5 ways to read HD Mac with Windows
In this guide, we will look at 5 ways to read HD Mac with Windows: sometimes Windows users are in the situation of having to read the contents of a hard disk (but also a USB stick) formatted exclusively for Mac and then to be in front of various technical difficulties. No fear!
There is a solution to everything, and we will see below 5 ways (paid and free) to complete this task. Some of the proposed solutions are paid and others free, some offer more functionality and others less: it will be up to the users to decide what is the best solution for their specific case.
1. Paragon HFS+
The first solution we offer is paid and is called Paragon HFS+. However, the software offers a free 10-day trial period without limitations, so if we have to use one-time trial for an extraordinary intervention we will not have any problems. It should be said that the cost, in proportion to the features it offers and the quality offered, is very low and definitely worth the purchase.
All we have to do is install the software with its drivers, and once installed when we connect our external USB device will be automatically recognized without the need for other operations.
2. MacDrive
The second software we offer is called MacDrive, a very complete and also paid solution: MacDrive offers a wide range of utilities that, in addition to allowing us to read and write on the affected support, also allow us to protect it with a password or to recover data lost or deleted by accident.
Once again, once the software is installed, and the USB device is connected, it will be automatically read: furthermore, as mentioned above, we can also apply a password protection, try to recover deleted data through the appropriate menu function and so on.
3. HFS Explorer
Now let’s move on to a completely free software solution, that is HFS Explorer: the software is very well-known and is one of the most widespread as it is free. A negative side of the use of this software is however that of requiring JRE (Java Runtime Environment) on the PC to be used, which is certainly a factor of attention with regard to security.
This software being free also has less functionality and to read the content of the device provides that the software remains open: from its side menu, we will then select the affected device that we previously connected so you can see its contents and possibly copy or modify it.
4. Installation of BootCamp drivers for Mac
Another very useful and definitely working method is to use the BootCamp software drivers for Mac: this software has the purpose to start Windows on Mac, and installing these drivers on Windows we will succeed in intent to view the contents of our hard disk formatted in HFS+ also on Windows.
To install these drivers we will not have to do is download the BootCamp package from the official Apple website and manually update the drivers in Windows selecting them from the package just downloaded and decompressed: once done, our USB device will normally be displayed in Windows Explorer as any connected device.
5. Formatting in exFAT
If we do not need to keep the data of the media, we are reading but only want to make it visible to our PC and our Mac, we will not have to do anything but format it: the best solution is to format it in the exFAT format to make it compatible with various operating systems (including also Windows and Mac of course). This solution is certainly drastic because we lose all the data contained in the storage medium, but if as we said before we do not need it, it is certainly the fastest solution to apply.
To format in exFAT we will have to click with the right mouse button on the connected device and select ” Format “: from the menu that will open, we will select exFAT and start formatting, which will return us an empty device but still readable by our Windows operating system.
