I have an Iomega 500GB external hard drive that I purchased about 2 years ago that I used exclusively with an iMac, until that computer crashed beyond affordable repair last month. My new computer is an HP Pavillion PC running Windows 7, and when I connect the drive I see in Devices and Printers that it's recognized that an Iomega drive is connected to a USB port, but in Computer it shows the computer's internal hard drive and the DVD drive with their respective letter designations. However, the external drive does not show up at all. Quick background about the drive: I did purchase the drive through the Apple online store in early '08, and when I initially unpacked it, I saw no written info stating it was somehow a Mac-only version of that Iomega drive, nor was there anything stating that using it with a Mac would format it for Mac-only use.

Format a drive using Disk Utility on a Mac. Launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities). Select your external hard drive or USB flash drive from the list on the left. Click on the Erase tab. Best data recovery for mac drive. Select the format – Mac OS Extended (HFS+), MS-DOS (FAT32), or exFAT – then name the drive. Give the partition a name and select exFAT for the format. Click Erase to finish. Your exFAT-formatted drive or partition can now be used for both Windows and Mac.

When I first connected it to the Mac, I was never prompted about formatting or anything else Mac-specific, in fact I was never even prompted regarding drivers. Upon plugging it in, it behaved just like the USB flash drive and the 40GB extrernal drive I have- a small orange icon would appear on the desktop, with the name of the drive and the USB symbol.

So for two years I moved files between the drive and the Mac without any problems, until now when I try to use the drive with my current PC. So far it's been suggested to me that indeed the Mac *did* format the drive in a way that makes it Mac only, and I can't reformat because I have data I first need to get to move to the new computer. Another theory is that since it came from Apple despite it being an Iomega product, it might have been shipped with a Mac-specific tweak- perhaps it was already formatted for Mac use. A third theory suggested to me is that it might be the supplied cable somehow makes the PC not quite fully recognize it. Any info would be greatly apprecitated. Worst case scenario, I can find someone with a Mac and we can move files from the Iomega drive to the Mac, then to the 40GB drive that *does* work with both types of OS, and do that several times until everything is safely moved to the new computer, then I can do what I need to with the Iomega so it's useable with the PC.