Patrick> I just installed hfsutils on an i386, plugged a mac disk in it, and
Patrick> # ./hmount /dev/wd1a /mnt
Patrick> /dev/wd1a: contains 1 HFS partition
Patrick> ./hmount: /dev/wd1a: not a Macintosh HFS volume (Invalid argument)

I suspect there are two things:
* Regular hfsutils only handles traditional HFS, ( just HFS),
  not for HFS+ partition,
* Recent Mac OS X disk utility does not have a choice this 
  HFS on that menu. The selection has HFS+ only ( other than UFS etc).

If you are OK with formatting that Macintosh Disk, 
   hformat /dev/rwd1a
will give you simple HFS volumes, but it's not your intention.
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Makoto Fujiwara,