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I have an external hard drive with two partitions, one is formatted NTFS the other is not formatted. I want to be able to use the spare partition on a Mac (read/write). I know nothing about Mac's, I don't even know how to use one.
Can I use some Windows software to format the spare partition in Mac native format? If so, how please?
TIA.
If it is just an external drive then all you need to do is format the drive as HFS (Hierarchal File System), this can be done from GParted within a Linux distro LiveCD or using GParted live: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/.
There is also HFS+, but if it is just for a removable drive for use as an external data drive with OSX then HFS should be fine.
BTW thanks for the reply.
As it turns out I was able to learn to use a Mac (properly) faster that the Apple fanbois around me could. The drive in question has a spare partition but since it didn't "pop up on the desktop" as soon as it was plugged in they ass-umed it didn't exist or wasn't accessible.
As soon as I found the "Disk Utilities" app on their Macs I was able to format it natively.
Well having a mac and formatting a drive using the disk utilities applet is THE recommended way to configure the drive :naughty: The tenor of your first post implied that you did not have access to a MacOS based PC, so my answer was based on using a third party utility.Quote:
Originally Posted by DngrMs
The beauty of OSX is that it is relatively simple to use, and of course the lack of virus/malware infections written to attack Mac PC's make it a safer computing environment. If you are really interested in using a Mac there are VMWare applications like Parallels and Crossover that allow you to run Windows based apps within an OSX environment (even games).
Understood. I wanted to solve the problem for somebody else before they returned with their Mac, and I only have a Windows PC. They also told me the drive couldn't be seen on their Mac and I believed them hence the search for a Windows solution.
I wasn't in a position to assume a Mac had a 'Disk Utilities' application and they (and two other Mac users I asked) were ignorant to its existence. Of course had they, or I, known about it life would have be rosey from day one.
That 3 different Mac users said "if it doesn't pop up as a shortcut on the desktop when I plug it in it must not work/exist" is a sad testament to how Apple keeps their customers ignorant. And I'm a little surprised about Apple's failure here, even Windows prompts you to format a new disk when you plug it in, something I'd have expected Apple to be well ahead on.
However I got there I got the brownie points in the end.