[ghporter]

I just got a really nice 250GB external (USB) drive, and I'd like to set it up so that both OS X and Windows (when I get to installing Boot Camp soon) can access it. However, Disk Utility has no option for partitioning with anything that is both GUI bootable (for the Mac) and Windows readable, at least as far as I understand the options.

My idea is to have half of the drive partitioned and formatted for HFS+, and the other half a MBR partition formatted with FAT32 for common access. Will anything in OS X help me do this, or do I need to start asking about this in Applications?

[dmetzcher]

Disk Utility will format the drive as FAT32. You want the "MS-DOS File System" option. Select the drive itself in Disk Utility, and then select the "Erase" or "Partition" tab to get the options you want. Remember that FAT32 has a 4GB file size limit, meaning that no files should be larger than 4GB in size. You can create files on, and copy files to, a FAT32-formatted volume that are larger than 4GB, however, it's not stable and you run the likely risk of data loss.

Another option would be to format the volume as HFS+, and get some software for Windows that will allow you to read and write to the Mac-formatted volume. You get the benefits of formatting the drive as HFS+, and the compatibility of being able to read/write to the volume using Windows.

Yet another option would be to format the drive however you like, and network it, so that you can access it via your home LAN. Mac and Windows can read and write to disks formatted for either OS using networking protocols. However, this option is going to cost you more money (cost of the networking device), and you get slower transfer speeds across your network than you would using the drive's USB connection. It should work nicely if you have two computers (Win and Mac) that need to share one drive, but, in your situation, it's not the best option, because you have one computer and can plug the external drive right into a USB port. Go with one of the above options, and I suggest getting the Windows software to read HFS+ and just formatting the drive as such.

[Tuoder]

You could consider formatting to HFS+ and then using one of those apps that lets you read them in windows. I think windows can handle any of the partitioning arrangements, but not formatting. But then, I tihnk you already understand the formatting situation.

[ghporter]

Thanks for the inputs I didn't go through all the options thoroughly when I played with Disk Utility-it was pretty late on Halloween and I was kind of tired. But I'll play with that when I get a chance.

I have set up one HFS+ partition on the drive and found that Windows doesn't see the drive as being partitioned at all, so that's a bit of a stumbling block. The 4GB file size limitation isn't that big a deal for me, because I'm not planing to do anything that involves such large files with Windows, just some basic stuff for the most part.

Any more suggestions, all?

[ghporter]

Update: I repartitioned the drive by changing the partition type to the MS-DOS compatible scheme, then selected MS-DOS for the format of the second partition and clicked on the "Partition" button. I didn't have any data on the Mac partition yet, so the fact that it rewrote the partition table isn't a problem. I wish I'd been able to see what each of the options actually meant before I got started, but it all worked out in the end.

Thanks for the help.

[dice]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Update: I repartitioned the drive by changing the partition type to the MS-DOS compatible scheme, then selected MS-DOS for the format of the second partition and clicked on the "Partition" button. I didn't have any data on the Mac partition yet, so the fact that it rewrote the partition table isn't a problem. I wish I'd been able to see what each of the options actually meant before I got started, but it all worked out in the end.

Thanks for the help.

Yeah I formatted my external drive to be both FAT32 and HFS+... takes a bit of fiddling, do a search on macosxhints for a guide. You need to manually edit the partition tables so the two formats play nicely... yes its a hack but I havent had any problems yet..... When connected to my mac both partitions show up and when connected to a windows box just the Fat32 partition shows up.

I tried a program for windows that claimed to be able to mount HFS+ but it didnt work very well and caused the system to have random freezes so I chucked it and stuck with the two seperate partitions.