Tech Tip: Read/Write both NTFS and HFS+ volumes on both Windows and Mac
If you’ve been itching to know how to access ALL mainstream/default Windows and Mac formatted hard disks on both platforms, you sir have come to the right place. I’ve done my research and have been using this solution for a few months now on my external hard disk, which is a Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus 500gb.
This tech tip is pretty much noob-proof because it doesn’t involve any system hacking - it just involves installing a few apps.
This tip has been fully tested to work under Mac OS X 10.5, however it should work fine in older Mac OS X’s. You just have to install the appropriate app version.
First, let’s look at how you can take FULL control on NTFS partitions from your Mac.
This is actually very simple. Install the following apps in order.
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1) MacFUSE - http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/
look for MacFUSE-Core-10.5-1.3.1.dmg if you’re using Leopard, and MacFUSE-Core-10.4-1.3.0.dmg if you’re using Tiger.
2) NTFS-3G - http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/
the latest blog post should provide you the latest version with download link, i.e. the latest version is 1.2129 at time of writing
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The installation for both of these apps should be plain simple and straightforward.
Whoa-la! After installing both these apps you should be able to Read and Write data onto your NTFS partition!
Pictured here is a NTFS partition (duh!)
Notable Limitation of the NTFS-3G partition: deleting stuff will not move them to the Trash, you will be prompted to permanently delete them.
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Now on to Read/Write support for Mac volumes on Windows.
As of date, there is no free alternative for such capability, one software that I have fully tested for the past few months is MacDrive by Mediafour (http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/). However, it doesn’t come cheap. Retailing at $49.95 USD, you might wanna think twice before deciding wether you want your hard drive to be in NTFS or HFS. I think you already know the answer.
Notable Limitations of this software: You HAVE to soft eject your HFS+ Journaled volume before you try to mount it with MacDrive. Else, you will have trouble mounting it. Also, if you got Daemon Tools installed, make sure it’s updated to the latest version because older versions seems to have conflict with this software, that can prevent your volume from mounting.
Pictured here is a HFS+ Journaled volume mounted in Windows XP (it should also work in Vista according to MediaFour).
Any questions? Feel free to post in comments and I’ll try to help.
Also, if anyone finds a better/free alternative for the MacDrive solution feel free to post in comments as well.
P/S: If you’re wondering why my hard drive is so empty. It’s because I was playing with the diskutil command in Terminal, trying to split my partitions into two. The command did the job well, so well that it wiped my data ;(
that is a good tip thanks.
No problem, glad you liked it :)
Just found a free alternative to MacDrive (minus the write capability).
HFSExplorer - http://hem.bredband.net/catacombae/index2.html
This app allows you to Read your HFS+ volume in Windows, at the moment it is still lacking Write capability but it is planned for future versions.
good one. now if u don’t mind making one about home media server kthnbye
lol ben, what about home media server? and which media server are you talking bout?
dunno, i have a spare PC and am thinking of making it into a home server …just don’t know how to =)
wanna turn it into a porn powerhouse?
obviously yes. too dangerous to leave it in ur laptop nowadays lol!
I am necessary wish to find
lol duno where i can post this but check this link out and lemme know what you think. i kinda like it .
http://www.imalc.com/Site/SleepDisplay.html
lol ben, hot corner’s good enough for me. That stuff is probably good if u don’t like hor corner’s or all 4 corners of ur screen has been assigned to something else.
sorry la …noob mah lol.
sry but how do you soft eject a HFS+ Journaled volume ?
And I’ve heard of data corruption issues when using such drivers to write onto an NTFS partition in Mac.
Please advice!
I assume you’re talking bout internal hard disk. I think you don’t need to soft eject the volume if it’s an internal hard disk. Sorry if my guide was confusing, I was actually referring to external hard drives.
Regarding the data corruption issue, so far I have not encountered one.
If I were to choose a file system for a storage between Windows and Mac + I can afford MacDrive, then I would choose HFS+ because MacDrive does an excellent job in HFS+ compatibility in Windows. It even allows you to fix your HFS+ drive if it had problems (common problem being not being soft ejected properly if it is an external drive).
NTFS compatibility in Mac with MacFuse on the other hand, does not feel that complete. For example, deleting a file doesn’t move it to the Trash. You could only permanently delete files. Also, there’s no workaround or ways to fix an improperly ejected hard disk on the Mac. Only way to fix that is to plug the hard disk back into the Windows PC (or dual boot back into Windows) and do the soft eject.
I hope that answers most of your questions. Anymore questions are welcome ;)
Yep I’m using an internal hardisk so does that mean I don’t need to worry bout this too? :
“there’s no workaround or ways to fix an improperly ejected hard disk on the Mac. Only way to fix that is to plug the hard disk back into the Windows PC (or dual boot back into Windows) and do the soft eject.”
I’ve also hav been reading around on MacFuse and NTFS-3G installation tutorials and it seems most of them state that you need to enter some codes in terminal even the NYFS-3G homepage stated this under installation, :
“Usage
If there was no error during installation then the NTFS volume can be mounted in read-write mode for everybody as follows. Unmount the volume if it had already been mounted, replace /dev/sda1 and /mnt/windows, if needed.
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows
Please see the ntfs-3g manual page for more options and examples.
You can also make NTFS to be mounted during boot by adding the following line to the end of the /etc/fstab file:
/dev/sda1 /mnt/windows ntfs-3g defaults 0 0″
And in these tutorial they also mention that you need to unmount the NTFS partition with disk utility.
So I’m kinda confused here, but on the other hand these tutorials date back to 2007 so I not sure if newer versions of MAC-FUsE or NTFS-3G can be installed as simply as use stated.
Sry for being a NOOB and bombarding you with all these questions, I just hope to get some confirmation.
I have also read those guides before. However, it seems that the newer versions that I use did not require the commands to be typed in. All I needed to do was to plug in my external NTFS hard drive and it will be recognised as a NTFS-3g file system drive.
So I’m assuming the same thing for internal drives, install MacFuse+ntfs-3g with the guide above and if you don’t see your NTFS drive being read-able yet then you could try rebooting to let the NTFS-3g driver kick in next time round.
And no, I don’t think you need to worry bout soft ejecting if it’s an internal hard drive. I think the reason you need to soft eject external hard drives is because of things like buffering, journaling and stuff that’s going on.
My advice is go ahead and try install MacFuse+Ntfs3g. It won’t harm your computer even if it didn’t work. Most of my friends that used my guide had no problems with read/write NTFS drives (except for the common problem that they forgot to soft eject their hard drive in windows).
Tell me your findings if you try NTFS-3g. Cheers.
I was searching everywhere about how to get NTFS write-enabled in Mac and finally I found this guide really helpful. Thanks for making it extremely simple.
No problem :)
This is quite useful.
Thanks for making this tut.
any one know how to read/write direct to hard disk track in window?
Any language.
I have a disk which write and formated with unknown format.
When I put in window 2000 it find it is new disk need create new disk ….. so all data on that disk is deleted.
I need some thing like in old DOS we can read/write direct to the track.
I also need infomation about how a formated hard disk (FAT32) trak look like.
Thanks
zhuanglicai@yahoo.com
your question is kinda vague.
first of all, the reason your disk could not be read is because as you suggested — it is in a format that Windows could not recognize.
This could be all kinds of file systems such as HFS (Mac), ext (Linux) and so on.
I don’t understand what you mean by read/write directly on the hard disk track. Do you mean you’re gonna read and write hexadecimels directly on the hard disk track? I think this can be done with Acronis Disk Editor.
Also, I don’t really understand what you mean when you ask how does a FAT32 hard disk track look like. That’s like asking how does a UDF or ISO cd-rom media look like.
Is this some sort of assignment you’re working on or is it just some personal hobby?
Cheers.