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ChiMon

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 30, 2006
11
0
I am installing Boot Camp and I'm wondering about the partition size. I heard that if the Windows partition is a certain size (32 Gig ??) files can be accessed by both Windows and Mac OS X. Does anyone have experience with this? Thanks in advance.
 
If the size is under 32 GB it can be accessed through Mac OS X. as for the size, it really depends on your needs. I just did a 10 GB partition for the windows installation because I'm installing everything else I need on an external hard drive. If you need to install applications on the same drive then I would do more than ten.

--Andrzej
 
aplasticspork said:
If the size is under 32 GB it can be accessed through Mac OS X...
--Andrzej

That's not quite true - for clarification, if you make your XP partition smaller than 32GB you can format it using FAT32, which can be written to by Mac OS X. If it is larger than 32GB, you must format it using NTFS, which cannot be written to by OS X, only read.
 
McKellar said:
That's not quite true - for clarification, if you make your XP partition smaller than 32GB you can format it using FAT32, which can be written to by Mac OS X. If it is larger than 32GB, you must format it using NTFS, which cannot be written to by OS X, only read.

How do I format the partition using FAT32? Can the partition be 32GB or does it actually need to be smaller, say 30GB?

I also like the idea of the external hard drive.
 
ChiMon said:
How do I format the partition using FAT32? Can the partition be 32GB or does it actually need to be smaller, say 30GB?

I also like the idea of the external hard drive.

I found the answer to my question in the Boot Camp start up guide. The partition can be 32GB or less.

Here's another question: The guide states that NTFS format is more reliable and secure. Are there any concerns about using the FAT format?
 
changing partition size

Once you run bootcamp and install windows, can you increase the size of the partition from say 10GB to 20Gb or do you have to erase the partition and start from scratch?
 
iwamas said:
Once you run bootcamp and install windows, can you increase the size of the partition from say 10GB to 20Gb or do you have to erase the partition and start from scratch?

You can't increase it once you've set... if you can it'd be some odd form of trickery.
 
SilentPanda said:
You can't increase it once you've set... if you can it'd be some odd form of trickery.

I believe you can. I will try to find a link, but I am pretty sure it is possible.
 
ChiMon said:
Are there any concerns about using the FAT format?
Cons: FAT32 is generally more prone to fragmentation and has a 4GB limit on file size.

Pros: Any OS can read/write FAT32.

B
 
yankeefan24 said:
I believe you can. I will try to find a link, but I am pretty sure it is possible.


Any luck finding that link? I wanna increase the size of my BC partition w/out losing the current data on it....
 
Dopeyman said:
Any luck finding that link? I wanna increase the size of my BC partition w/out losing the current data on it....


He's right, there is no way to do this.

FAT32 is essentially useless... at least to anyone planning on using large filetypes. If you have a file larger than 4 gigs it can not be written or moved to the drive if it's in FAT32. Get MacDrive for your windows side, and put everything on an external drive. That way the drive is formatted in HFS+ (mac format) and your windows machine can access it with full functionality (that's what MacDrive does, it's at www. mediafour.com)
 
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