My external hard drive is partitioned for Mac can I use it with PC without losing/corrupting files on it that are Mac only files?

I have an external terabyte with 700 gigs of raw film footage (unrendered) and final cut pro projects that I need to stay there, unfortunately my Mac broke. Can I use my hard drive with my friend's PC if the drive is only partitioned for os x? I don't remember if it was FAT or what. I also wanted to reformat without losing the data but I don't know anyone with 700 free gigs on their Mac for me to dump my stuff while I reformat the drive as dual partition. What do I doo.. Helppplppelp.

loss reformatting partition scary hard drive possible external file corruption depression

asked Mar 02 '12 at 00:12

Swan701
1●1●1●1

2 Answers:

oldest newest most voted

Wait, let me get this straight: you have 700g of files on a single partition of an external drive and want to reformat the external?

I can answer just about any question you have about partitioning and formatting and whatnot but I don't know what your asking exactly.

answered Mar 02 '12 at 18:16

hansring
1.4k●33●38●61

I think what Swan is asking is that if he brings the external drive to a friends place that is running a Windows OS. Can it still be read from that particular computer running the Windows Environment from that drive. The only thing that he is not too sure of and I could be wrong on this. He does not know what file format the external drive is using. Can he still access it with the other computer. Because it has 700 gigs of raw footage that he needs to get off of it. I thought that most Macs are running NFS or something like that. I know since windows NT and higher uses NTFS for the formatting of hard drives. Not too sure if windows Can access another drive that is not using a filing system that is similar to NTFS. Linux I know for sure can read and write to NTFS, Fat16/32, Ext3 (Linux Native filing system.)

(Mar 02 '12 at 18:48) Compucore

0	HFS Explorer http://www.catacombae.org/hfsx.html Windows cannot nativity do it. but this program can. answered Mar 03 '12 at 08:25 trueb 15.4k●53●104●260

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