Mounting HFS Volume on Win 7

I have an HFS volume on a USB disk. When I plug it in, Windows wants to format. I've had not luck with HFS Explorer. I go to Disk Management -> Right click the HFS disk and select Properties -> Goto tab "Details" -> Selecting "Physical Device Object name", I beleive I've found the device name that HFS Explorer wants so that it can look there and open the HFS filesystem.

However, the "Load FIle system from device" window button "Load" doesn't do anything when I point it to the "Physical Device Object name".

I really need to mount an HFS file system on my Win7 box to get files. Does anyone know this process or any other software I can use that is more certain to work?

chrips

Posted 2014-08-16T21:11:54.500

Reputation: 181

Yes, my title is misleading. It is an HFS+ volume. I will try with both OSX and Linux VM. Probably have to go with Linux VM to do this (isn't built-in HFS+ wonderful for them to have added in many distros?) – chrips – 2014-08-19T12:06:38.493

Answers

You could use virtualization for this. Just load Linux into a VM and mount the USB from there. Then use whatever file sharing method (ftp, scp, samba, etc...) you want to transfer the files to your Windows system from there.

krowe

Posted 2014-08-16T21:11:54.500

Reputation: 5 031

Also, start formatting your external\thumb drives using exFAT and you won't have this problem anymore. – krowe – 2014-08-17T00:16:10.257

But... how do I access exFAT with the old Mac OS 8-9 systems? What about resource fork? Doesn't exFAT strip the resource fork on all your files? I will try to document my steps when I do this the Linux VM way since I will need a method to do this for years to come. – chrips – 2014-08-19T12:09:52.063

What you have is most likely not HFS, but HFS+. Older tools like the one you tried might not support that.

Paragon offers a commercial filesystem driver called HFS for Windows for this. At the moment, it’s $20.

Recently, a version for Windows 8+ has been made available free. Haven’t tried it myself, though.

Paragon has been in the filesystem business for a long time, so I guess their drivers are somewhat safe. I’m not affiliated with Paragon in any way.

Daniel B

Posted 2014-08-16T21:11:54.500

Reputation: 40 502

This USB disk... is it a flash drive or an external hard drive?

If it's a USB flash drive, then the issue is probably because the drive has a partition table on it. Windows does not support multiple partitions on a flash drive.

On a Mac, if you ever erase a flash drive with Disk Utility, it formats the drive with a GUID partition table by default and creates the hidden EFI partition in addition to the regular data partition.

If this is the case, the only way to resolve the issue would be to back up the data, re-format the USB stick with an MBR partition table, and then copy the data back over. You can keep it HFS+ if you want. Just bear in mind you will still need a 3rd party utility to access it from within Windows.

Wes Sayeed

Posted 2014-08-16T21:11:54.500

Reputation: 12 024

That’s definitely not the issue here, if Windows wants to format the drive. Also, while Windows does not support multiple partitions, it will still access the first partition without problems. – Daniel B – 2014-08-18T18:20:50.920

I am able to replicate that problem with USB flash drives. If Disk Utility formatted it (using the Erase tab), then the protective MBR will not have a signature, and Windows will think it's not formatted. It can be fixed easily from the command line, but then you're right, it will only see the EFI partition in that instance. – Wes Sayeed – 2014-08-18T18:27:19.577

Of course Windows will say it’s not formatted. It does so with every filesystem it doesn’t support. The partition type as specified in MBR/GPT tables has no effect whatsoever. – Daniel B – 2014-08-18T18:30:39.203

It is a USB disk and theres not GUID because it was created by MacOS 9 – chrips – 2014-08-19T12:07:46.943

If you formatted the stick in Mac OS 9, then the stick has an Apple Partition Map on it. That system was proprietary to Apple and not even they use it anymore. That explains why no Windows tools can read it, and why Windows thinks it's unformatted. – Wes Sayeed – 2014-08-19T17:10:25.977