[palscan]

hi everyone,

i want to install XPsp2 on my new macbook pro 17" (2.4,160gb), till now i have used PCs and i am fairly competent with this sort of thing but not on a mac. as i need a fair amount of space for XP (probably about 40-60gb) i will need to use NTFS but thought it would be prudent to allow for a smaller (10gb-ish) FAT32 "swap" partition, i have also read that the XP install needs to be on the fourth partition? does this happen automatically (i know macs already use more than 1 partition when set up). would i use bootcamp to create the smaller "swap" partition first, then the larger XP partition, then choose the larger partition during the windows install OR install windows first then use bootcamp after to create this "swap" partition? does anyone have any idea what control the windows disk management system has over the drive (ie if i create the swap partition later can i use windows disk management to format the partition as FAT32?) also i wouldn't really want to get into using third party software to use the NTFS partition from OSX (as i've heard this is possible).

any advice would be very welcome, even if not directly related to my conundrum...

thanks,

paolo

i just had an after thought concerning XP vs Vista. having read the other thread about this (since i was debating which OS to use) no one mentioned that one advantage of Vista is directX 10 support since the new macbook pros have Nvidia 8600 which are directX 10 cards - any thoughts?

p.s. i fully intend to use OSX too though!!!

[Cold Warrior]

Don't worry about the swap partition. You don't need it. Just use the Boot Camp utility in Leopard (are you using Leopard?) to create the Windows NTFS partition and go from there.

[silver]

I was under the impression that Boot Camp utility creates only FAT32 partitions.

[Cold Warrior]

Maybe the Windows installer gave me the option to convert to NTFS. I forget.

[silver]

Yes, It should have been during the windows install.

Also @palscan Boot Camp utility can only create one partition and that's only when your drive hasn't been partitioned yet. Using Boot Camp utility, you end up with 2 partitions ONLY.

There are ways to make more partitions but not as easy.

1. Install rEFIt (basically a bootloader)
2. Set up partition scheme you want in Disk Utility.
3. Insert XP/Vista install disc.
4. Reboot.
5. rEFIt boot screen should come up.
6. Select XP/Vista istall disc.
7. Repartition the partition you want (if you want NTFS).
8. Install XP/Vista
9. When finished reboot into XP/Vista with Leopard disc in drive.
10. Install Boot Camp drivers( you might want to install better video drivers though as the ones Apple ships isn't that good. Google omegadrivers instead).
11. Reboot and all is well.

This method is a great way to make say a tri-boot mac: OS X, XP, and Linux.

So the choice is yours, you can go the easy route but have only 1 extra partition made or the longer route that offers you more flexibility.


Cheers

[silver]

@palscan

If you do the NTFS route, OS X can read to them but can't write to them. To solve this there's 2 software I'm aware of that does allow OS X to write to them and they're NTFS-3G and Paragons NTFS4OSX. I use Paragons software as it allows full read and write speeds. Can't comment to much on NTFS-3G as I only used it for a month and switched back to Paragons as write speeds were slower. NTFS can support larger volumes and larger file sizes.

If you go FAT32 instead then OS X can read and write to that partition just fine, but you might run into problems that FAT32 has: FAT32 volume is supported only for sizes up to 32 GB and FAT32 supports a maximum file size of only 4 GB.


Cheers

[ibook_steve]

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior 

Maybe the Windows installer gave me the option to convert to NTFS. I forget.

You do get the FAT vs. NTFS option during the install.

Steve

[palscan]

thanks everyone for all your advice,

steve, i think perhaps the paragons route is the best one, i didn't realise boot camp can only create one extra partition, and i don't think i need to get into the complications of having lots of partitions. Does this mean that OSX generally doesn't support multiple partitions (when i say support i mean allow to create), even in external/ data drives. i have always run 4 or 5 partitions on my pc simply to keep physical partition sizes down but also to keep things tidy -

for example - my desktop boots off of a 40gb partition on an 80gb IDE drive. the other 40gb is where i install my programs. then i have a 250gb IDE drive for data storage and that is equally partitioned into 3 - a partition for my work, one for media (music films etc) and one as a download/ back-up/software-file drive.

the main reason for doing this sort of thing on a PC is for efficiency, ideally you want data and the OS on different IDE channels to reduce bottle necks. if you're using the adobe packages it's also good to put the scratch drive on a different physical drive. finally smaller partitions (as opposed to lumping data across the whole disk) reduces file fragmentations. i don't know how HFS works with cluster sizes etc... so perhaps this sort of thing doesn't apply to macs. my intention would be to store data on an external firewire 800. ultimately i would want to get two or three and stripe them (with or without parity) using an eSATA 34 card and use the internal drive for the OS only. so i'm probably looking at getting a lacie d2 quarda.

would i have to use Refit to to partition the external drive too?

thanks again

[ghporter]

OS X supports as many partitions as you might want. It's the fact that Boot Camp is designed for non-technical people to be able to do a very technically involved thing-dual boot into two radically different operating systems.

For running Windows on a Mac, I'd use a relatively modest partition-30-40GB should be fine for XP-and then use an external drive for any substantial data files. Partition size is not a real problem with XP on NTFS partitions-the file system is good enough to prevent too much slack from building up, and when you can buy half a terabyte for less than $200 any day of the week, worrying about a little slack space is sort of like worrying about dropping 3 pennies while on your "round the world cruise." No big deal at all. "Tidiness" can be managed by simply using folders wisely.

My Windows machines have typically had at least three partitions-one for the OS, one for programs, and the third for user files. But easy access to external storage has made that pretty irrelevant. I can have a full backup of the entire XP partition on an external drive that I just put away (I have collected quite a few sub-100GB ATA drives over the years) so the purpose behind multiple partitions-the ability to restore a goobered up XP installation-is now handled more efficiently with a complete backup. Oh, and OS X can read NTFS natively (it can't write to NTFS natively but that's not important right now), so you can rescue your recent, not-yet-backed up data before you restore the partition.

The idea of having your OS on a different IDE channel than your programs or data used to be helpful, at least before ATA 133 was common. But your Intel Mac has a SATA drive so this issue is irrelevant. File fragmentation is also not a big concern either.

[silver]

@palscan OS X supports multiple partitions, what I was saying is that Boot Camp app(in utility folder) can only make 1 extra partition.

rEFIt is a bootloader, use the supplied Disk Utility app to create your partitions.

For OS X you run into fewer problems with fragments than FAT32 and NTFS as HFS+ handles defraging on the fly to a certain degree.

[palscan]

great,

i think that answers most of my questions...

thanks a lot for all your help guys