I can't find my external hard drive under 'Computer' but it appears in "Devices and printers" How can I access files on my external hard drive?

I can't find my external hard drive in "computer".

I just bougth a new HP computer running Windows 7.  I just copied a bunch of movie files, music and photo of my old Mac (OSX Leopard) on a Western Digital external hard drive.

I plugged the external drive in my HP via USB 2.0 on the front of the computer.  Windows recognizes the drive.  She appears in the Panel of external control/hardware and Sound/devices and printers as "HARD disk".

It does not appear in 'Computer' under 'devices with removable storage ".

I just want to get to my files so I can copy them to my new computer.  How to access my files on the external hard drive?  Why isn't he appear in 'computer '?

Hello ShamedMonkey,

Thank you for your message.  The problem you are having is because of differences in formatting between PC and Mac.  You can, however, transfer your files between the two.  I will set out what must be done under and limitations of each.
First, you will need to format the drive on your PC.  When you format the PC, you can format it in FAT32 or NTFS.
(You mentioned that you do not see the drive in the computer) To format drive:
Click 'Start' > right click on 'Computer' > select 'manage '.
Click on "disk management".
In the right pane, you should see your drive > you can then do a right click and 'format '.
FAT32:
This format will allow you to easily transfer files between the two.  This format becomes problematic when you transfer files more than 4 G.  There is a limit of 4 GB in FAT32, etc. of many movies are bigger than that and cannot be transferred using this format.
NTFS
This format has no size limitation, however, in its normal state it will be 'Read only' on Mac.  If you will not be able to transfer all the data itself.  While doing some research on the web, it seems that you can use a program called MacFuse on your Mac to change to NTFS files.  I have not confirmed this, but you can give it a try.  If this program works as planned, it would be the way to go.
Please let us know if it did or did not solve your problem.
See you soon

Engineer Jason Microsoft Support answers visit our Microsoft answers feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

Tags: Windows

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