How to format 3TB drive to for both Win7 and OSX?

[Danai Chutinaton]

I'm trying to format my WD RED 3TB drives so they can be read on both my Win7 and OSX machines 10.8.4 systems. When I format the drive using Win7, OSX wants me to initialize it. When I format it with OSX, Win7 wants me to format it. I've tried both NTFS and exFAT. I have paragon NTFS running on my OSX machine.This is a very frustrating experience. Any ideas?

 

[Todd T]

Justnto review the simple steps: Are you setting the Partition type to GUID instead of MBR when formatting as exfat?

 

[Paul Duvilla]

Format to ExFat instead of osx journaled under disk utility, create partition menu.

 

[Danai Chutinaton]

Thanks for the replies. Yes, I can normally successfully do this for 1tb drives using exFAT from disk utility in osx. It seems to me that for some reason the 3tb size is a problem. I am using the GUID option in osx.

 

[Matt Stone]

Usually exFAT should also be recognized by Windows systems.
If you haven't used the drive yet and there are no files on it, I suggest the following:

- format the drive using the Mac OS X Disk-Utility in exFat format (make sure, the partition scheme under "Options" is set to GUID)
- change the partitioning from current to 1 Partition (or however many you want). Set the names, etc then partition.
- copy a file from your local user folder to the external hard disk using the Finder
- eject the disk from the Mac and unplug it
- connect the external drive to the Windows system
- check in Windows Explorer, if you can see and eventually open the file
- do all the steps the other way round, i.e. copy from the Windows system to the external drive, connect to Mac and check if you can see and open the file

 

[Danai Chutinaton]

Matt,

That is exactly how I've been trying to do it but unfortunately it doesn't work. When formatted on OSX, Win7 doesn't recognize the drive and when formatted on Win7, OSX doesn't recognize the drive.

I have been using exFAT very successfully for the past year with 1TB drives. This is the first time I've tried it with 3TB drives. Is it possible that the external enclosure I'm using and the size of 3TB is causing some kind of incompatibility?

I've even tried formatting NTFS from Win7 since OSX can nativly read NTFS drives but in this case OSX also wants me to initialize the drive again.

I'm using Orico USB3, eSATA, Firewire hard drive enclosures with Western Digital Black and Red 3TB drives. I have two of each model and they all have the same problem.

 

[Shiblon Wixom]

Try using NFSF for mac, from Paragon I think, and format NTFS from the Mac OS.

 

[Danai Chutinaton]

Shiblon, I've tried NTFS for mac from Paragon to format NTFS from OSX. The drive also shows up as needing to be formatted again when plugged into my Win7 machine.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

What interface is the drive using? I have found exFAT to be problematic on some external HDD's, especially those with USB interfaces. It seems there's something that can get lost in translation with the USB to SATA buffering and the related firmware. Have also seen similar issues when using FAT32 and NTFS between platforms. It's like the drive goes into a different mode when it knows it's connected to a Mac vs. a PC. Chances are if you ripped the HDD out of the WD enclosure and connected it directly, it would work.

Anyway, exFAT is the way to go, but it's never proven 100% reliable for me. Next best bet is to go HPFS+ / MacOS format and install the appropriate filesystem on your Windows system(s). NTFS can work the opposite direction, but I've run into issues there depending on your security parameters on the Windows systems and how they may match up with your Macs.

Around here we connect Mac drives to Macs and Windows drives to Windows PC's... If we need to bring files over, that's fine, that's one of the millions of reasons LANs were invented.

 

[Danai Chutinaton]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

I finally got it working. I'm using an external hard drive enclosure from Orico that has USB3, Firewire 800, and eSATA ports. On windows I was using eSATA and on Mac I'm USB3. That's where the problem came in. If I were to use USB3 on both Win7 and OSX then it works fine. For some reason it won't work on Win7 via eSATA.

EDIT 1: I got it working by formatting from OSX as exFAT and it works fine in Win7 as long as I don't use the USB3 connection.

EDIT 2: Works as long as I don't use the eSATA connection on Win7 (Edit 1 incorrectly stated USB3).

 

[ericyoung]

USB3 implementations have been quirky on both Mac & PCs. Maybe worth updating any USB3 firmware if you have the option.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The problem is most likely in the enclosure... That's where I've encountered most of my issues of this sort. That and USB3 just sucks anyway.

 

[Danai Chutinaton]

Yeah I agree that USB3 sucks. I'll have to look at finding a better enclosure. Any recommendations?