External hard drive not showing up?

[Valior]

I just built my new computer and I need to transfer all the files from my mac laptop to it, off my external hard drive. When I plug it in, there's the sound that Windows knows something was plugged in, but it can't detect the hard drive. If I plug it into my mac, it's recognized and works just fine. Nothing's wrong with the hard drive, Windows just doesn't recognize it for some reason (and again, it plays the sound that it knows something was inserted.

Any solutions?

 

[aligwashington]

Format the HDD using Windows PC with NTFS then attach it to Mac big chance is that its using HFS+ which windows don't understand.many other ways to make windows see it but this will be the easiest and solid way so you don't run into trouble again. If you have data on that HDD backit up on the mac before formatting.

Good luck.

 

[bryonhowley]

^ That would be my first guess also. If you need the external drive to be used on both the here's the best way to do that.

First back up what ever data you can't loose on the Mac then format the external drive as a Fat 32 that way you can use it on both OS X and Windows.

 

[Valior]

Thanks for the replies, I now know that the problem is the format of the hard drive. I was using it as a Time Machine backup system for my Mac, so that might explain why Windows can't read it.

However, the hard drive is 2TB, and it's almost full, whereas my Mac has a 750GB hard drive, so I can't put everything from the hard drive onto it and keep it all safe when I reformat. I was thinking maybe just using a simple USB cable to connect my Mac to my PC, then using my Mac as a conduit to transfer all the data to my PC from the hard drive. Is that possible?

Also, on an alternate note, how much storage would be adequate? Right now I'm running a 128GB Samsung SSD and a 1TB Western Digital HD in my PC, but with this situation I'm concerned it's not enough. I thought about sticking in a 2 or 3TB hard drive in the computer as well, but I'm hesitant about dropping 150-200 bucks for one. What do you guys run, and what would you recommend if I were to get another?

 

[aligwashington]

now this will get a little technical for you.you can't use a USB cable to get this done,Best option is really simple but will require a little networking knowledge.Assuming you have a router with 2 ports open and 2 RJ45 "Network cables" cables. Setup a simple share on the Windows machine connect to share through Mac since your HDD work on mac connect it to the Mac computer make sure you are connected via wired connection as over wifi it gets really slow if you are lucky and have a Gigabyte Lan router this should not take more then 3-4 hours just drag and drop files on PC share.
you can use 3rd party tools i forgot the names just google it that you can install on the PC which will make HFS readable on PC but its always a pain and never work 100%.
Another option to use a Live Linux on USB boot PC through USB and then mount the HDD Linux will read it and you can transfer the files to PC it will not effect anything on the PC. Just do understand this process will be much faster but is for a user who know a little bit about linux as HFS+ was not officially supported by Linux last time i tried so you have to play with it a little to get it to work.
lol you can never have enough storage space it all fills up with time so just go with what your pocket can afford.
Hope this will help you .