- In the Disk Utility app on your Mac, choose View Show All Devices. In the sidebar, select the disk you want to format to use with Windows computers. Click the Erase button. Click the Scheme pop-up menu, then choose Master Boot Record. Click the Format pop-up menu, then choose one of the following.
- If you ended up plugging a Mac-formatted drive into your PC, Windows probably offered to erase it entirely by re-formating it in order to become usable. But it doesn’t have to be this way. There are some third-party tools that you can use to get around this inconvenience and access the MAC formatted drives on Windows – whether they are HFS+.
- Since your primary PC is Windows 10, use NTFS. Enter a volume label (drive name) too — we used “Windows 10,” though you can label this partition with anything. Click the Next button to proceed.
- The hard drives of Apple's Mac computers are formatted in a different way, known as HFS, than hard drives that have the Microsoft Windows XP installed on them. As a result, Mac drives cannot be read by PC computers by default. However, you can use the MacDrive program to allow your Windows computer to read files on a Mac drive.
Usually Windows cannot read Mac formatted drive, but if you wish to use third party tools that can fill up the gap and provide access to Mac interface with Apple’s HFS+ file system on windows.
I had information from a broken Mac backed up at Best Buy, but because my Mac broke, now I only have a Windows computer. It seems they formatted the drive to the Mac format, but I have no way to access the data, at least I think? I saw there were ways to view and copy the data from the drive to my computer using third party software, but there.
One thing you should keep in mind while dealing with this kind of scenario is that when you connect your Mac formatted drive to Windows, you will be informed to erase it with notification “you need to format the disk in drive X: before you can use it.” Just don’t click “Format” or else all the contents of the drive will be gone once and for all. Rather click “Cancel” to avoid the situation. The message generally pops up because Windows does not understand or recognize the Apple’s HFS+ file system. So don’t format until you get the important files out of the drive. But if it does not contain any important files, then you can surely go ahead by clicking the “Format” button.
Here in this article we would use certain third party tools to read the Mac formatted drive on Windows. Just carry on reading to learn the methods in real.
Open Mac Drives On Pc
Method #1: Use HFSExplorer To Read Mac on Windows
It is freeware software available easily on the internet and can be used to read Mac files on Windows interface. Although HFSExplorer is not that fancy in appearance, but it does not install any driver that gets integrated with windows file explorer. So you can only open, read and copy the Mac OS files to Windows directory. In order to know its usage read carefully the steps mentioned below:
![Mac Mac](https://images.techhive.com/images/article/2012/12/10imac27_photo-100017894-large.jpg)
Step 1. Download HFSExplorer and install it accurately on your Windows PC.
Step 2. Connect your Mac formatted drive to your Windows PC and launch the HFSExplorer with admin privileges.
![Use mac dvd drive on pc Use mac dvd drive on pc](https://cnet2.cbsistatic.com/img/_fxFp6KG9aaQrAb4Iq-S1c0tpVU=/fit-in/770x578/2015/02/20/2455c11b-6356-4ac8-9ff3-a40555b432ca/remote-mouse-promo.jpg)
Step 3. Now go to “File” menu and click on “Load file system from device.”. It will trace your connected drive all of its own accord and you can easily load it.
Viewing Mac Drive On Pc
Step 4. Once the files system is loaded you can see the file contents of the Mac formatted drive on the Graphical window.
Step 5. Select your files, and click “Extract” and choose a folder to save the extracted materials. They will straight away be copied to the location you have chosen on PC.
Also read: How to wipe a Mac clean before selling
Method #2:Open .Pages on Windows using iCloud
Opening a .page file format on Windows is not as simple as double-clicking the file and accessing it right away. But as long as you have the access to Apple ID, or any web browser like Chrome, Firefox, or Internet Explorer, you can definitely pull off the task. Just go through the method description given below to actuate the task:
Step 1. From your Windows PC, open any of your default browser and visit iCloud.com.
Step 2. Next you have to sign in with your Apple ID. If you don’t have one, you can create one by the Sign-up option posted on the webpage. Now the surprising part is that signing up for an Apple ID immediately grants you 5 GB of free iCloud storage and this is what we are going to put to use in this tutorial.
Step 3. Once you are signed in to your Apple ID, click on the “Pages” icon and new windows will pop up.
Step 4. Click on “Settings” icon which is actually a “gear” icon and click on “Upload Document” option from the context menu. Again a new window will open up, and you have got to browse the pages that you wish to edit and upload it.
Step 5. Now to do the editing part, there are options available:
- Once the pages have been uploaded to iCloud, you can directly open and edit the documents utilizing web-friendly version of the Pages on the browser. It may not have all the tools you require as that of the Page app, yet it is commendable for quick changes.
- Secondly, you can click on “Tools” icon and choose “Download a Copy” option form the sub-menu and select “word” to re-export the documents as Word-friendly files and open it using MS work in your Windows PC. The documents will be downloaded as .doc file and is made available for further download on your PC.
Access Mac Drive On Pc
Step 6. Your file would now be downloaded with .doc extension which can be easily accessed with MS Word Processors.
Conclusion:
Whether you use Mac or Windows OS, there shall obviously come a time when you will be bound to do use documents on both the systems, and you would definitely need a way out to open and modify documents between both the OS. Now running documents with .doc or .docx extension of windows is not that difficult to run on Mac, but if you decide to open .page file on Windows, follow the guidelines elaborated above.
Learning has never been so easy!
Compared to many How-To articles, this one is pretty simple, but it saved me from buying another USB DVD drive just for one little task.
The problem: I have both Macs and Windows PCs, and needed to install Microsoft Office from DVD media on an ultrabook laptop that had no internal optical drive.
1 Steps total
Step 1: Download BootCamp from the Apple Support Site
The MacBook Air SuperDrive has unique firmware which prevents it from being properly recognized as a plug and play optical USB drive by Windows. Fortunately, Apple provides the drivers for running Windows on a Mac, as part of its BootCamp software.
If you download the latest release of BootCamp from Apple's support site, you will have a zip file wherein the path bootcampdriversApple contains the file 'AppleODDInstaller64.exe'.
Simply execute this file to install the Apple Optical Disk Driver for 64 bit Windows, and presto! You can then use the MacBook Air SuperDrive with your Windows PC.
15 Comments
Google Drive For Mac Pc
- TabascoFelloWizard Aug 14, 2015 at 03:03pmFinally, something I can use. Thanks this is helpful on many levels.
- CayenneJeremyGove Aug 14, 2015 at 05:50pmLong live BootCamp! Great post! Thanks for putting this up.
- CayenneInevitableCheese Aug 14, 2015 at 05:53pmMakes you wonder why in the world they wouldn't just make it available.
- MaceCurtis3363 Aug 14, 2015 at 06:16pmRun alexa blueprints on mac. Awesome, I just got this drive for a friend and it won't work on his older Mac, so I'll give him mine and use his.
- SerranoNHCSAdmin Aug 14, 2015 at 06:20pmAwesome! Been to busy to figure out how to use it on another computer! Thanks for the write up!
- Thai PepperBlair Groves Aug 14, 2015 at 06:23pmThank you for your comments everyone! I'm glad this was helpful to you!
- ChipotleColdDeck Aug 14, 2015 at 08:19pmThat's a useful bit of info right there. Thanks for posting!
- Datillhatsynot Aug 14, 2015 at 09:10pmVery nice and I didn't know it wouldn't work. My wife has a Mac with one of these drives and I have an Ultrabook so this will come in handy.
- ChipotleJames1765 Aug 14, 2015 at 10:55pmI should be shocked that Apple would break a long standing standard like this without any apparent advantage, but this is Apple we're talking about.
- Thai PepperBlair Groves Aug 14, 2015 at 11:23pmFor every one item that Apple has put up a dead end, they've both innovated and perfected dozens of things that have influences our world in general. They've succeeded in creating a very nice ecosystem for people who are prepared to pay the price of admission, and there is much more to come, as long as Apple remains attentive.
- CayenneBryan9095 Aug 15, 2015 at 12:05amThis is a much easier method. Connect the SuperDrive and a USB flash drive to a Mac. Copy the contents of the Office DVD to the flash drive. Then plug the flash drive into the ultrabook. Run the setup. The benefit of this method is not having to do anything special to get the SuperDrive to work with the ultrabook and the installation of Office will be faster.
- Thai PepperSteve_Belmont Aug 15, 2015 at 02:58amGood Thinking! great job, and you get to save a few
- Macebbigford Aug 15, 2015 at 04:45amNice write up on repurposing. I'm guessing nobody would actually buy an Apple optical drive for Windows intentionally. At least it isn't a total loss if you're stuck with it and don't want to pay $30 for a new external.
- DatilAshleyLewisMS Aug 16, 2015 at 02:30pmThanks for the guide. I gotta say, I've used a generic Samsung external DVD drive on an iMAC before and it works a treat.
- DatilRusty Platter Aug 17, 2015 at 10:19amFor the reverse situation, I've used a Dell USB DVD drive without issues on a Mac.