(IDE 3.5inch External) pc and mac can't recognize each other.

[crankiness]

this is a old ide hdd, now i'm planning to make this disk my backup hdd. i have two computers, one is my desktop pc with window XP sp2, and the other one is a Macbook with Leopard OSX.

the problem is: if i partition it in pc, in spite of what formation i use(exFAT or NTFS), it can't be recognize by mac as a normal disk(but can show in disk utility), if i format it in mac, it sometime can recognize by pc only one partition, for example i make it two partitions, both in exFAT formation(format in mac), and it can be recognize one partition in pc. if i give it a hfs+ formation, it can't be recognize in PC at all.

i have macdrive8 installed in my system, and i have other two 2.5inch external disks(one is SATA, another is IDE), both can work well regardless what formation i give them. what's wrong with my 3.5inch HDD????

 

[crankiness]

oh and some more information here. if it's the problem with my enclosure?

i had a USB HDD case before, i bought it many years ago, when i use it, only macbook can recognize the disk, there is nothing happen when i plug it to my PC. so i bought another Firewire one yesterday, now the disk can be used either by PC or MAC as i mentioned above.

need helps........

 

[crankiness]

problem solved, maybe 90% solved.
i finally found it's a macdrive issue with 3.5-inch HDD, if i use 2.5-inch extHDD, i get nothing wrong, but with 3.5-inch ones, macdrive seems doesn't work at all.
my final solution is to format my two partitions NTFS and FAT32. my MAC can read them all, except write on the NTFS.

 

[ram1009]

Incompatibility is the backbone of Apple's marketing plan. You need to fall off the fence. BTW, you say you have an "old HDD" you want to use for backup. To me, "old HDD" means "ready to fail". That's not something I'd use for anything important especially a backup.