Convert large NTFS file to FAT32

RalphM wrote on 11/5/2008, 3:15 PM
I've captured about 300GBytes of 8mm videotape for a customer and put them on an NTFS drive. I'd like to put them on a FAT32 drive so he can both read and write with his MAC.

I now realize that I cannot do a straight copy for files above the 4GByte limit, and almost all the files are greater than 12GBytes.

Can anyone suggest a utility that would break these files into FAT32 friendly chunks?

Thanks,

RalphM

Comments

Coursedesign wrote on 11/5/2008, 3:19 PM
Macs can read NTFS disks just fine.

You can (read &) write Mac disks with a simple Windows ute, just search here for past posts on this.

This is a lot easier than dealing with the FAT32 muck.

Cheno wrote on 11/5/2008, 3:41 PM
Ralph,

Coursedesign is right. Let the client know it's coming on an NTFS formatted drive - the mac will read that just fine. The client can then pull the files off and reformat the drive HFS+ (mac's newer drive format) or if you want to find a mac and format the drive HFS+, you can do that but you'll need MacDrive to read / write to the drive.

NTFS is probably your easiest route.

farss wrote on 11/5/2008, 4:15 PM
+1 Vote for Macdrive. Why futz around wondering if it's going to work?
In my case client has old G4, maybe she could have read a NTFS volume except she only owned one external Lacie drive that she didn't mention had other stuff on it she wanted. If I'd formatted it to NTFS I might have had one unhappy client.

Bob.
rs170a wrote on 11/5/2008, 4:47 PM
Another vote for MacDrive.
I regularly exchange files with an FCP user and have set an an external drive to Mac format.
It makes doing this MUCH easier.

Mike
Patryk Rebisz wrote on 11/5/2008, 5:09 PM
Wait, how? You just tell MacDrive for it to be both Mac and Windows?

If i'm dealing with Windows drives my Mac people can read it but not write to it.

What's the best way so that bot Win and Mac can read and write to it????
farss wrote on 11/5/2008, 5:40 PM
Install Macdrive on PC.
With that you can mount HFS volumes. You can even format a drive as HFS. And the drives get a cute red apple icon. It even found a partition on my NAS that's Mac enabled and added an apple to its icon, cute.

Bob.
Yoyodyne wrote on 11/5/2008, 6:36 PM
Another vote for macdrive. Just format a drive HFS+ and dump the media on it. The great thing is that both the mac and pc can read and write to the drive.
RalphM wrote on 11/6/2008, 5:56 PM
Thanks you all for your advice - looks like I will spring for MacDrive. It will also make it possible for my Mac-centric daughter and I to access the same drive.

RalphM
RalphM wrote on 11/8/2008, 8:43 AM
Sprung for MacDrive - very simple and straightforward. This will be a more professional solution for my Mac customers.

It sure does take a long time to get 300 GBytes from one external USB HD to another. ;-)

Thanks for the advice.