External Hard Drive Read by Windows 8?

[blairharrington]

I have a WD Passport External HD that I've used exclusively with Macs. I believe the drive is compatible with both Windows and Macs but I don't know for sure.

If I plug the drive into a Windows 8 laptop, do you think it will get recognized? I'm asking because I don't have an W8 machine to test this on but I am thinking about purchasing a cheap W8 laptop. However it's important that the laptop will be able to recognize my HD. Also I plan to continue using this HD in the future with my Macs and W8 laptop if possible.

 

[Dahak]

If the drive was left formatted as FAT32 or NTFS, then yes

if you formatted it on the mac and used the mac filesystem then it will not be read without a 3rd part app like macdrive

If you want to use it on both, you would either have to format it Fat32 or use 3rd party apps, macdrive for windows(formatted HFS) or Paragon NTFS for Mac(if formatted NTFS)

 

[Ketchup]

Unless you have changed the drive from the original FAT32, the answer is yes.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1214672

 

[blairharrington]

If the drive was left formatted as FAT32 or NTFS, then yes

if you formatted it on the mac and used the mac filesystem then it will not be read without a 3rd part app like macdrive

If you want to use it on both, you would either have to format it Fat32 or use 3rd party apps, macdrive for windows(formatted HFS) or Paragon NTFS for Mac(if formatted NTFS)

I have no idea what I technically did. I just plugged the external from day one into my Mac and have been using it that way ever since. (Transferring media to and from external and Macs.)

 

[Dahak]

I cant remember if the WD Passport drives will ask you to format them, but it easy to find out. if you highlight the drive and go to File -> Get Info (i think cant remember don't have a mac in front of me) it should say what it is formatted as

 

[blairharrington]

I cant remember if the WD Passport drives will ask you to format them, but it easy to find out. if you highlight the drive and go to File -> Get Info (i think cant remember don't have a mac in front of me) it should say what it is formatted as

It states FAT32.

 

[Dahak]

It states FAT32.

Ok then you should be ok to use on both without any issue

 

[MontyAC]

Windows will read that drive.