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Hello guys, I recently got a Mac book as gift on my birthday earlier I had my book external drive, with mostly my media files on it, is there any way for me to convert those media files into a format supported by Mac. If yes then where can I get it as I have searched the net for it couldn’t get to a relevant site to provide help on this matter, hence can anyone help me out on this as I really need to convert those files ASAP.
If you have all the files formatted as FAT32, then you don't have to change the file method as both Mac OS X & Windows operating systems can read & write to the external drive if formatted in FAT32 .However, if the External drive is formatted as NTFS, then you must convert it to either FAT32 format or HFS format+ in case you need to both read & write to it (OS X can only read from NTFS, not write). What you do is connect the drive to the Mac & open Disk Utility. You'll get formatting options from there.
I would like to appreciate you for your help. I followed your steps. When you reached in disk utilities, I selected the outside hard drive and went to the erase button. Did you actually want me to click the delete button on the bottom right hand corner there is not on the hard drive anyway so I do not mind erasing anything. Hence I clicked on the erase button and it gave me an option whether I want to erase it or reformate it. And finally I was successful in formatting my drive in a compatible format to Mac, thanks once again.
In Windows platform the NTFS format is better than FAT32 as it can accept both files larger than 4GB. But you may feel the need to make use of Mac OS Extended (Journal) format for your Mac. To format use Disk Utility found HD Apps Utilities in Disk Utility. Once you opened the Disk Utility you need to select the option which guides you to select hard drive click on Erase tab with the drop down menu select Mac OS Extended (Journal). The Partition tab is right next door in the event you need over volume
There is actually no need to format a NTSF file format External hard drive to Mac Journal or FAT32 format instead, You can download NTFS3G or NTSF for MAC so you can use your External hard drive without the necessity of reformatting. you can term this as a mere co incidence but just a few days back I had to do the same procedure as I had Sony Vaio notebook and had an external hard drive. Hope this helps you.