Format a drive for Mac OS X and Windows
Jonathan sent us an e-mail saying:
"I own a SimpleTech 320GB Black Cherry Hard Drive and needed it to run on both Mac and PC for school. I thought it would be pretty helpful if you made a video showing how to format a disc to run on all OS's using Mac OS X."
First, Here's why there's a difference. All data has to be put in a file format that the operating system can read off the hard drive. OS X uses a file format called HFS+ to write it's data. Windows can't read or write HFS+ data natively. However, OS X and Windows both can read and write to a format called FAT32, which used to be used for Windows all the way back into the MS-DOS days. Most modern Windows systems use the NTFS file format, which OS X can read, but not write to.
So your best bet for compatibility is FAT32. Here's how to format a drive as FAT32. First, the Windows way and then the Mac way.
...Originally posted at CNET TV