Windows-formatted external drives are unsearchable?

[orangeK]

I've got my old PC and a very young Mac mini, and I've been switching between the two for a month now. I can do pretty much everything on the mac that I try: skype, scan, print, etc. At the moment, I can't remember why I still keep the pc around.

It took me a while to realize this, but I think my external drives have restrictions when I plug them into the mac. I can copy files to the mac, no problem there. However, when I search for a specific file using finder or spotlight, nothing comes up. I can navigate to said file if I know the route - if I know what folders to click. But, searching is out. I have to plug the drive back into my pc for that.

I thought I'd add a spotlight comment to external files and folders so that I could find them later, but the comment box is not accessible. And, the bottom of the info box (from cmd+i) says the drive is Read Only.

The only explanation I can come up w/ is that all of my external drives were used w/ the pc first. They are formatted for windows.

This is not a huge issue, and I'm grateful that I can continue use the drives with both computers. I mainly just use a USB key to move a few files back and forth. (And, I suppose as a long term solution I could spring for a 1TB mini-form factor external drive, make sure it's formatted for OSX, and copy *everything* to that, and be done w/ it).

I just want to make sure that this is a normal issue and not something I inadvertently caused by...doing something stupid. Are there any other windows users out there who have had this experience?

Thanks.
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dipping my toe in OSX

[Remims]

I seem to remember that as normal. To have read/write access to the drive, you have to be accessing it as a shared drive with the PC doing the sharing.

You should be able to copy everything you need to your Mac drive though. At least that way it would be searchable.

[orangeK]

A shared drive, I'll check that out.
Many thanks.
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dipping my toe in OSX

[sleepyhead]

OSX does not write to ntfs, which is most certainly the filesystem used for your external drives. If you want to make them writeable by OSX, you'll need to install ntfs-3g, which you can download from here:
http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/

Caveat: If you have ntfs-3g installed and later decide to run Windows on your Mac using bootcamp, you won't be able to select Windows for booting (under Startup Disk). However, you can disable ntfs-3g under its prefpane to regain that functionality, or simply press the Option key during boot to manually select the startup disk.