Switching HD formatting from Mac to PC

peterpan8 · Apr 4, 2010

I was given a 120gig Western Digital firewire external hard drive that I believe is Mac formatted. When plugged into my Windows PC, it shows up under "disk drives" in device manager. Is there a way to format the drive for use with windows?

Burrell · Apr 4, 2010

This guide looks good, and is much better than me trying to explain it all! :-D

1. From within Windows, click the Start button and select Run. When the Run dialog box appears, enter FDISK into the Open box and click OK.

2. When FDISK starts (in a DOS window), you'll be asked if you want to enable large disk support. Answer Yes.

3. The FDISK menu is now displayed. Select the drive you want to partition, and then choose option 1 (Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive).

4. When asked if you want to use the entire drive for your DOS partition, answer Yes. (If you're asked whether you want to enable FAT32 support, also answer Yes.)

5. After the partition is created, follow the onscreen prompts to exit FDISK and restart your computer.

6. After your new drive has been partitioned, you have to format it for use. To format a new hard drive manually. Format a Computer Hard Drive or Disc Drive:
Click to expand...

Method will differ depending on operating system, please tell us what OS you are using.

peterpan8 · Apr 4, 2010

Thanks for your reply. I was able to format the drive. I was looking in "device manager" rather than "computer management" under "administrative tools". I created a partition the full size of the drive, then formatted.

Burrell · Apr 5, 2010

Good job!

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Switching HD formatting from Mac to PC

peterpan8 Private E-2

Burrell MajorGeek

peterpan8 Private E-2

Burrell MajorGeek