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 of the compatibility settings when partitioning with HDDRUTIL. Further below there are details on the most important platforms.

Target 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	Windoes suppprts multiple partitions on removable media since 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
BSD	TOS/Windows, MBR	TOS/Windows, MBR

GPT partitions guarantee the highest compatibility and a future-proof data exchange. Linux no longer supports TOS/Windows-compatible MBR partitions, and other platforms might follow. Therefore, in HDDRUTIL the GPT scheme is the default setting when partitioning TOS/Windows-compatible.

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

With a GPT the Linux kernel supports multiple TOS partitions of up to 256 MiB without tools such as mtools and without special kernel configuration. Due to Linux limitations, bigger TOS partitions require mtools.
With MiNT, ext2 partitions also are a viable option for data exchange.