January 26th, 2020
I just bought a Seagate� External Desktop 500-GB Drive (ST305004EXA101-RK). I have a PC running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and a Mac running OSX Leopard. I am going to move files from both computers onto it, but the file system is NTFS, which Macs can read, but can’t write to. I want to format this hard drive to FAT32 so that both systems can read and write to it. How do I do that. I think there’s a method using Disk Utility in Mac. There are other methods, but they are too complicated, such as MacFUSE/NTFS-3G. Can someone give me simple instructions on how to format my NTFS hard drive to FAT32 using Disk Utility? I want to avoid using 3rd party software to do this. Also I have another question. Since this hard drive is an external desktop hard drive and not a portable hard drive, is it bad to unplug it when I don’t use it? I only do backups once every 2 weeks (sometimes once a month). I’m not sure if you should turn it off so often.
Here’s a link to the product I bought
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/expansion/expansion_desktop/#tTabContentOverview
Answer #1
If you formate you will lose all data on the drive.
Answer #2
http://www.ehow.com/how_5133213_convert-ntfs-partition-fat.html
Answer #3
will the mac format the drive ?
you might even think about 2 partitions. one FAT32 & 1 NTFS (for over 4gig files)
Answer #4
Thank you for that article. It answered my first question. My other question isn’t answered yet. Is it safe or not to be unplugging an external desktop hard drive and not using it for a while?
Answer #5
I’v had a HDD that’s been sitting there for three years. I just plugged it in, and it still has my old files on it.
So I’m guessing it lasts awhile… if not forever.
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