Disco duro Western Digital con PC y Mac

Me compré un disco duro en el Mediamarkt de la marca Western Digital. En concreto un WD Elements de 500GB.

Pues lo conecté a mi netbook y pude empezar a copiar información, bueno capítulos de series, al Western Digital WD Elements de 500GB sin problemas. Pero en el momento en que en lugar de conectarlo a un PC Windows, lo conecté a mi MacBook black y aunque podía ver el contenido del disco duro externo, en cambio no podía copiar ninguna información.

Esta situación no duró mucho ya que, o lo solucionaba, o devolvía el disco al Mediamarkt. Pero al final lo pude solucionar para poder leer/escribir tanto con un ordenador Microsoft Windows, como con un Apple Mac OS X. Ahora os cuento cómo:

La documentación que venía en la caja del disco duro WD Elements no era ninguna maravilla, pero me sorprendió el comentario de que antes de devolver el producto trataras de acceder en la web de wd.com o westerndigital.com para solucionarlo. Y así lo hice y encontré el siguiente artículo con lo que solucionaría:

How do I use a WD external hard drive on both a Windows PC and a Mac Apple?

It is possible to use a Western Digital external hard drive on both a PC and a Mac. However, there are some things to keep in mind if you want to do this. Moreover, Western Digital does not recommend doing it.

* For both PC and Mac to be able to read the drive, it must be formatted in the FAT32 file format. In order to format to FAT32 on a Mac you may need to contact Apple for support. We do have a FAT32 Formatting utility for Windows that reformats WD external hard drives to their full size, but in only one partition. The FAT32 formatting utility can be downloaded from our Downloads Library. You will find it on your WD drive's Downloads page.

Critical: Do not attempt to connect any external drive to multiple computers, simultaneously; let alone to both a Mac and PC. This could quickly damage the drive's partition and corrupt the data on the drive.

* Sometimes, PC's won't read Mac FAT32 formatted drives, and Mac's won't read PC FAT32 formatted drives. You may have to re-format the drive trying both the PC and Mac until you get a format that works.

* Most WD external hard drives come pre-formatted with one large FAT32 partition, which is accessible by Windows 2000, XP, and Vista, and Mac OS 10.4 and 10.5.

* Windows 2000, XP and Vista can only create FAT32 partitions that are 32 GB's or smaller.

* Mac 10.4 and 10.5 can create FAT32 partitions the full size of the drive.

* There is a 4 GB file size limit on the FAT32 file format. This is a file system limitation that affects both Mac's and PC's, and there is no way around it.

* Finally, you need to understand that if you are using the same drive back and forth between a Mac and PC, there is always the chance of files being corrupted. Mac's and PC's are different platforms, and their file systems function differently. Please keep backups of all your files before you start sharing between Mac and PC computers.

Básicamente pues la solución para leer/escribir con un ordenador Microsoft Windows y con un Apple Mac OS X con el mismo Western Digital de 500GB ha sido poderlo formatear a FAT32, en lugar de con el formato que viene de fábrica que era NTFS.

Para ello me bajé una utilidad que sólo funciona en Windows que te puedes bajar de Downloads WD Elements Portable, en concreto la utilidad para formatear el disco Western Digital es: External USB/FireWire Fat32 Formatting Utility.

Y bingo!!!
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