[minischneides]

Hello,

I am wondering if there is a format that I can put my external hard drive in that I can use on both Mac and PC, but can also use to backup with programs such as Superduper (so basically not FAT32).

Thanks,

Thomas

[estumpges]

I think you're out of luck. I don't know of any format that will work for what you want to do. I hope this problem might be fixed in the future if either Apple and Microsoft decides to make their products more compatible with the other.

In the meantime, I'd suggest partitioning the drive in two different formats. One for backing up with Super Duper and the other for sharing files between Mac and PC.

Hope that helps.

[mdawson]

OS X is compatible with several file structures from Apple’s native HFS to UFS and FAT/FAT32 compatibility has been present since the first PowerPC Macs were introduced. Microsoft is not one for playing well with others, so by the time they developed NTFS they opted to be stingy on the specs. Thus, your only option for creating a volume that can be shared between a Mac and a Wintel PC is the old MS-DOS file structure, FAT32. The issue at hand rests solely with Microsoft, not Apple, as it is Microsoft that refuses to build HFS compatibility into Windows or make it easy for Apple to offer full NTFS compatibility in OS X.
As estumpges suggested, if you wish to use SuperDuper!, you will need to create a Mac OS Extended volume on your external hard drive. Shirt Pocket is a Mac-only developer and they are therefore unconcerned with creating software that is compatible with other file structures.

[minischneides]

mdawson said:

OS X is compatible with several file structures from Apple’s native HFS to UFS and FAT/FAT32 compatibility has been present since the first PowerPC Macs were introduced. Microsoft is not one for playing well with others, so by the time they developed NTFS they opted to be stingy on the specs. Thus, your only option for creating a volume that can be shared between a Mac and a Wintel PC is the old MS-DOS file structure, FAT32. The issue at hand rests solely with Microsoft, not Apple, as it is Microsoft that refuses to build HFS compatibility into Windows or make it easy for Apple to offer full NTFS compatibility in OS X.

As estumpges suggested, if you wish to use SuperDuper!, you will need to create a Mac OS Extended volume on your external hard drive. Shirt Pocket is a Mac-only developer and they are therefore unconcerned with creating software that is compatible with other file structures.

Thanks a lot. Now I remember why I switched to Mac! If I partition the hard drive and plug it into a Windoze PC (god forbid), how would it mount? Also how would it mount on a Mac?

Thanks again,

Thomas

[estumpges]

If you format the drive as mentioned above, Macs should recognize and mount both partitions. PCs would only recognize and mount the FAT 32 partition. PCs won't mount the Mac OS Extended and I'm pretty sure that Windows won't even let you know that another partition exists.

[mdawson]

PCs won't mount the Mac OS Extended and I'm pretty sure that Windows won't even let you know that another partition exists.

Nope. Windows, like its creator, will behave as if anything not produced in Redmond does not exist., so it will only mount FAT, FAT32 and NTFS volumes. Windows is even stingy about formatting volumes from within the OS. Based on our machines in my lab, Windows XP SP2 will not even allow you to format a drive in anything other than NTFS, so if someone were to reformat a flash drive on a Wintel PC it would be read-only on a Mac; all flash drives are pre-formatted as FAT32 devices at the factory for dual-platform compatibility out-of-the-box.
Windows handling of file structures mirrors Microsoft’s philosophy of proprietary lock-out of anyone not using Windows.