Here is short video on how you can read or access the Hard Drive that was formatted for mac, using a windows. Software Used: HFSExplorer Software Link. Your old external Windows PC drive will work great on the Mac. Apple has built OS X Yosemite and some previous OS X releases with the ability to read from those disks just fine. If you're using such a drive and you'd like to write new data to them, you'll find you can't unless you add new software.
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.
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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. 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.
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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.
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What I do find a bit confusing is that the 40GB never had compatibility problems with any computer I've connected it with. In graphics courses I was in we have Macs and PCs in the same building and that drive never cared what it was connected to.