Which format for external hard drive PC to Mac transfer?

[blizzard]

Hey DUC!

I am about to get an external firewire drive for my 003R setup and am wondering about transferring files between my PC Desktop and Macbook (intel).

I figure the easiest way is to format my firewire drive for recording with the macbook (Mac OS Extended also known as HFS+ format). Would I then need to have Macdrive on my PC to be able to transfer the files? I'm having some difficulty figuring out the most efficient method. First time Mac user as well as my first external drive.

Any tips would be great!

Cheers
Andrew

[MrJoshua]

You'd need MacDrive if you did that.

I've been told (although I haven't done it myself) that if you use DOS to format the drive in the FAT-32 format, you can read it on PC or Mac without any problem.

I haven't done that myself - I already had MacDrive when I was told that, so I haven't gone back to find out.

You also need to make sure you enforce Mac/PC compatibility in the ProTools sessions.

[Rail Jon Rogut]

If you have Pro Tools 7.3 on both Mac and PC then you don't need to do anything. Pro Tools 7.3 includes HFS+ support for full compatibility.

Just use HFS+ formatted drives and you can use them to record and playback on both platforms.

Rail

[blizzard]

Thanks to you both.

I will be getting the 003R this weekend (001 exchange) so I assume it will come with 7.3. With the HFS+ support for both platforms inherit in 7.3 it should be simple to transfer PT sessions. Perfect.

If I wanted to transfer files other than PT sessions, such as audio and video, I would then need something like Macdrive correct?

Is Macdrive the only option? Does it work as seamlessly as it boasts?

Again, thanks for the advice.
Andrew

[Rail Jon Rogut]

MacDrive works great! If you have MacDrive, don't install the 7.3 HFS+ support option.

Rail

[cakes]

Rail,

If you have MacDrive, don't install the 7.3 HFS+ support option.

I own MacDrive and just upgraded to 7.3. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the HFS option in 7.3 does something that MacDrive never did - it allows us to use HFS drives as record/playback drives. Are you saying I can do this just with MacDrive? (I never could)

Another question: Because I thought the HFS option in 7.3 had more functionality than MacDrive, I installed it. Now that I installed the HFS option, should I remove MacDrive? If I do so, will I still be able to read HFS drives in Windows explorer?

Thanks,

cakes

[Rail Jon Rogut]

MacDrive 6.0.9 and later allowed Pro Tools to record.. but only very old versions of Pro Tools allowed it. Pro Tools 7.2 HD allowed this, and in 7.3 this was allowed in LE.

So if you have MacDrive, don't install the HFS+ option.

Rail

[cakes]

Okay, I am remembering this now - Mediafour had written in the functionality to MacDrive, but Digi hadn't unlocked it yet in PT. I guess I missed the part in 7.3 where Digi said they unlocked it - I thought you still had to install the Digi HFS support (which I understand is just MacDrive repackaged) to get PT to read Mac drives.

Thanks for the clarification!

cakes