Reading Mac formatted Firewire Drives on my PC

[kinglenario]

"URGENT" i've been running TDM on windows since it came out. i've been building my own machines since my first TDM system. i'm really familiar with most of the problems. this one is driving me crazy. the biggest down side to TDM on windows for me is the compatability issues with mac. no matter how simple digi seems to make it, there are always issues. my current problem. i have someone elses 80 gig firewire digidrive, which is HFS or ATTO format i'm assuming, but he doesn't know which. i would lean toward it being ATTO. my computer sees the disc when i hook it up in the trey as a removable disc, it also shows up in the device manager and the disc management. but, it does not show up in my computer or asign it a drive letter. everything says it's enabled and working properly, and it even says the name of the drive. i have tried the new versions of MacOpener, MacDrive, and MacDisc. still no change. someone please help, as i need to get this session of before monday morning when the drive leaves me.

c

[kinglenario]

forgot a key aspect. running on XP with SP1

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Get MacDrive 5 ... works great with XP and FW. I have found that I do need to have the FW drive attached to the PC when restarting with MacDrive.. MacOpener doesn't support FW drives.

Start->Control Panel->Admin. Tools->Computer Management->Storage->Disk Management ... do you see the drive listed there at all?

Rail

[kinglenario]

i tried macdrive 5 but it doesn't seem to work. i think it's because it's an atto formatted drive. either that or it's some XP setting.

[Rail Jon Rogut]

A FW drive shouldn't have been formatted by ATTO for PT to begin with.. on the Mac.. the cardinal rule is to remove all 3rd party extensions (drivers) and use the Apple "Erase Disk" command to format the FW drive.

Rail

[kinglenario]

not that this matters, but i think digidesign recomends formatting with atto for firewire drives. but i agree, there is no need for it to be formatted that way. it's not my drive but i just need these sessions off it. it seems like i'm constantly fighting a losing battle with compatability issues with cross platform protools. i did however get the data off the drive by pluging the firewire drive into a ibook i borrowed, then networking that with my machine. really though, this is rediculous. do you know of anyway to read an atto formated drive on a pc? thanks for your help.

[kinglenario]

and yes, i do see the drive in the disc administrator. and in the device manager. i even see the trey icon on the task bar. and in the properties of the drive it even says the name of it. avid blah blah blah. it's just that it will never show up in My Computer. WTF. and, when i look at the drive in the disc administrator it says it's size but then it says "unallocated" and it doesn't give it a letter. the only option for me there is to partition it, kind of pointless since i need the info from it.

[kinglenario]

i really appreciate the help. now, here's the thing. i was just told by the engineer that this "may be" an atto formatted drive, but when i performed the "apple I" command on the ibook it said mac format extended. so i believe that it's hfs+ but you can't always believe everything from apple I.
so assuming that it is HFS+ what do you think is my downfall? i am also running XP sp1 and the driver for the FW is saying that it is from the service pack. i can see this drive everywhere but in My Computer, and as i said it sees it in disc management but says it's unallocated and doesn't give it a drive letter. is there some setting in xp i'm missing. also, i do have macdisc5 installed. thanks

[ricren]

I think instead of using mac formated disks for a cross plattform setup, what about formatting the FW disk in FAT? That way you can read it in PC and MAc without Mac opener and similar translator.
Does it makes any sense?

what's the size limit on Fat patitions? And size limit? I'm planning to beging sharing video files, between Mac and PC and a 50 minutes DV movie weights around 10 GB! Is it feasible?
Cheers

Ric

[ricren]

I think instead of using mac formated disks for a cross plattform setup, what about formatting the FW disk in FAT? That way you can read it in PC and MAc without Mac opener and similar translator.
Does it makes any sense?

What's the size limit on Fat patitions? And size limit? I'm planning to share video files between Mac and PC and a 50 minutes DV movie weights around 10 GB! Is it feasible?
Cheers

Ric