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Posted on Apr 27, 2009

Maxtor Basics portable 320gb Mac to pc compatability problems

Hello all,
I recently used a Maxtor Basics portable 320gb to back up my work mac using time machine. Having left my old employer I have recently tried to plug in my Maxtor to my new Samsung NC10 but the hard drive is not coming up. It is however fully functional on my Mac. I have taken all the files i need off the Maxtor to reformat it. Is there a way i can get my maxtor to be formatted for both my Mac and windows operation systems so i can transfere all these essential files?

Thanks for all you help! I'm stumpted!

Tys

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  • Posted on Jul 15, 2009
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Hi Tys,

I had a similar issue with my Maxtor Basics portable 500GB drive. I hadn't formatted mine yet, but had heard there were issues, so decided to find out before I start. I even saw your post here looking for an answer. Finally, one of my friends told me the following solution, which worked fine for me:

Don't format the drive as any of the Mac OS Extended options, simply reformat it as MS-DOS (it should be one of the options in Disk Utilities when you choose Erase and go to the Volume Format dropdown list).

Your Mac should be able to recognise and use the drive in this format and it works for PCs. Transferring files between the two shouldn't be a problem.

A thing to note, though, is that these Maxtor drives apparently come ready-formatted as MS-DOS (mine did). But while my Mac recognised the drive, I couldn't copy files on to it. If this happens, erase this MS-DOS formatting with... MS-DOS. Don't ask me why this works, I'm not a Mac Genius, but now my Maxtor is trouble-free and can transfer files from PC to Mac and back again.

Hope this works out for ya!

K


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