Thursday, September 16, 2010

MacDrive: Using both NTFS and FAT32 formatted disks on Windows systems

My personal computer is a MacBook Pro, but my work computer is a Lenovo T400.  When I purchased my MBP, I came across a problem: how do I seamlessly swap files back and forth?

My PC is joined to a corporate domain, so I did not want to mess with the settings and join it to my home network and enable file sharing.

An immediate solution was to use Dropbox and link both computers to my account.  The only problem was that my free account was maxed out at 2GB, and if I wanted to move a big file (say 500mb), I'd have to move it into the Dropbox, wait for it to upload onto the cloud, and then wait for it to sync with the other computer... it was quite time consuming.

OSX uses the FAT32 file system, while Windows uses the NTFS file system.  OSX is able to read NTFS drives but not write to them.  Windows 7 does not recognize FAT32 drives at all.  At this point, I could transfer files from PC to Mac (put the files from PC on the NTFS external hard drive and then plug into Mac) but not the other way around.  Also, my main external 2TB hard drive is also my OSX Time Machine backup drive.  Since Windows 7 is not natively able to read FAT32 disks, I didn't have the capability to move my large files from the 2TB drive to PC.


I came across MacDrive, and it's a Windows application that allows Windows to read from and write to FAT32 drives.  The installation is quick and simple, and the program runs in the background, taking up about 2MB of RAM.  MacDrive solved my file swapping dilemna, and both my Mac and PC are able to read and write to my 2TB external hard drive.  It is the only program that I found that's easy and simple to use. 

MacDrive retails for $49.99 for a single license.  The official website is located here: http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/

97 comments:

Shane said...

I'd have use for that.

Lil Pee said...

Pricing isn't bad.. but I'm hoping it's not that sluggish on the pc

Biff Tanner said...

great info here thanks

Skutt Panda PO said...

is not to expensive?

Viperman said...

Cool, I dont have a mac so yea lol

Anonymous said...

I should be learning about this in my computing class so thank you very much for this extra information!

Jeppe Holm Rasmussen said...

Well i got both a mac and a Windows, :) Works for me

Following :D

Jessi D said...

I'll grab one for sure.

Mister Sharaf said...

nice, ill try it..

following :P

Alucard said...

macman :P

Anothe11 said...

Nice one dude, my friend was looking for this information the other day so ive forwarded it to him

grizz said...

useful information, bro.

Falling Down said...

Looks like an interesting piece of software.

Rawr said...

nice info,
following u

UnseenSniper said...

Awesome read, thanks! Winfag here

Munson said...

That's a pretty awesome device there. Too bad I don't own a mac, yet.

Following, follow me!

http://munsonman.blogspot.com

Much Poopies! said...

looks good

poopies n' smoochies

Dave said...

I'm going to buy a mac soon, thanks for the info!

wpmeetings.blogspot.com said...

thats a very interesting program might have to look into that

iMonei said...

pc is so easy tho..

La GaGa said...

following
2+ points for you

Andrew Diaz said...

this is VERY useful

Jackson said...

meh, I'd rather just keep them as separate entities.

Jimmy Volmer said...

This is very useful!

Crammarc said...

I never even knew people did this, cool though.

Savage Nugget said...

Silly OS. :D

Absurdly Sentenced said...

Excellent program !

x said...

nice write up, its handy in certain situations for sure. like yours.

McGizzle said...

My PC is so old that it can still do FAT32 fine, I think that was the default back on '98. >_>

Mecha Six VII said...

yay

Jehrin said...

Great info, didn't know the difference

Come At Me Bro said...

This is great!

mandellameats said...

cool app, I'd never buy a mac tho due to the virtual cd drive issue (i know it has one built in but it doesn't work for some "software" so to say)

Braden Hollembaek said...

ugh why doesn't mac get with the program and ditch fat32?

Dorsia said...

windoze all the way!!!

collegiatepreps.blogspot.com

Barnacle said...

nice 0.0

J Mo said...

Thanks for the review, I'm happy with NTFS for OS X though :D

David Davidson said...

Ugh... That's really pricy...

Maybe I'll just torrent it...

problem.question said...

mac drive is great

Superhero Bobblehead said...

...huh. Nice solution to an all too common problem.

Ante Babaja said...

useful post

Hanyo said...

do want

The End. said...

good info, i didnt know that they use 2 diff format types. if i ever get a mac i will remember this.

Spencer said...

Damn that is useful. Still, <3 Mac

The Loon said...

never knew you could do that. O_o

Oscar said...

awesome tip

hunter time said...

thas cool it would be nice for college students. especially for me well kinda i;m a pc user but i go to a school full of mac users

Dilly Skates said...

sexy diskz

divx said...

My hard drive recently crashed, hurts man.
The program helped me, thx

Anonymous said...

I know someone who would be helped by this information. Thanks bro.

Nobody said...

Bring the peace.

Mantooth said...

wha? I have a brand new gateway and it reads a FAT32 drive fine. I even have an NTFS partition on the drive, but I never use it

Anonymous said...

dude try TBP

Ahriman said...

Sounds like it's pretty good.

AdPlusCommunications said...

Wow, I had no idea there was a way to use both NTFS and FAT32, thanks!

MVTM said...

wat?

Alucard said...

not a macman myself
get back to me in two days or less <3

Anonymous said...

windows for me aswell.

Swarmster said...

great post, keep up the good work =)

Viperman said...

apple sucks

UnseenSniper said...

Nice post, cant wait for moar!

Ocioso said...

i cant believe you can do that!

Morphination said...

Harmony, harmony, oh love.

kaspaone said...

mac needs to get with the times, useful program though

miecak said...

Looks like a handy solution.

kurina said...

I should be learning about this in my computing class so thank you very much for this extra information!

Andrew Diaz said...

this works great

modest crisis said...

The 2 GB restriction on dropbox is a pain >.<

highlyDangerous said...

good info bro

cooperlife said...

if you don't wanna buy it, you can get MacDrive for free here:
http://btjunkie.org/torrent/MacDrive-v-8-0-5-31-Full-Keygen-by-CORE/4358b67ee6bfdefa1444ba4d604d1ed9446423b0f2f6

Monarch said...

Haha, you own an Apple computer. I truly feel sorry for all the pain and suffering it causes you. :)

Emanuel said...

Very useful info !

AnotherAaroon said...

i like the way ur thinkin

Gopher Bandit said...

Wow, interesting. Here I thought I had another reason to shoot down macs, but this program appears to fix this. Let's hope the people I'll argue with don't know about it haha...

Katie Greene said...

good post! im using my shitty lenovo for work, but mac at home

remzi said...

Thanks for the info

Anonymous said...

This is really cool. Finally. Now following because of this post :)

DinoHunter said...

Why don't you just learn how to partition your hard drive? Herpa derp!

Falling Down said...

Great software, very handy.

Anonymous said...

Woooaaah, didn't think that it could be done simply with a software solution! Awesome!

Sethisto said...

Oh hey, perfect blog for me.

I still prefer windows over everything

Skyshock said...

PC > Mac

:D

Joe said...

I wonder why Mac is on FAT32 still? Correct me if I am wrong but with NTFS offers file permissions correct? Why wouldn't Mac want that?

`†he Պen†al Պasochis† said...

oh man this is awesome, I'd buy this just to put on my anti-apple friends' computers

http://wordofdodd.blogspot.com/

The Alaskan Reviewer said...

stupid apple and Microsoft trying to be propietary

HXC-Master said...

not too expensive nice :)

! http://elpirato666.blogspot.com/ said...

Thanks for that

Trashcanman said...

windowssss

CetaPara said...

sounds interesting, followin this.

JRam said...

Is there something that Mac can do which Window can't do? Otherwise what is the point of putting up all this extra hassle with multiple OS?

La GaGa said...

If I ever had a Mac, Id use this.

Lewis Chan said...

i'd buy it for 20 dollars less

Chad said...

Awesome blog!
Keep it up.

Crammarc said...

hmm maybe I should try to get one of these?

Dilly Skates said...

wuuut happening?!

Piripi Anxo said...

PC FTW!

Piripi Anxo said...

PCPCPCPCPCPCPPC!!!!

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