Help please! Transfer files from iMac G4 to USB 2.0 80GB External HDD Formatted in MS DOS File System

[alfiesy]

A friend gave me her USB 2.0 External HDD to transfer some large files from my Mac to the external hard drive. The external hard drive is currently formatted under MS DOS File System - 2 x 40GB partitions.

Question:
1. Is there a physical size limit to the partition in MS DOS File System format for the external HDD? I wanna remove the partition so I can transfer dump all the files (approximately 60GB) in one go.

2. If I format it under Mac OS Extended. Will the drive be readable by Windows 98 / 2000 / XP?

3. My iMac G4 800 has a USB 1.1 interface and the transfer is excruciatingly slow as I've discovered. (See diagram below)

Diagram 1
iMac G4 <-- USB 1.1 to USB 2.0--> DOS Formatted External HDD : VERY SLOW!!!

Was thinking connecting my iBook G4 (which has a USB 2.0) to my Mac via ethernet cable then the drive to the iBook G4's USB 2.0 port. Will transfer be faster this way?

Diagram 2:
iMac G4 <--Ethernet--> iBook G4 <--USB 2.0-->80 GB External HDD.

Is Diagram 2 the best way to transfer 60GB worth of data or does anyone have a better idea? How should the external HDD be formatted to make files transferred readable by Windows based computers?

Thanks again for any help on this.

Alfie

[Edited on 3-22-2005 by alfiesy]

[quicksilver]

check out this thread
i followed the instructions here and i was able to format my external HDD so that it was readable by both my mac and pc.

[alfiesy]

Hi Quicksilver,

Thank you very much for the helpful link. Please check if I understood the instructions in the thread correctly:

1.) Erase the entire contents of the external HDD.
2.) Create just 1 partition and format it as MS DOS Files System (FAT32). For my 80GB HDD, this means a partition much larger than the 32GB that Win XP can create.
3.) While Win XP cannot create FAT32 partitions larger than 32GB, it WILL HAVE NO PROBLEM READING AND WRITING TO partitions of 80GB in size?

Thanks again.

Alfie

[quicksilver]

hi alfie,

when i bought my external hdd, i originally formatted it on a pc using ntfs. turns out, i couldn't write to it from my mac.

i had to format my external hdd twice on my mac.

here's what i did:

launched disc utility
selected my external hdd
selected the erase tab
under the volume format.. chose macOS extended (journaled)

after formating, selected the erase tab again
under the volume format, chose ms-dos file system

after formatting the hdd for the second time, i was able to use my external hdd with both my mac and pc.

i have an 80Gb external hdd in a usb2.0 enclosure.

hope this helps.