can a drive formatted for a mac be changed?

K

koontz946

Member

​

Joined

Jun 12, 2003

Location

West Orange, NJ

• Sep 6, 2003

• #1

i bought a drive off of ebay... its a WD 80gb 7200rpm WD800BB and the guy who had been using it had it on a mac (uggh...) and he said he formatted it for a mac and deleted all his files off of it.

my question: if i connect it to my mobo (when i get it), will my system see the drive and will my windows xp disc be able to format it to fat32?

any previous experience with converting mac drives to windows would also be appreciated

 

R

repo man11

Member

​

Joined

Dec 28, 2001

• Sep 6, 2003

• #2

As far as I know, Apple uses the same type of IDE drives as everyone else.
Though I never noticed it before, the box my current WD drive came in lists Mac compatibility.
So you shouldn't have any trouble.

 

OP

K

koontz946

Member

​

Joined

Jun 12, 2003

Location

West Orange, NJ

• Sep 6, 2003

• Thread Starter
• #3

so i should just be able to plug it in and re-format it using the xp setup program?

 

R

repo man11

Member

​

Joined

Dec 28, 2001

• Sep 6, 2003

• #4

I would think so.
The absoloute worst that could happen would be to have to get the manufacturers low level format utility, and use it.
But I really doubt you'll need to do that.

 

OP

K

koontz946

Member

​

Joined

Jun 12, 2003

Location

West Orange, NJ

• Sep 6, 2003

• Thread Starter
• #5

ok... thanks for ur help

 

FunkDaMonkMan

Member

​

Joined

Dec 31, 2001

• Sep 7, 2003

• #6

repo man11 said:

I would think so.
The absoloute worst that could happen would be to have to get the manufacturers low level format utility, and use it.
But I really doubt you'll need to do that.

Click to expand...

yea, but most likely you can just delete the partition using fdisk.

 

OP

K

koontz946

Member

​

Joined

Jun 12, 2003

Location

West Orange, NJ

• Sep 7, 2003

• Thread Starter
• #7

would i need to use fdisk or would i just be able to use the xp setup program?

 

XWRed1

Senior Member

​

Joined

Oct 31, 2001

• Sep 7, 2003

• #8

The xp installer will partition it fine.

It should look like it has no partitions at all when you look at it in xp's installer, or fdisk.

I've taken drives back and forth between Macs and PCs, reformatted them, etc. Works fine, its all ide or scsi or whatever you may be using.

 

OP

K

koontz946

Member

​

Joined

Jun 12, 2003

Location

West Orange, NJ

• Sep 7, 2003

• Thread Starter
• #9

ook... thats reassuring.... thanks for the help / info!