External Firewire drive

N

nemac

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I have an external dirve tha I can connect iether via USB or Firewire. I partitioned the drive into two partitions. Each partition is 150 GB in size. One partition is NTFS (I still have a windows box), the other half has not been defined for the Mac yet, hence my question. How can I configure that partition so that I can use it on the Mac?

TIA

Javier
 
Mac OS X can only READ NTFS formatted drives (thanks to that Microsoft proprietary file system). You can get the free (but limited) NTFS-3G or Google's MacFuse. But who wants to bend your Mac to Windows. Format that drive back to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and get MacDrive for that Windows box.:)
 
With MacDrive, should I leave the drive with just one NTFS partition and still be able to write to it with the Mac? I want to use the external drive with TimeMachine. Will this work?
 
Ok, I have been playing with Linux for some years now and to add a new partition in Linux, you first use "fdisk" to create the new partition on any hard drive. Then you use "makefs" to create the file system on the new partition you created. Finally you add and entry into the "fstab" so that the new partition can be mounted every time you boot the box. I would assume the same would be true with Max OS X.
Am I correct in assuming this? The other thing I would need to know is the device name where the drive is mounted. In Linux I would be able to type in "dmesg" to look at messages displayed while booting up which would include the hard drives found. Is there an equivalent command in Mac OS X?

Thanks
 
Mac OS X automatically mounts all available and readable filesystems at startup. You can use the UNIX "mount" command to force-mount filesystems.
 
OK, that being the case do I have to buy an external hard drive that is already formated for the Mac? or is there a command to format a new partition for the Mac?
 
You use Disk Utility (located in /Applications/Utilities) to format a hard drive. If the drive does not show up in Disk Utility, then something else is wrong.

You can use the standard UNIX commands (fdisk) to partition the disk if you like, but Disk Utility is a much easier way of accomplishing the same thing.
 
I opened up a terminal session and poked around looking for "fdisk" and "makefs". I found the "fdisk" command and it does what I would expect it to do. I did not find any command that jumped out at me that would create a filesystem. I then powered up the USB2.0/Firewire external drive. The drive has two partitions. The first partition is formated for NTFS, and the second partition has not been formated in anyway shape or form. I plugged the external drive via the Firewire port and looked at the "Console" window for any message regarding a newly added drive. Non was found. Then I did as you suggested. I looked at the "Applications/Utilities" and started the "Disk Utility". Again I was not able to see a second HD. All I see there is the DVD drive and the the original HD.

Am I to understand that I need to remove all partitions from the external drive (USB2.0/Firewire) then plug it into the mac at which point I can use the disk utility to create a partition to be used with the mac and then plug external drive to Window box to create a new partition to be formated in NTFS?

TIA
 
Well I have experimented with the USB drive. First I mounted on the Windows box and backed up all of the data to an internal drive. Then I removed the partition off the USB drive. I then mounted the drive on the Mac and went to the "Disk Utility". The mac recognized the drive at this point. I first created two partitions and then realized that after it was formated in HFS, I could change it to FAT32, so what I did was remove both partitions and created one large partition which was HFS which I later converted to FAT32. At this time, I was asked if I wanted to use this drive with "Time Machine". I did not accept the option. I then unmounted the drive from the Mac and mounted it on the WIndows machine. Guess what, Windows did not recognize the drive. When I used Windows "Drive Manager" it should the drive was not configured yet. Since I have three Window boxes that depend on this backup drive and only one Mac machine I opted to reconfigure the drive with NTFS filesystem. I guess I will have to break down and purchase a second USB drive for the Mac. While this may cost me, in the long run I think it is the only safe thing to do. Thank you all for all your help.
 
nemac said:
With MacDrive, should I leave the drive with just one NTFS partition and still be able to write to it with the Mac? I want to use the external drive with TimeMachine. Will this work?
Click to expand...

No. With MacDrive on the Windows' box you can format the drive MacOS Extended(Journaled). MacDrive on the Windows' box will make Windows XP/Vista read/write to that drive as if it was a native format. This way either machine can use the drive but the external still could be used as a Time Machine (because Time Machine needs MacOS Extended).

Disk Formats:

OS X: MacOS Extended(Journaled) : Macs read/write (native file format). The API's for this is open source in the public Darwin.

Windows XP/Vista: NTFS read/write (native file format): OS X CAN ONLY READ NTFS because Microsoft will not release API's for it.

Windows old format with 4G file limit (per file), FAT32. OS X through years of tinkering can read/write FAT32.


OS X is base on the open BSD Unix. This is why the makers of MacDrive can make such stable drivers for Windows XP/Vista to read/write Mac OS Extended (HFS+) formated drives. Microsoft DOES NOT release the APIs to anyone to read/write NTFS. Think DRM laws then you will grow up and understand Microsoft and their APIs are VERY restrictive! This with the continuing loss to open source in the server markets and Microsoft is in panic mode and are becoming MORE restrictive! So don't expect miracles in writing to NTFS formats soon.
 
Great, thanks I will look into the software. The drive is only a 350GB drive but that should be sufficient to backup all the machines to one drive since I only backup the documents and anything of value from the Window boxes.
 
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