External hard disk, Format System, Itunes and Front Row

Graf Spee

Registered
Hello! I am a new switcher! The new macbook is my first mac!
But I have some problems...

1) I had an external drive of 250 gb full of mp3, movies etc. I had formatted it in 8 (x28 gb) partitions with FAT32 system so that I can read/write in MacOs and Windows. But as I was trying to learn the itunes program, my mp3 partition was ruined
Now I will format again my external hard disk and I wanted to ask you if the NTFS is much more safer and reliable than the FAT 32 for MacOS X. I know that I cannot write files in the NTFS formatted disk through MacOs X so I am planning to create my archive in 3 NTFS partitions for read/write in Windows (BootCamp! ) and only read in MacOS (don't forget that it's just an archive). I will only add an small (30 gb) partition with FAT32 so that I can transfer files from MacOs through the disk for editing.Is this a SAFE and RELIABLE choice?

2) Another thing I would like to ask, is about itunes and front row. I want to take advantage of the superb remote control! I know that I can create folders in my external disk with movie files and create an alias of these in the movies folder of the MacOS HD so that I can see them in the Front Row menu. So simple and it works even with NTFS formatted disk. But I cannot find a way to do so with mp3 files. I mean, create a folder in the external hard disk (in NTFS through Windows) entitle it "U2" and throw in some songs. Then, create an alias in Macos X of the volume (you cannot do it for a folder since it is NTFS, so no editing) and put it WHERE so that you can see it in the Front Row menu as a U2 folder with all the song inside??? Of course no transfer of the songs in the macbook hard disk. Just the alias.

Sorry if this was too complicated, but I've been searching it for many days now and found no solution. Feel free to ask anything that you don't understand.

Thank you!!
 
Unfortunately, NTFS is read-only on Mac OS X and all other operating systems that aren't from Microsoft, so if you plan on moving stuff from the Mac to there you'll be out of luck. NTFS is closed rather tightly as opposed to FAT/FAT32, which is why most flash drives and other storage peripherals are not formatted in NTFS. The other unfortunate thing is that FAT32 doesn't like large partitions and might corrupt your data.

If you're not going to copy stuff to the NTFS drive from the Mac OS X side, then I guess you can give NTFS a go.
 
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