Mediafour's MacDrive 7 has officially left Beta status and has been released to the masses.

This version includes, amongst other things, full compatibility with Windows Vista, providing full access to HFS and HFS+ volumes from within Vista, XP and 2003 Server.

I have just received my review copy from the lovely people at Mediafour, so look forward to the full review later this week on InsanelyMac!

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Does it run on 64-bit xp or vista?
Thanks,
pk

Hmmm. Good question. Will investigate later.

I emailed MediaFour about the x64 bit version. They said that the current version of MacDrive only works on 32-bit and that a 64-bit version might possibly be released in the future.

Used it tonight to transfer some backup stuff from my HDD to a friends machine and it works pretty slick. Very slick app and very much worth buying.

BTW, I used it with Vista.

Enough once it fails to dislike it. I really prefer to fire up VMware and transfer any file from Mac OS Virtually than the risk of loosing the disk.

Well, I hope MD7 will work better than the latest version of MD6 on my XP (SP2). Since the last update in MD6 my OSX-partition was regocnized as DVD-Drive. I had the iTunes library from the OSX-HD connected to iTunes under XP, this thing worked fine - for a while until November. Since their I have become more and more problems with my HackMac - in February iTunes was stopping to work with my Mac-formated iPod. Really annoying.

I'm was waiting for MD7 a will give it a try. Hope it's worth buying...but I think it will be.

It's working great. It now runs side-by-side with Daemon Tools without any conflicts. I've gone through my Mac HD in Vista and deleted some files from my desktop folder that I forgot to clear. This morning I booted into OS X, and everything worked out perfectly. The files I deleted were the only things changed on the disc, with no corruption.

So far so good for me too. Looks pretty stable. Far more stable than either of the betas I used.

I got a free activation key! I had submitted a bug report a while back on the first beta, and they sent me an email in the last couple days with a free key "as a thanks" or whatever.




I feel special now.

@ ErBiC: that's generous

The funny thing is, it seems overly generous. The "bug" i reported was a spelling mistake... said "heirarchy" instaead of "hierarchy" when checking a Mac volume.

And suddenly an error which would take ten seconds to fix scores me a free copy of MacDrive. I'm not complaining, but I wonder who decided that bug reporters get a free copy.

I want to report a bug on a Mac Pro

.. in your case: an overwhelmed illiterate ..

Man... the guy is generous, and finishes beying joked?
Lol, its nice that they give copys to betas.... it generates a relation with the client, and makes us want to help some more. (also recognizes the tester effort to help)

But ok, ok, it was a good joke

Yay - I got a free copy too!

I reported a bug where I was getting random blue screens every 5 minutes and my hard drive seemed to be continuously active with macdrive.exe running. All I had to do was send them a system report using their utility... Quite easy work for a $50 product.

Does anyone know an alternative product to MacDrive 7 for Vista? Spending 50 bucks for this isn't possible to me for now.

I just need something under Vista to read some documents from my OSX partition. Can anybody help? Thx in advance!

I remember there was an old app called HFSexplorer I used back when playing around with PearPC. Not sure if it's still around, but from what I recall, that should do the job. For your purposes it should be fine, seeing as there's no write support at the moment.

This app should be ok, 'cause I don't need write support - but I tried to run it in Vista without success. Even in Win XP compatibility.

Pro: Works very good. Tested on vista on my macbook pro.
Contrassssss: I'm really angry, i've paid for a software that i cant use.. now, because im having problems with FLASH and well previously i got problems with my iSight, etc, on vista, i've decided to go back to windows xp, and wait.. Now, after installed my WinXP OEM, when tryed to install MacDrive 7, it just dont letme activate it, saying its already activated on another machine and i need to buy another license. It's ridiculous, even more ridiculous than what microsoft is doing with Windows Activation. Im supper angry and i just wrote an email to them. Why they dont create a system olike iTunes Store? where you have 5 authorizations? well, only 1 is ok, but you can go to the website and deauthorize then authorize on when you reinstall MacDrive or Windows.. this is so stupid....
Just wanted to comment...

I am wondering, for those that have been using this for a while now...

any problems, at all?

I am considering dual booting vista/osX. OsX install would have a dedicated HDD, as would Vista install (on NTFS, of course). Then I would make all my other internal HDDs HFS+ formatted. That way, thanks to MacDrive, I can access all my files between either OS. I would be doing a lot in both windows and Mac, such as video editing, and storing all those files on the HFS+ drives whether through windows or mac.

Should this be a safe and stable solution?

Hi, well, on my case, when i've asked them about the activation problems, their response was:

"I apologize for any confusion. MacDrive will lose its activated status if substantial changes are made to your PC (i.e. reinstalling Windows or activating Windows). I have enabled your serial number to be activated again."

After this it was activated; but, still, every change i do, i need to ask them for enable my serial number... crazy...

In the other hand; MacDrive 7 (with latest patches), in my experience, is not too much stable on Windows Vista. I had some problems trying to, for example, execute installers (vista says the file cannot be executed), and you need to put into another drive to execute that installer... And well some experiences like this, saving for example a file i am editing in, let say Dreamweaver; it keep saying that the file was changed outside...

But, what can i say as good things is that it works, is fast (you can even work with video), and well you can read/write all macs drives.

If you askme if it worth the buy? i say YES it does, becasue "THERE'S NO OTHER SOLUTION AROUND", but if there were "I WOULD PREFER TO TRY THE OTHER VERSION FIRST"

Grettings.

Roberto.

Like alot of Windows software it dont support 64bit, 64bit software support on Windows is a total joke.

sorry for bringing up a dead topic, but they still do not support x64, does anybody have a workaround to allow it to install? great program, but this limitation sucks!

MD7 did not support 64bit version windows. Last night I tried to install current version on 64bit vista but failed. I hope the release 64bit version quickly.

i dont recomend MacDrive to use... cuz this utilitie screw up ur Mac Os partition

Care to elaborate?

I've been using it for years without any major problems. Never did it once screw up my HFS+ partition. Only issue I have was due to operator error. About the only problem I could see this causing is that MacDrive gives you full access to the entire partition(s). Messing with the wrong files can lead to trouble.

I also had corrupted files when I used MacDrive.

Well, since most people download betas for the express purpose of getting free (if less than 100% stable) software; they were rewarding you for actually taking the time out to point something out to them that may make them look somewhat bad. I had a similar thing happen to me on a coffee message forum once, the webmaster for a large coffee retailer emailed me a gift certificate for $50 for pointing out a simple bug in the shopping cart app, like in your case it happened to be a misspelling.......... he asked readers of the message forum to beta test the site, and any bug would get a gift cert.; even though I didn't consider what I reported to be a bug and wasn't expecting anything, it meant enough to the company to reward my pointing it out, the same I am sure is true in your case. It's actually commonplace in the software world to offer a beta tester who points out a bug a full version of the software when it's released; some larger beta tests give it to you bug or no bug.

concerning corruption:

1) make sure the HFS+ is journalled !! MacDrive does not like unjournalled HFS!

2) if you have your HFS+ on a MBR HD, go over your hard disk with PTDD Partition Table Doctor 3.5 (Windows) and Norton Partition Magic 8.05 (Windows AND DOS) and make sure you don't have any partition errors on your HD

3) regularly run Disk Utility, Disk Warrior, Drive Genius and TechTool Pro over your HFS+ volumes esp. if they are on a MBR HD. Mac OS is NOT at all meant to boot from MBR schemes, but on GUID HDs. Volumes on MBR HDs tend to corrupt.

If you run Mac OS X regularly or even as your main sys, please consider swithching your HD over to GUID, and you will have less trouble with anything, incl. MacDrive.

I know when using MacDrive in Windows XP it would corrupt files only when the HFS formatted drive property policy under windows were set to enable disk write caching. This I believe must be disabled on all HFS format drives to ensure no corruption issues, especially when writing to from Windows! I went on my intuition here and it does the job. Anyhow, I am going to give HFS Explorer a go for my 64 bit install.
Lates'.

How can i add write support to NTFS volumes in Mac? At the moment OS X only supports reading NTFS, does any one knows how to write on NTFS too?

Grrr still no xp x64 support

What the hell are they doing at macdrive ?

1: http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/ then 2: http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/

Also check PARAGON NTFS

not free but stablest than macfuse & ntfs3g

this thing gives me bluescreen in my 64-bit vista. .. sad

Seconded on Paragon NTFS, best Mac reader I've ever used!

Anything like macdrive that can be used to write on a x64 XP ?

Third-ed for Paragon NTFS, it is way better than ntfs3g could ever have been.

GotDarnit give us 64bit support...seriously, who still runs 32 bit windows lol

Almost everyone who doesn't know the difference between 32 and 64bit

did they promise xp64? i believe their x64 support will remain vista 64 only.

i don't know, the macdrive 7 kill my vista x64 system.
i got bluescreen and can't even boot in safe mode after installing this and boot up.