Computer Hope

Software => Apple => Topic started by: JamesN on October 15, 2009, 08:05:13 AM

Title: Westen Digital 500GB Time Capsule
Post by: JamesN on October 15, 2009, 08:05:13 AM
I have a Western digital 500gb external hardrive and I made it my time capsule. I now want to copy all that stuff onto my windows computer but it don't even come up when I plug it in. I don't want to reset if you can because I got lots of things on there I want to keep. Any one help me?
Title: Re: Westen Digital 500GB Time Capsule
Post by: Allan on October 15, 2009, 08:09:27 AM
Have you tried a different usb port? And forgive a silly question, but it is plugged in to the AC outlet, yes?
Title: Re: Westen Digital 500GB Time Capsule
Post by: socrates on October 15, 2009, 08:57:30 AM
It doesn't come up because the drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) which is an HFS partition, and not Fat32, Fat, or NTFS (which windows can read).

You need to pull that data off of the hard drive from a mac.
Title: Re: Westen Digital 500GB Time Capsule
Post by: Allan on October 15, 2009, 08:59:33 AM
It doesn't come up because the drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) which is an HFS partition, and not Fat32, Fat, or NTFS (which windows can read).

You need to pull that data off of the hard drive from a mac.
You know, I had never heard the term "time capsule" applied to a hard drive before & just assumed it was something the user made up. I NEVER would have known that it was an Apple thing - good catch :)
Title: Re: Westen Digital 500GB Time Capsule
Post by: socrates on October 15, 2009, 10:46:10 AM
You know, I had never heard the term "time capsule" applied to a hard drive before & just assumed it was something the user made up. I NEVER would have known that it was an Apple thing - good catch :)

Yeah, unless you've used one (or were a big apple guy/gal) it probably wouldn't have come to mind.

It's a very nice, very easy to use backup system.  However, if you back it up as a mac formatted drive, windows doesn't like it.
Title: Re: Westen Digital 500GB Time Capsule
Post by: JamesN on October 16, 2009, 01:50:34 AM
Ah, ok I will try that. Thanks for your help guys!  :D
Title: Re: Westen Digital 500GB Time Capsule
Post by: socrates on October 16, 2009, 09:20:52 AM
Ah, ok I will try that. Thanks for your help guys!  :D

No problem!
Title: Re: Westen Digital 500GB Time Capsule
Post by: Helpmeh on October 17, 2009, 11:09:39 AM
Yeah, unless you've used one (or were a big apple guy/gal) it probably wouldn't have come to mind.

It's a very nice, very easy to use backup system.  However, if you back it up as a mac formatted drive, windows doesn't like it.
I'm not a mac person so I don't know this, can Macs see Windows disk formatting? Like fat, fat32, exFAT, or NTFS?
Title: Re: Westen Digital 500GB Time Capsule
Post by: socrates on October 19, 2009, 08:35:10 AM
I'm not a mac person so I don't know this, can Macs see Windows disk formatting? Like fat, fat32, exFAT, or NTFS?

Yes, macs can see windows formatting.

Macs can see Fat, fat32, exFat (I believe, but I could be wrong on exFat), and NTFS.

However, with NTFS, macs cannot write to the drives, just read them. 
Title: Re: Westen Digital 500GB Time Capsule
Post by: Helpmeh on October 20, 2009, 06:59:44 PM
So have the external hard drive in windows FAT32 format and then it works in mac and windows. Right?
Title: Re: Westen Digital 500GB Time Capsule
Post by: socrates on October 21, 2009, 08:27:22 AM
So have the external hard drive in windows FAT32 format and then it works in mac and windows. Right?

Yes.  Or if you want to format it via Disk Utility on your mac, you can format as FAT and it'll work between windows and mac as well (and linux).

Title: Re: Westen Digital 500GB Time Capsule
Post by: 2x3i5x on October 26, 2009, 11:08:52 AM
Yes.  Or if you want to format it via Disk Utility on your mac, you can format as FAT and it'll work between windows and mac as well (and linux).



Yeah. I have a USB thumb drive, it's formatted as FAT32 (I did it on windows) and my friend's mac reads it easily!  :)