recommended portable hard drive

The compatibility will be determined by the file system used. If you use NTFS then Mac and Linux should be fine with it. Any make and model will be fine.

or if u r afraid of problem use FAT32, but NFTS is the most compatuible. however,it is always 'locked' on first use in ubuntu

Thanks for both your help.
How do I know what file system I am using?
thanks
John

You can run:

sudo parted -l

and it will tell you, You can also run:

(For gnome)
gksudo gparted

(For KDE)
kdesu qtparted

and format the partition as you wish, I suggest formatting NTFS under windows so you have a solid base.

Hello actionparsnip
I tried the above
john@abraham:~$ sudo parted -l
[sudo] password for john:
Model: ATA FUJITSU MHW2120B (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 120GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 1049kB 115GB 115GB primary ext4 boot
 2 115GB 120GB 4921MB extended
 5 115GB 120GB 4921MB logical linux-swap(v1)

how do the I do the ntfs thing?
thanks
John

john@abraham:~$ gksudo gparted
john@abraham:~$

thanks again actionparsnip
John