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badlydrawn · Oct 29, 2006, 05:04 AM

Hi everyone,

First time poster, new to mac as well, so just a thanks so far for some insightful information this forum has provided me with already! However, all this information has also overloaded me slightly, so apologies that this thread is mainly a repeat of many many threads that have been posted already. I tried reading them all but became further lost, so I appreciate greatly for any help.

My problem:
2 HDD, Drive A, Drive B.
Drive A, didicated OS X (unchanged from purchase)
Drive B, NTFS WinXP (unintentionally)

The only way I can access WinXP, is making it the startup disk in System Perfs, and when I want to change back to OSX, I have to press Command, Option, P and R right at startup and wait for two tones. I am unsure, but I think this isn't how bootcamp works, or?

System is a MacPro with newest firmware and OX build, Boot camp is also the latest, WinXP is SP, and all drivers were installed in XP.

Now, what I would like is to make Drive B (500gigs) into two partition, a 50 WinXP system partition and the rest as a shared partition with Fat32. However from reading the threads here, I have come to believe that this isn't possible due to bootcamp. Are there any work arounds, or is there a possibility to have Drive B entirely as Fat32, so its shared and one partition? During XP setup, I wasn't able to format to Fat32.

So, I hope I kinda made my dilemma clear. It would be great if someone could help me or at least point me in the right direction. Thanks a lot.

badlydrawn

badlydrawn · Nov 2, 2006, 12:31 PM

A polite bump.
A short one liner would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. : )

justinkim · Nov 2, 2006, 12:58 PM

FAT32 is limited to partition sizes smaller than 32gig, so you won't be able to format that 500 gig drive as lone large FAT32 partition.

You may want to try partitioning drive B with Apple's disk utility and then re-formatting the resulting partitions during the XP install, but I don't know how well/if that will work. Pursue at your own risk.

As for the startup, have you tried holding down the Option key when booting your machine? Press it down from the moment you power up your machine. You should be presented with an option of which OS you want to boot into.

Tomchu · Nov 2, 2006, 01:10 PM

FAT32 very well supports sizes above 32 GB -- it's simply an artificial limit in XP that prevents you from formatting >32 GB volumes as FAT32. Microsoft wants you using NTFS, because it's a lot more reliable, and higher-performing.

badlydrawn · Nov 5, 2006, 09:54 AM

Thanks for the replies!

Yeah I tried doing that, formatting HDD Drive B and then trying to install XP on it as Fat32 but after installation finished Bootcamp wouldn't recognise the Fat32 drive with XP on it, even though it only had 1 partition.

As for the Optioned pressed startup for choice, that also somehow doesn't work, there is no choice. The only way to move from OSX to XP is to select startup disk in system prefs and then when back to OSX, hit Option-Command-P-R combo till two chimes.

This is a bit crap for me as I don't want to have a 500GB drive that can only be used by one OS, so I might keep my XP temp and hope Apple sort out its bootcamp. Running XP in VM mode is no option as I need 3D acceleration.

discotronic · Nov 5, 2006, 01:42 PM

Originally Posted by badlydrawn

Thanks for the replies!

Yeah I tried doing that, formatting HDD Drive B and then trying to install XP on it as Fat32 but after installation finished Bootcamp wouldn't recognise the Fat32 drive with XP on it, even though it only had 1 partition.

As for the Optioned pressed startup for choice, that also somehow doesn't work, there is no choice. The only way to move from OSX to XP is to select startup disk in system prefs and then when back to OSX, hit Option-Command-P-R combo till two chimes.

This is a bit crap for me as I don't want to have a 500GB drive that can only be used by one OS, so I might keep my XP temp and hope Apple sort out its bootcamp. Running XP in VM mode is no option as I need 3D acceleration.

While under Windows, go into the Contol Panel. There is a Startup disk option there. Does that work?

ghporter · Nov 5, 2006, 02:23 PM

Originally Posted by Tomchu

FAT32 very well supports sizes above 32 GB -- it's simply an artificial limit in XP that prevents you from formatting >32 GB volumes as FAT32. Microsoft wants you using NTFS, because it's a lot more reliable, and higher-performing.

Actually it's a limit of the formatting tool in Win2k, which is the formatting tool in the XP installer. You can have a HUGE FAT32 partition if you want, up to "approximately 8 terabytes." You CAN use some other tool to format a very large drive with FAT32 under XP.

discotronic, what "startup disk" option are you talking about under XP? There's nothing like that in Windows that I'm aware of.

badlydrawn, the latest version of Boot Camp specifically supports booting from any internal drive-maybe you should download this and upgrade.

Tomchu · Nov 5, 2006, 03:36 PM

Yeah, that's more or less what I said ...

I never implied that XP couldn't use >32 GB FAT32 volumes. :-P

ghporter · Nov 5, 2006, 06:33 PM

Originally Posted by Tomchu

Yeah, that's more or less what I said ...

I never implied that XP couldn't use >32 GB FAT32 volumes. :-P

Well it didn't confuse me, but I thought it might confuse others. XP is worlds better than Win2K in so many things, it makes you wonder why they used a brain-damaged formatting tool in the install package.

As far as I know, the only real stumbling block with FAT32 is that it can't handle very large files-and 4GB ain't too much to expect out of a particularly complex home-brew DVD, or any number of other valid and interesting uses for storage.

Anyway, it's all cool.

Tomchu · Nov 5, 2006, 07:30 PM

They use a brain-damaged formatting tool because most people installing XP from scratch are brain-damaged as far as computers go.

Your file size limit example is just one of many why using FAT32 would bite most unsuspecting users in the butt. NTFS is simply better, and Microsoft is pushing people to use it.

Computer users are resistant to change. :-(

Art Vandelay · Nov 5, 2006, 07:46 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

discotronic, what "startup disk" option are you talking about under XP? There's nothing like that in Windows that I'm aware of.

Apple provides one with their Boot Camp drivers CD for XP. It's very much like the one in OS X.

badlydrawn · Nov 6, 2006, 12:42 PM

ghporter: Cool thanks, will have a look at the newest Bootcamp.

Art Vandelay: Didn't know about the startup disk, thanks for the heads up with that - it was really stressing me out having to press that button combo everytime I wanted to get back to OSX.

Yeah, it would be great if OSX could finally write on NTFS drives, as most of my data is on that, so now I am having to make double copies of things I need on both OSes. But anyhow, as long as I can switch from FAT32 for HDD Drive B, I am a happy camper.

ghporter · Nov 6, 2006, 03:20 PM

Originally Posted by Art Vandelay

Apple provides one with their Boot Camp drivers CD for XP. It's very much like the one in OS X.

Ah. I've been up to my armpits in papers for school for the last ummm....since before I got the MBP, so I haven't had the time to take the machine out of commission long enough to install Boot Camp, and thus I haven't seen all the bells and whistles yet... Thanks for the info.