Bimmer Posted June 2, 2006 Share Posted June 2, 2006 I need some help deciding the best way to share a USB Harddrive, for use with OS X/WinXP. Should format drive as NTFS or HFS from Apple? I need to beable to read and write from both operating systems. Any help would be great!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aqualeviathan Posted June 2, 2006 Share Posted June 2, 2006 I need some help deciding the best way to share a USB Harddrive, for use with OS X/WinXP. Should format drive as NTFS or HFS from Apple? I need to beable to read and write from both operating systems. Any help would be great!!!!! I'd use FAT32. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgrimes80 Posted June 2, 2006 Share Posted June 2, 2006 I'd use FAT32. I second the motion... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bimmer Posted June 2, 2006 Author Share Posted June 2, 2006 I think, with Fat32, I can't have files larger than 4gb. How would I get around that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ampTK Posted June 2, 2006 Share Posted June 2, 2006 you cant unless: you install macdrive (or similar) and use HFS+ you access the drive trough a network and use NTFS You use the unreliable and limited command-line write support for ntfs on OS X Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddd Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 you cant unless: you install macdrive (or similar) and use HFS+ you access the drive trough a network and use NTFS You use the unreliable and limited command-line write support for ntfs on OS X How about creating two partitions? the first one FAT32 and the second an HFS+, then when XP pings the drive the frst partition will announce itself, but the HFS+ will remain unseen. Does this work? try using ipartition and and then format the FAT32 partition with terminal by: 1. Run Disk Utility (in Applications/Utilities). Make a note of the name it gives your partition. It will be something like "disk3s3". 2. Now run the Terminal application (again in Applications/Utilities). 3. Type: newfs_msdos /dev/r<name of partition> (use the name you saw above prefixed with "/dev/r" e.g. newfs_msdos /dev/rdisk3s3 4. Now go back to Disk Utility, select the partition and click the Mount icon. That's it. You should now have a working FAT32 partition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BRP Posted June 3, 2006 Share Posted June 3, 2006 you cant unless: you install macdrive (or similar) and use HFS+ you access the drive trough a network and use NTFS You use the unreliable and limited command-line write support for ntfs on OS X These are pretty much your three good options here (barring giving up on the 4GB thing and just going with the FAT32... not that Windows will let you try to make a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB; for that you will have to look elsewhere, and I only know how to get around it in Linux). Or you could be REALLY silly and run ext2! If I remember correctly, it's neither easy nor practical to have an HFS and a FAT32 partition on the same hard disk. You can do it, sure, but lots of things will expect either the Mac partion table or the PC partition table and go all M-M-M-MINDBREAK!! if you mix the two. Not to mention you won't really have the same data on either. You could also earnestly hope that 10.5 will have NTFS write support and wait until it comes out.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluedragon1971 Posted June 4, 2006 Share Posted June 4, 2006 Your only two real options are FAT32 or HFS+. If you go with FAT32, you will need to format it from the Mac Disk Utility (select the DOS formatting option, that will make it FAT32). Of course, you will inherit all of the limitations of FAT32, such as no support for files larger than 4GB and you won't be able to properly store some types of Mac files there (namely most applications). If you decide to use HFS+, you will simply need to install MacDrive under Windows in order to have read/write support. PM me if you need help finding a copy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thangsang Posted June 5, 2006 Share Posted June 5, 2006 The new Mac OS x 10.4.6 Goatsecx version worked for me cooly. It was able to read and write files from my windows NTFS partition. I've not tried using the FAT 32 system as mine has been NTFS from the start. So I think you better stick with NTFS which will support your 4gb large files also.. good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bimmer Posted June 6, 2006 Author Share Posted June 6, 2006 Thanks for the help!!! I went with HFS+ and Macdrive, works great!!! Thanks again!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbd Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 good choice. it's the best solution, imo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
domino Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 If I remember correctly, it's neither easy nor practical to have an HFS and a FAT32 partition on the same hard disk. You can do it, sure, but lots of things will expect either the Mac partion table or the PC partition table and go all M-M-M-MINDBREAK!! if you mix the two. Not to mention you won't really have the same data on either. I don't see why not. I have Linux, XP, and OS X, and a 10gig dab of FAT32 sharing the same 80gig drive. I'm more hoping to get EXT2/3 supported under OS X for obviouse reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BRP Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 But on an external hard drive? Not talking about dual booting... ;; Talking about interoperability. I do get sort of annoyed with the older versions of Windoze that you gotta use on the older computers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
domino Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 But on an external hard drive? Not talking about dual booting... ;; Point taken. I'm still waiting for a 500gig external drive bay, so I have to assume that both internal (SATA/IDE) and USB Drives have no problem with mixing file systems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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