Data Exchange with PCs and Macs

With HDDRIVER, data exchange between the Atari and other platforms is very simple. The following table provides an overview on the compatibility settings when partitioning with HDDRUTIL. Further below there are details on the most important platforms.

Platform	Possible Settings	Recommended Setting	Remark
DOS	TOS/Windows, MBR	TOS/Windows, MBR	DOS emulators may limit the partition size to 16 or 32 MiB
Windows	TOS/Windows, MBR or GPT	TOS/Windows, GPT	Multiple partitions on removable media/memory cards require Windows 10
macOS	TOS/Windows, MBR or GPT	TOS/Windows, GPT
Linux	TOS or TOS/Windows, GPT	TOS, GPT	Linux supports GPT TOS partitions up to 256 MiB without special settings
FreeBSD	TOS or TOS/Windows, GPT	TOS, GPT
NetBSD	TOS/Windows, MBR	TOS/Windows, MBR

GPT partitions guarantee highest compatibility and a future-proof data exchange. Linux does not support TOS/Windows compatible MBR partitions anymore, and other platforms might follow. Therefore, in HDDRUTIL the GPT scheme is the default setting when creating TOS/Windows compatible partitions.

Data Exchange with Windows

The screenshot shows files included in the HDDRIVER distribution on a Windows PC. The medium is a memory card with 4 TOS/Windows compatible partitions. Note that on removable media Windows 7 and older only support a single partition.

Data Exchange with macOS

A TOS/Windows compatible memory card with 4 partitions on a Mac. All partitions are usable for data exchange.

Data Exchange with Linux

Linux does not support anymore TOS/Windows compatible partitions in the Master Boot Record (MBR). A GUID partition table (GPT) resolves this problem. With a GPT the Linux kernel supports TOS partitions of up to 256 MiB without special tools or kernel configuration. Because of Linux limitations bigger TOS partitions are not possible.
With MiNT, ext2 partitions also are a viable option for data exchange.