Repartition ext-hdd without losing data?

[equalme]

So I have a problem I just couldn't figure out.

I am trying to read some data off a old external hdd that was off my windows pc on my MB Air running 10.8. The drive is formatted to exfat, and is holding close to 450gb of data. Whatever reason my Air is not able to read the drive enough though it shows up under disk utility. I've read it could be due to the cluster size when it was initially partitioned.

None the less, I can access the hdd using a windows pc, but not with osx. Since it is 450gb, I don't have a way to store all that data onto a windows pc to do a fresh format/partition.

Is any solution to this problem?

Thanks!

 

[benwiggy]

None the less, I can access the hdd using a windows pc, but not with osx. Since it is 450gb, I don't have a way to store all that data onto a windows pc to do a fresh format/partition.

Turn on File Sharing on the Windows box and connect the Mac to it. Then copy over the files.

 

[equalme]

Turn on File Sharing on the Windows box and connect the Mac to it. Then copy over the files.

Can't store all the files onto the mac either since I only have 128gb ssd.

 

[Weaselboy]

Can't store all the files onto the mac either since I only have 128gb ssd.

You are going to have to copy that data off the external somehow to reformat and fix this. How about a second external drive and just use the Windows machine to copy from one external to another?

 

[itickings]

A backup would be nice to have either way, right? Get another drive

 

[equalme]

A backup would be nice to have either way, right? Get another drive

The files aren't that important...my "stuff" lol...so backup isn't really a necessity.

None the less I fixed it!

Forgot I had used bitlocker a while back to secure the drive. I ended up purchasing Parallels and Windows 8 Enterprise and then decrypted the drive. The drive was NTFS format, not sure why OSX was showing it as exfat. But I can now access the drive again!