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    Will My Mac Hard Drive Work On My Windows Computer

    This is a very difficult question because it could related and be answered very differently depending on the situation.

    Such as are we referring to a Apple Mac hard drive working in a computer as the primary drive, or as an external with files on it. Or can we use a hard drive from a Mac computer and change it to be used in Windows?

    There are many configurations so this article will endeavor to explain the differences between the two hard drive and what you can do with them to make them work for you.

    Mac vs PC Townsville Computer Repairs

     

    Warning – Please READ

    Do not format your hard drive while you still have data on it you have not backed up.

    Although formatting is part of what you can do to make your hard drive work on another type of computer, we will not be talking about that here as you will loose all the data on your disk.

    NO NOT FORMAT YOUR HARD DRIVE!

     

    The Basics

    Since all the Apple Mac, Imac, Macbooks etc decided to start using Intel Processors and chip sets, for the most part, the main difference between the both types of hard drive; that is for Windows and Apple is the formatting they use.

    That is the way your computer sets them up to read and write data. For the most part, they are the same and can used so.

    But, simply taking a hard drive our of a Mac and putting it into a Windows computer will not make it work, that is not without the use of certain software.

    If we are talking about running our computers from the hard drives, using them as our primary boot device, simply moving them from one computer to the next will not work.

    However, if we wanted to mount them on one another, use them as a slave or external extensions, we can with the aid of certain software.

     

    Reading a Windows Formatted Hard Drive on a Mac Computer

    If you take your primary Windows drive out of your computer and put it in a Mac it will not boot up.

    You must save your data from that drive somewhere securely, then format that drive to use the “Mac OS Extended” and then run through the Apple OSX installation procedure.

    You will need a copy of OSX on a bootable USB disk for this.

    If you simply want to add your Windows formatted external drive to the Apple computer, simply plugging it into the USB port and waiting for it to mount will do. This does not work for a lot of the older Mac with older versions of OSX, but works for most of the modern ones.

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