properties and shared my entire 2nd hard drive. But I am get the same message. =\

 

[itsgrandpa]

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