External Hard Drive Not Showing Up - Suggestions?

**fixiewrek** · 10-29-2007, 02:56 PM

I'm trying to use a friend's external hard drive on my PC to share some large files and for some reason it won't show up on my list of drives. When I plug it in (USB port) it shows up as an external USB drive and is listed in the device manager, but I have no way to access the files on it. It does not show up in the Explorer window.

Also, it was from a Mac and I'm using a PC, but I thought they should be cross platform.

Any suggestions?

**shmoesmith** · 10-29-2007, 03:00 PM

I don't think it will cross platform. Hardrives are formated per the operating system. If you have a different operating system, then you are going to have a hard time getting anything from the drive(from what I understand). I would try transfering things via a 2+gig memory stick or SD card or whatever ya got.

**Skidog** · 10-29-2007, 03:03 PM

I would go into computer manager to disk management and see if you see it there...sometimes these usb drive want a SPECIFIC drive letter and if your machine is currently using that letter it wont show up..if its a letter conflict you can just change the letter right in computer management/disk management.

I also think they should be cross platform. I would assume that the usb drive was formatted with like Fat 32 or something...

M

**hossman** · 10-29-2007, 03:18 PM

yep, the mac disk is most likely formated with HFS... something that windows doesn't understand.

The "best" solution would be to bring the mac, and offer up the files with ftp or nfs.

The "other" solution would be to get the mac user to "refresh" the external disk with a filesystem that wintel understands... like fat32 using mac's "Disk Utility"

/Applications/Utilities/DiskUtility

and then copy the needed files to the external drive again.

... you could do it from the command line ala

mkfs -t vfat /dev/sd?

but that's potentially dangerous unless you know the specific device that you're looking for...

**fixiewrek** · 10-29-2007, 03:59 PM

So in disk management it shows up as Disk 1, Basic and as unallocated. It gives me the option to make a new partition.

I dont' want to risk losing the data on this, so I'm not sure if I should do this.

**sock_monkey** · 10-29-2007, 04:08 PM

in that case don't start creating new partitions or formating from the windows box

go back to the box that can read the data (the mac) and see if there's a way to convert it *without* losing data as per earlier suggestions

at worst copy over the data somewhere then format it to something windows friendly

**Skidog** · 10-29-2007, 04:14 PM

^^^^ youll erase anything if you make that a partition that windows can see....

Take it back like suggested and have it made "readable" by windows...

M

**orange** · 10-29-2007, 04:24 PM

MacDrive. Use the trial if you need it, or buy it for 14 bucks if you'll be doing this alot.

It lets you format HD's in the Mac format, and still use them freely on PC's, no partitioning, no re-formatting and deleting.

**RShea** · 10-29-2007, 05:23 PM

Originally Posted by fixiewrek

So in disk management it shows up as Disk 1, Basic and as unallocated. It gives me the option to make a new partition.

I dont' want to risk losing the data on this, so I'm not sure if I should do this.

Don't do that- it is set up for the Mac format as previously posted and you will either need utilities on the PC to read the disk drive, or have to take it back to the Mac. If you try anything in the Windows disk management then you could hose the drive and cause data loss...

**fixiewrek** · 10-29-2007, 09:02 PM

Cool, thanks for all the info. I figured out a roundabout way of transferring the files.

I enabled Windows sharing on the Mac and then hooked up the hard drive directly to the mac and ran an ethernet cord between the PC and the mac. I also enabled file sharing on the PC, but I'm not sure if that's necessary.

I found the Mac on my PC and can just drag and drop the files from the Mac. Slow, but it's working.

**gramboh** · 10-30-2007, 12:15 PM

That is the best solution, although it is slow unless you have a gigabit network. You do not want to use FAT32 even though OSX/Windows can both understand it, because the filesize limit is ~4.3GB (assuming you are transferring larger files).

**RShea** · 10-30-2007, 01:19 PM

The 4.3 gig is a single file size limit. IE you can't have a file that is larger than 4.3 gig stored. Not many people unless they are into very high end video or database work need 4.3 gig for a single file.