PCs reading other disks

[Paladin9]

We all know that macs can read pc disks but windows can not read a mac disk.  why?  I was told that apple had a copyright or whatever on there format and that is why microsoft did not add support for mac disks. is this true?  it does not sound right to me.

[voidmain]

Not only can't Windows read Mac disks but it can't read any other kinds of disks either (minix, ext2, etc). It can only read floppy disks with the FAT file system. Of course if you get the right 3rd party software you might be able to read other floppy file systems. Like usual Windows doesn't include such support on it's own.

But I use Linux on my PC, it can read any of these formats without 3rd party software. I only have a 1.44MB floppy drive so I am obviously limited by the floppy hardware.

[ November 24, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[hm_murdock]

because back in the day, Apple used a custom drive controller that used a constant linear velocity which changed the rotation speed of the platter for different locations, allowing it to pack more data on the disk.

PCs were physically incapable of reading them. It wasn't until the original SuperDrive or FDHD (Floppy Disk High Density) was released that Apple disks used the same physical layout as PC disks. by that time, MS simply decided not to support them for some reason. not sure why.

[Pantso]

----->READ CAREFULLY:<-----

It's not Apple's fault. It's Microsoft's fault.

If you use any third party application, like void main wrote, then you could be able to read other file systems (including HFS) from windoze. so, there's noone else to blame here but M$.  

[billy_gates]

if linux and mac have no trouble reading Windows disks, how come neither linux nor Mac (that i have used) can read NTFS?

Don't get me wrong I love both Linux and Mac and hate windows, but I desperately need this functionality.

[voidmain]

Neither MacOS or Linux use NTFS as a file system, and NTFS can't be used on floppy disks so it's less important. However, this is a frequently asked question and the answer is both Linux and Mac would support NTFS if the specifications of the file system were open. Only Microsoft knows how NTFS works and they won't share any information so what little support there is has come through reverse envineering.

Linux actually *does* have NTFS support. But you will likely destroy the NTFS partition if you write to it. Reading data works pretty well. You can compile read-only NTFS support into the Linux kernel if your distro doesn't have it turned on by default. So if you want it, call Microsoft and see if they will give you the blue-prints. If they do I will personally write the NTFS driver.

[ November 25, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[xyle_one]

"uh, hi, this is ecsyle one, yeah, i was wondering if you could send me the blueprints for the NTFS file system.. oh okay, great. hey, one more quick question, can i also get the source code for windows? greaaat.. thank you, you too."
i almost want to call and ask. i wonder what kind of response i would get......

[billy_gates]

haven't people hacked into MS servers before and stolen the source code for Office?  Couldn't the same be done for NTFS?

Also, software has source code
what is the official name for partitions, since we can't just keep calling them blue prints, we will all get lost.