PC Freeware to access Mac CDs?

June 27, 2004 6:19 PM

Sometimes I need to access Mac-formatted CDs on my Win2K computer. I don't want to shell out $50 for MacDrive. Are there cheaper or even free alternatives?
posted by scarabic to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

There's HFVExplorer but I have not used it in a really, really long time. It might not work under XP or later SPs of 2K
posted by nathan_teske at 7:24 PM on June 27, 2004

When burning the CD in the first place, burn a hybrid CD. The Mac does this by default and Toast can easily be configured to do so if it's set otherwise.

(This doesn't help if the CDs are clip art or something that's in HFS format, of course.)
posted by kindall at 10:51 PM on June 27, 2004

Response by poster: Yeah, it's just an issue of mounting my old stuff, or stuff from friends who don't necessarily think ahead when they burn. Why hasn't MS built support into Windows by now? I know that could be construed as helping Apple, but it would also help a lot of Windows users from time to time.
posted by scarabic at 12:13 AM on June 28, 2004

Why doesn't Apple just follow the standard?
posted by smackfu at 7:23 AM on June 28, 2004

Because "the standard" supports only 8.3 filenames in ASCII. You might as well ask why Microsoft doesn't follow the standard -- Joliet is a proprietary Microsoft extension to the standard. But of course Apple supports it now, because it does support long Unicode filenames.
posted by kindall at 8:48 AM on June 28, 2004