1 TB Drive = OSX and Windows For Games = How To?

[MrPDaddyHimself]

I'm waiting on my new 3.2 MP with 8800GT, RAID card and 4 1-TB Drives. One of those drives I'd like to use as my OS disc obviously. But I'd like to partition it to run OSX on half, and Windows on the other. Can anyone post a link for the best how to scenario? I will only be using the Windows partition for games. And, with that said, which version of Windows should I purchase. Keep in mind I am not a PC person. I've worked with Macs forever. Thanks for any help, links or suggestions.

[Neil321]

me id buy a OEM version of xp pro something like

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132195

[dcubed20]

why would you want to have two concurrent installs of mac os?

[a456]

I'd buy a Nintendo Wii.

[Bennin]

My original order was for the same config as yours. After a little research, I got the stong impression that Apple's RAID card and Bootcamp don't mix. Since no bootcamp would have been a catastrophe for me, I changed my order to 3.0 procs, eliminated the RAID card, and picked up a 30" ACD instead. My rig was delivered Monday and I am awestruck by the magnificence of the whole package. The Windows gaming goodness is more than I had even hoped for. :D

[MrPDaddyHimself]

My original order was for the same config as yours. After a little research, I got the stong impression that Apple's RAID card and Bootcamp don't mix. Since no bootcamp would have been a catastrophe for me, I changed my order to 3.0 procs, eliminated the RAID card, and picked up a 30" ACD instead. My rig was delivered Monday and I am awestruck by the magnificence of the whole package. The Windows gaming goodness is more than I had even hoped for. :D

If I am only running the RAID on the other three drives it shouldn't make a difference right? I need the MAC OS. Windows would just be a bonus for gaming. That's it.

[MrPDaddyHimself]

why would you want to have two concurrent installs of mac os?

I don't understand the question? I would have Mac OS on one 500GB partition and Windows on one 500GB partition. The other 3 TBs are used for storage and scratch disc space on the Mac OS using a RAID card. That's it.

[Tallest Skil]

why would you want to have two concurrent installs of mac os?

He's saying that he'd use three of the terabyte drives exclusively for OS X and formatted as HFS+ Journaled. On the fourth drive, he'd put a 500GB partition of Windows as NTFS and leave the rest as HFS+ Journaled for OS X to use.

To the OP, get MacFUSE (free, Google it) so that OS X can read/write to Windows formatted drives. MESS WITH NOTHING IN THE SYSTEM FOLDERS, navigate to the Windows desktop from OS X and just drag/drop the things you want there from OS X. It's easier than burning/flash driving things, and cheaper than any seeing solution.

[Bennin]

If I am only running the RAID on the other three drives it shouldn't make a difference right? I need the MAC OS. Windows would just be a bonus for gaming. That's it.

Please don't just take my word for this. I was never able to get a truly definitive answer to the question for myself, but I think that when you commit to Apple's RAID card, all of your drives are then controlled by that card. Even if you don't include a drive in a RAID combination, you are subject to the limitation of not being able to deal with an actual bootcamp partition.

You may want to look into this further in order to avoid being disappointed or feel that you wasted money. In my case, hardware RAID would have offered some nice performance options, but definitely not worth the risk of losing real Windows gaming capability. ;)

[Thunderbird8]

which version of Windows should I purchase.

I am looking at the same deal at present and I have decided on XP purely for gaming, you don't need Vista as an OS, if you have Mac OS already.

It's almost as though the Windows OS is a 'necessary evil' as a purely gaming platform.