Hooking up windows xp hdd to mac?

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bobsaget

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Hey guys, If I got an external enclosure and put my HDD out of my old windows XP desktop could I read the files from that old install? Like my documents/music etc??? Or is it "locked" somehow preventing me from accessing files on it?


Thanks.
 
MacOS X will read/write Fat32 volumes and read NTFS volumes no problem.
 
okay thanks.

For some reason I though I remembered mac os x not being able to read a hdd with windows installed on it because of security reasons or something.

I guess I'm mistaken


Okay, instead of starting another thread. Any recs on a good hdd external enclosure? Do any have firewire?

Thanks.
 
If the harddrive is formatted as NTFS, then no, OS X won't be able to read from it without modifying the system.

To get an NTFS drive working on a Mac, use macFUSE.
 
Arcygenical said:
If the harddrive is formatted as NTFS, then no, OS X won't be able to read from it without modifying the system.

To get an NTFS drive working on a Mac, use macFUSE.
Click to expand...

Huh? Reading NTFS has been supported on Mac OS for a long time. There's no native write support, but reading works fine.
 
true dat. NTFS is possible, but read only, unless you install a driver.

OP: the drive you choose depends on the system you are gonna be using it with. what ports does your mac have? what ports does your pc have? is your mac intel or ppc? etc.

there isnt much use in having fw 800 if you cant use it. i, though like to have as many connections to the thing as i can get. unfortunately it makes them more expensive.

USB 2.0 is pretty standard and fair game, unless you want to be able to boot from a PPC mac. then you NEED firewire. intel macs will boot fine off of USB external drives. in fact, i am running my macbook from a 2.5 external hard drive right now. :D

anyway, after you decide what you want, and how you want to use it. find a drive that fits. (it really will narrow your options down, perhaps too much) then, READ READ READ. read as many reviews about the device you choose. see if it is junk or not.

i got a drive from some off brand. i cant remember the name of it, but i can look when i get to my apartment. got it pretty cheap. it is housing my 400gig sata drive, and i havent had a problem with it yet. did some research and thought it good enough to try. if you want, ill look at what brand it is when i get home.
 
I have a first gen macbook wtih firewire 400. I've heard that firewire drives are better for video editing, but maybe they are implying that firewire 800 drives are better than usb for video editing; not fw400.

I think I'll just get a usb enclosure then. Thanks for the help!
 
the video editing efficiency has to do with how the transfer algorithm works, usb 2.0 works in compiled packets where firewire has true streaming of sorts, I'm not really knowledgeable about it but thats the gist of it
 
really, you'd think apphole would have implemented native NTFS read/write support on their new OS, but no.
 
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