DESPERATE!!!! Please help me Format My Book for both Mac and PC

[jessie130192]

Hello,
I have just bought a 1Tb My Book Essential.
My problem may seem confusing but if anyone knows what im talking about PLEASE help me out!
Basically, my old laptop is a PC and my new one is a Mac, all I wanted to do was put all my photos, music etc from my old computer onto the hard drive, I had copied all the files that i wanted onto the My Book, but didnt realize it wasnt formated for Mac as well... So I reformated it for Mac and all files off the hard drive were lost, Now for my dilema... All I want to be able to do is format it so it is compatable with both my Mac and PC so i dont have to stuff around with all this unnecissary reformating each time.
Is it even possible to format so it is compatible with both?? And if so and anyone knows how to do it I would be extremly greatful if you could leave an easy to follow step by step instruction for me??
Thanks again, And sorry for it being so long and confusing, I hope I made enough sense

 

[RealBeast]

Reformat the drive as a FAT32 partition in Windows and it will be possible to read and write files to it with PCs or Macs.

 

[sephirothmk]

Reformat the drive as a FAT32 partition in Windows and it will be possible to read and write files to it with PCs or Macs.

Yes, but bear in mind that you won't be able to transfer files larger than 4GB. (FAT32 limitation)

 

[jessie130192]

So far I have gone into computer management in windows, selected storage, and disk management, I read somewhere that you right click on the Hard drive device and select delete partition. When I right click on the Hard drive, the only thing available to select is the help option, everything else is not able to be selected. Is there any way to reformat the hard drive the same or similar way but on the Mac? And if so could you please help me out with a few instructions on how to do so?

Regards Jessie

 

[RealBeast]

On your MAC just use Disk Utility to do the reformat. Select Erase and choose MS-DOS FAT as your preferred format, and you will get a FAT32 formatted drive.

 

[jessie130192]

Wow, this has had me absolutly stummped and searching the net for hours trying to figure that out. YOUR A LIFESAVER!!!!!! Thank you so much!!!

 

[jsrudd]

You might want to format the drive as exFAT. This can be done from Windows 7 and allows files sizes larger than 4GB.

Both Windows 7 and OSX Lion support exFAT.

 

[RealBeast]

You might want to format the drive as exFAT. This can be done from Windows 7 and allows files sizes larger than 4GB.

Both Windows 7 and OSX Lion support exFAT.

exFAT would be fine, and I would suggest it if he used large video files, but it has less backward compatibility with MACs.