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worked

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 25, 2007
3
0
Hi there- I have a 1/3 full external drive that is currently formatted for MAC OS External (Journaled). I want to partition the drive in half and use the 2nd partition for Windows FAT32. However, when I try to do this with Disk Utility it does not give me the FAT32 option. Is there a way to do this? Thanks I'm on OSX 10.5.8.
 
I believe the option is MS-DOS FAT, but it is FAT32

Woof, Woof - Dawg
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In addition to the other tips above, make sure you are selecting the Drive in the left hand panel of Disk Utility and not the Volume indented below it.

Select the "Partition" tab and select two partitions under "Volume Scheme". Then resize and select the format of each partition you desire.

If you want to mount the drive on a windows box, click the "Options" tab at the bottom of the window and select "Master Boot Record". Your Mac will be able to mount both the "MS-DOS File System" partition and the "MacOS Extended" partition but a windows box will only mount the "MS-DOS File System" partition. I usually set the dos partition as the first partition.

EDIT: Before you do this, make sure you backup everything on the drive as you will be erasing it's content by re-partitioning.
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Honda VFR400 specifications
 
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got it

So in conclusion, basically I can't format the new 2nd partition (for use on a windows machine) without deleting the current content on the drive? Good to know. Thanks!
 
So in conclusion, basically I can't format the new 2nd partition (for use on a windows machine) without deleting the current content on the drive? Good to know. Thanks!

Not without a third party utility which cost $$$. I don't really trust them that much and you would need to defrag the drive first to move the data and create 'contiguous' free space on the drive which may take as long as copying the data to another drive. :(

One such utility is Drive Genius 2 from Prosoft Engineering.

If you have free space elsewhere, backup and repartition using Disk Utility.

EDIT: and I'm not entirely sure how Drive Genius would handle a "Master Boot Record" partition map, or if it does at all.
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vapormatic vaporizer
 
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