How To Format External Harddiks >120GB using Mac's Disk Utility to be used in Both Windows and Mac.

I had recently purchased a 120 GB Maxtor One Touch 4 Mini and the software that comes with is NOT able to format it to share usage with both Mac and Windows. I had search high and low for a solution for this is a serious issue as FAT32 format from windows doesn't allow me to format any external drive more then 32GB.

So, after a bit of searching...I found a simple solution!!

Use Mac's Disk Utility and format (Erase) the external drive using the "MS DOS File System" and it will be able to read/write on both Window and Mac!!

If external drive is less then 32GB (e.g. thumb drive) it will format as FAT16 and if more then 32GB (Usually is) it will format automatically to FAT32 with no apparent limit to hard disk size. I tried it on my 120GB Maxtor One Touch 4 Mini and now it can easily use on both Mac, Windows and Linux.

Windows with so many "slaves" to update their SP1,2,3 did not patch this "flaw" of inability to format hard disk above 32 GB in FAT 32 to cross platform to Mac seems to be a conspiracy to monopolize the OS market.

Now I can share files from Mac to Window and vice versa! Try it and tell me if it works! Of course back up your files first.