If you have Windows installed on your Mac via Boot Camp, there are probably times when you wish you could access your OS X files and folders. This tutorial will guide you in doing just that - using free and open source software.
Using HFSExplorer, the fantastic alternative to MacDrive, you can access all of the files and folders on your OS X partition/drive - from Windows. Though MacDrive has more features, HFSExplorer comes with a much better price tag (free).
- Start by booting your Mac into Windows. Download HFSExplorer. Once the download has completed, run the installer file.
Click Next to begin.
- Review the license agreement (right) and if you agree to it, click I Agree
- On the Choose Components screen, decide if you want to register .dmg and .cdr file associations. I went with .dmg and left .cdr alone - but you should decide based on your needs. Click Next to continue.
- If you don’t like the default installation folder, use the Browse… button to select another. Click Next.
- If you don’t like the default folder name (?) - feel free to change it here. Click Install to begin the installation.
- When the installation is complete, click Finish.
- Navigate to the HFSExplorer folder in your Start menu. If you’re using Vista, click Run HFSExplorer in Administrator mode. If you’re using XP and are signed in with an administrative account, you can click HFSExplorer. If you’re not using an administrative account, use Run HFSExplorer in Administrator mode and enter an administrators password.
- If HFSExplorer launches, skip down to step #12.
If you don’t have the Java Runtime Environment installed, you’ll receive an error message telling you as much. Now’s the time to head over to the Sun download page to download and install the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).
- If you get an error stating that MSVRC71.dll wasn’t found, have no fear. Click OK to close the error message.
- Navigate to C:\Program Files\Java\jrelx.x_x\bin\ (where x.x_x is the version number of the version of JRE you have installed). In that folder, copy the file msvrc71.dll.
- Now navigate to C:\Program Files\HFSExplorer\ (or whatever folder you installed HFSExplorer in) and paste msvrc71.dll into it. Now launch HFSExplorer again.
- You’ll be presented with the main HFSExplorer window.
- Click File and then Load file system from device…
- Click the Autodetect…
- Assuming you have just one HFS+ partition, click OK. If you have more than one, select the one you want to access, then click OK.
- And now you can navigate through your OS X partition.
- To copy files over to Windows, select them and then click the Extract button.
- In the Extract here window, navigate to the folder you want to save the files in. Click Extract here when you’re ready.
- Click OK after the files have been extracted (copied).
- And now you can open/edit/whatever the files.
- Note: you can not write files back to the OS X partition. This is actually a good thing - should you get a virus in Vista, it won’t cause any harm to your OS X installation. If you change the files in Windows, you can always copy them over the next time you boot into OS X, as your Windows partition should automatically mount when OS X starts.
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Ross:
Thanks for the very rapid response to this question. You are amazing! I will be trying this out forthwith.
Works like a charm.
Thanks again.
thanks alot it works great
Thank you so much for this…my OS X partition wont boot, and I thought I lost a few years of photos. Your dual-boot expertise is much appreciated.
Why not just use a FAT32 partition originally? Unless, you want a lot of space on your other partition, the FAT32 partition format allows transferring and viewing files. I guess this is less of an issue now with more people running VMware or Parallels with drag and drop capabilities, but I personally don’t like either virtual machine.
Paul -
This tutorial covers accessing a HFS+ partition from Windows. It doesn’t matter if Windows is NTFS or FAT32, you’d still need software like HFSExplorer to get to the HFS/HFS+ partition. OS X can read/write to FAT31/NTFS no problem.
Ross,
Thanks for this walk through, this program works perfectly!
Hey, I used this to move some music from my ipod to my pc (ipod was formatted for my mac) and I was wondering if there was any way to retranslate the filenames back? Since I mainly have a bunch of 4 char. .mp4/mpa files.
Thanks!
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