Mac and Windows Partitioning

jwennet

jwennet

Registered
Now that I got my external firewire drive back up and running, I was curious to know if it is possible to format it to be used for both Mac and Windows.

Right now it is Mac formatted. Tried partioning it with Apple's disk utility, leaving 30 gigs free space. Then plugged it into my windows machine. Got a message saying it was safe to unplug the drive, but it didn't show up at all.

Any thoughts or comments?

Thanks,

J
 
I think that Mac OS X (Panther) has the ability to read and write to FAT32 volumes, so you may want to try formatting the entire drive on the PC as FAT32 and then plugging it into the Mac to see if the Mac can see it.
 
I've heard that before. What I'm would like to do is use the drive to back up both computers. Would I be able to write my Mac files to the drive if it were formatted in FAT 32?
 
You should be able to.

When you had it split into two partitions, did you try using some Windows utility to format the free space to FAT32 or NTFS or something? I would think that'd be the best scheme -- having one partition for the Mac stuff and the other for PC stuff.
 
bobw said:
Format it Fat32 or NTFS for the PC. Panther will read either.
Click to expand...

Will I be able to write to it as well?

I made two partitions with Apple's disk utilility. One Mac Extended, the other Free Space. For some reason in XP home, it can't read the partition, but recognizes that the drive is attached.

How can I partition the drive for Fat 32, and once I do, can I go back into Apple's disk utility and repartition it so that I can have an apple partition?

Thanks,

J
 
I don't have my XP box to check for sure, but there must be some sort of disk utility buried somewhere in those menus... you could try making two partitions on the XP box, then taking the drive over to the Macintosh and firing up Disk Utility and try to reformat just one of those partitions for the Mac.
 
Right click on My Computer, goto Manage, Storage and then Disk Management. Create an NTFS or Fat32 partition in the free space.

You can use Disk Utility to format some disks as Fat32, but I thought it was only supported for smaller sized stuff, like floppys or USB flash drives...
 
Thanks, but I can't get the drive to be seen by XP in the My Computer Window. Whenever I plug the drive in, it gives me an icon in the system tray that says it's safe to remove.
 
Ooops, my bad, had the drive hooked up to Mac when typing last e-mail. Thanks, that seems to be working.
 
You don't right click on the drive, in my computer. you right click on My Computer, on the desktop. there is a menu item called Manage. This is not specifically related to har drives, but to the whole computer.
 
Thanks Pengu, did what you said and got the exact results I needed. My drive is now has a Windows and Mac partition. You rock.

J
 
Am I reading right that it's possible to format one big NTFS partition that can be read/written to by both Mac AND Windows ?


I am also wanting to do something similar (I have a 120 gb drive), would like more space available to my small 30 gig hard drive in the Tibook but also want more space available to my windows machine.

My biggest concern is that of being able to leave my drive (I'm going to make it external) laying out and having it set up so that someone can't just connect it to their system and read the files on any of the partitions...
 
Not totally sure what the answer is. For me to partition my drive for both platforms, I had to first format it as NTSF on my windows machine. (To do that, read a few post up by Pengu, worked like a charm.) Windows will not read a Mac partition. Once reformatted, I set up the partitions. From there, I hooked the drive up to the Mac. Both partitions mounted correctly. I then opened Apple's disk utility and selected the partition I wanted to use for my Mac, and reformatted/erased the partition, creating a Mac partition.

I'm honestly not sure if or how a Mac can write to a windows drive. But as far as security is concerned, there must be a way to password protect the volumes. File Vault in Disk Utility may be the answer.

Hope some of this helps.

Good luck and happy New Year.

J
 
Hi,
I did what you said and it doesn't work for Mac. (I formated the external drive with FAT 32. On mac, there are the external drives and I can put data on them, but they are unreadable.) Anybody has the same experience?

ElDiabloConCaca said:
I think that Mac OS X (Panther) has the ability to read and write to FAT32 volumes, so you may want to try formatting the entire drive on the PC as FAT32 and then plugging it into the Mac to see if the Mac can see it.
Click to expand...
 
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