MS-DOS Formatting on iPod

March 5, 2005 8:34 AM

I'd like to know if there's a downside to formatting the iPod as MS-DOS. I want to keep podcasts and the like on the Mac and my music collection on the PC... then switch back and forth between the two according to my whim. Should I format the iPod as MS-DOS ?
posted by garyduke to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

Well, without HFS you'll loose the ability to have files with "special" characters in them when you use the iPod as a hard drive, (and *maybe* with the music files, I'm not sure).

Also, I haven't looked in a while, but I'm pretty sure reformatting your iPod in a different format will void the warranty, and Apple Care will laugh at you before spitting on you if you call with problems.
posted by alana at 9:24 AM on March 5, 2005

Best answer: The term I think you are looking for is FAT32, the filesystem introduced with Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2. MS-DOS is an operating system, not a filesystem (and in any case, MS-DOS never supported FAT32, only previous FAT filesystems).

In any case, to the best of my knowledge, a FAT32 iPod can be used with either a Mac or a Windows machine. The chief disadvantage is that FAT32 is not a particularly robust filesystem, and is prone to occasional corruption that is quite a bit rarer with the native Macintosh filesystem, HFS+. If you're willing to take that (relatively minor) risk, and live with FAT32's usual minor constraints on file naming and directory depth, you should be fine with FAT32.
posted by majick at 9:27 AM on March 5, 2005

Best answer: Reformatting your iPod will certainly not void the warranty. It would be no different than formatting it for Windows from the start. There's no special Windows version of the iPod like there used to be.

If you want to use it with both Mac and Windows, then yes, you will probably want to format it as FAT32. Another option is to get Mediafour's XPlay for your PC. With XPlay you won't have to worry about the file name restrictions of FAT32, but if you're only bringing over podcasts from your Mac those limitations probably aren't an issue.
posted by robotspacer at 9:59 AM on March 5, 2005

Apple formatting tools refer to the FAT32 as "MS-DOS file system", majick.
posted by bonaldi at 11:24 AM on March 5, 2005

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posted by bonaldi at 11:25 AM on March 5, 2005

I use XPlay on my Windows laptop (it's all Macs at home) and I love it. You can use it to get to the files, or you can use iTunes like regular - it makes Windows iTunes read the Mac-formatted iPod.
You can get a free trial version on the site that robotspacer linked.
posted by librarina at 11:31 AM on March 5, 2005

by the way, even if your iPod is formatted with FAT32, you can create an HFS+ disk image there, if you still want to have a mac filesystem for storing stuff. yes, you have to go through the extra step of mounting the image, but you'll have no weird problems with filenames or filename lengths. of course, the files in that disk image will not be visible to the PC.

this technique is nice because you can create an encrypted image, in case you have to store sensitive information on the iPod and don't want to worry about losing it or having it stolen.

also keep in mind that FAT32 has a 4GB filesize limit, so your disk image can be no bigger than 4GB.
posted by joeblough at 12:46 AM on March 6, 2005

After I formatted my first-generation iPod FAT32, I could never run the iPod Software Update on it again. Usually it didn't give me a useful error message, but recently -- when I was going to wipe the thing anyway -- I got a message that specifically said that I couldn't run the OS X iPod updater on a FAT32-formatted iPod. YMMV.
posted by xueexueg at 8:03 PM on March 6, 2005

Is your iPod buggered after the lovely new update that they issued?

Mine is =(
posted by catchmurray at 8:29 AM on March 14, 2005