External Harddrive Reformatting

[G9]

Let's say I have an external harddrive (Maxtor One Touch II 250 GB USB/firewire). I also have a Windows Desktop and an Apple Laptop. Will I have to reformat the harddrive to use between the two OS's?

 

[lhuser]

I do think so. That's why I'd create two partitions

 

[G9]

Forgive my novice knowledge on the subject, but what are partitions?

 

[lhuser]

Partitions is when you have multiple "hard drives" in one hard drive. Partitioning helps if you constantly swap, so you could use it without having a headache. If you partition, take 125GB from one and 125GB from the other. There is nothing to be ashamed of. You learn the stuff

 

[JustinMcG67]

Just partition the external HDD to two partitions and that way you can use the extetnal HDD on both PCs.

 

[G9]

How do you partition, and what exactly does it do?

 

[G9]

Bump, please... I need assistance in this matter

 

[lhuser]

For Windows:

http://www.theeldergeek.com/hard_drives.htm

For MAC OS X

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/partitioning_osx.html

I you use MAC 10.1 or later,:

http://kb.iu.edu/data/ajxz.html

 

[G9]

Gah... which kind of partition am I looking for?

 

[lhuser]

NTFS for Windows, but in MAC, I don't know. The last mac I've used was in Grade 4 and the MAC OS was to be lower than OS X