External Hard Drive cannot be detected on Windows

Asked By miss0216 0 points N/A Posted on - 09/28/2011

I purchased an external hard drive and transferred some files from my Mac computer (OS X ver. 10.4.11). When I try to open the files on a Windows based computer, the hard drive is not detected and I cannot access any of the files.

I don't think the problem is with the files themselves. If I transfer the files onto a USB key, I am able to access them on both Mac and Windows.

 

What might be the issue and how can I resolve it?

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• Question Category: Hard Drives

Answered By Ben Henry 10 points N/A #83273

External Hard Drive cannot be detected on Windows

This error is because of partition problems. Some partitions are readable in both Windows and Mac but some or not.

• USB has FAT32 so it can work in both. If you want your hard drive to work on both , Windows and MAC, just chose one of the given options.
• As you hard drive is 1 TB you can have 2 partitions on it, One for MAC and one for windows. For example choose 500 GB for Windows and 500 GB for your MAC. Then you can use it on both MAC and windows. But in each operating system only 500 GB will be available for use.
• FAT32 is also supported by both MAC and Windows. So connect your hard drive with Mac and make partition of FAT32 or any variant of FAT. Now you can use it on both.
• There are some NTFS software available for MAC to run NTFS partition. Just download a software and install it on Mac and now your hard drive is operable in both MAC and Windows. You can download NTFS for Mac.
• You can try any of the above.

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• Posted on - 09/28/2011
• Question Category: Hard Drives