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Format / partition extrenal hard drive for mac and pc

dougens

dougens

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 22, 2007
88
0
London
I'm new to mac and want to partition my 90gb external hard drive to 10gb Fat32 (read/write for pc) and 80gb to ntfs (read/write mac) so i can use on both and store etc.

i have been told that this can only be done on a pc. is this correct?
any help on how to carry this out on mac or any info on the different formats greatly appreciated.
thanks.:)
 
dougens said:
I'm new to mac and want to partition my 90gb external hard drive to 10gb Fat32 (read/write for pc) and 80gb to ntfs (read/write mac) so i can use on both and store etc.

i have been told that this can only be done on a pc. is this correct?
any help on how to carry this out on mac or any info on the different formats greatly appreciated.
thanks.:)
Click to expand...

Just a precisation: are you sure you meant ntfs for use with the mac? Maybe you meant HFS+ since ntfs is read only on mac.

Disk utility should be able to handle that.
 
Also, 90 gigs? Thats a wierd size. Why not get a 500 for under 100 bucks?

I don't know if the capability has been added in leopard, because I haven't tried, but I know that before, it was pretty complicated to get one FAT32 or NTFS partition and one HFS partition onto a single drive.

Please, someone correct me if Leopard can do this now...

I do remember seeing something over at MacOSXHints.com about this. Good luck.
 
i dont really know to be honest, thats why am asking.....
i don't know what hfs is??
i do have a 500gb hard drive but is useable on both already.

i am wanting to format 10gb for pc and 80gb for mac.

i am using the 80gb for running sessions of pro tools as am sound engineer.

any help on how to thanks..
 
Just format the whole HD to FAT32 and you can read/write the same files for both systems. You could just setup 2 main folders (Windows and Mac) and go from there.
 
Julien said:
Just format the whole HD to FAT32 and you can read/write the same files for both systems. You could just setup 2 main folders (Windows and Mac) and go from there.
Click to expand...

If there are no other reasons to have different partition for windows and mac this is the easiest option.
 
HFS is the Apple file system that OS X uses.

Mac can read/write HFS/HFS+
Mac can read/write FAT32 (Windows)
Mac can only read NTFS (Windows - preferred Windows partition type)

Your 500gb that is usable on both is most definitely formatted for FAT32.

Ideally you'd like to take this 90 gig drive and go 80 HFS+ and 10 FAT32...However, as I said before, it's pretty difficult to do and I never successfully got it to work.

If you just want to make 2 FAT32 partitions of 10gb and 80gb then you can use Disk Utility in Applications/Utilities on your Mac to do that.

The biggest thing about HFS, is that you can use/create/save files over 4gb (like you can w/ NTFS). With FAT32 you are absolutely limited for 4gb max file size.

If someone could enlighten him on any additional advantages of HFS?
 
i do want a partition.

i think if i use disk utility to partition 10gb to MS-DOS File System and 80gb to Mac OS Extended Journaled this would work?

as there are no other options in disk utility for FAT32??

thanks for replies:confused:
 
dougens said:
i do want a partition.

i think if i use disk utility to partition 10gb to MS-DOS File System and 80gb to Mac OS Extended Journaled this would work?

as there are no other options in disk utility for FAT32??

thanks for replies:confused:
Click to expand...
MS-DOS File System is just Apple's name for FAT32, and yes, this will work. Do beware though - FAT32 has a 4GB limit on individual files. If you try to store a file larger than 4GB to a FAT32 drive or partition, it will fail.
 
i will only be using the fat32 or MS dos etc for movies pics etc so 4gb limit is ok.
but will use larger files for hfs.. this will be possible i take it?
thanks
 
Since when are you able to make 2 partitons on the same drive with different partition types when using HFS and FAT32 within Disk Utility? I've never successfully accomplished this.
 
agentphish said:
Since when are you able to make 2 partitons on the same drive with different partition types when using HFS and FAT32 within Disk Utility? I've never successfully accomplished this.
Click to expand...

Yeah i just tried it and no MS DOS option to partition?

any help again please?
thanks
 
yes you are correct

when i try to partition the drive the only options are as follows:

Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)
Mac OS X Extended
Mac OS X Extended (Case Sensitive - Journaled)
Mac OS X Extended (Case Sensitive)
Unix File System
Free Space

I am running OS X Tiger 10.4.11 on macbook pro 2.33ghz 2gb ram

any help again thanks:confused:
 
have noticed that in options in disk utility when i choose either one of the following:
GUID Partition Table
Master Boot Record
the MS_DOS partition option is there

but with the default option setting "Apple Partition Map" there is no MS-DOS option there.

does anyone know which one is best to choose or if they will harm the drive in any way.cant find much info online about it.
thanks.
 
With the Terminal and something like this you should be able to do it:

diskutil partitionDisk disk1 2 MBRFormat MS-DOS WINPART 80G HFS+ Macpart 10G

IMPORTANT disk1 must be replaced with the device name of the disk to format!!!
Notice the MBRFormat (the disk won't probably be bootable in OS X).

If you are not comfortable with terminal commands i suggest you find another solution.
 
misterredman said:
With the Terminal and something like this you should be able to do it:

diskutil partitionDisk disk1 2 MBRFormat MS-DOS WINPART 80G HFS+ Macpart 10G

IMPORTANT disk1 must be replaced with the device name of the disk to format!!!
Notice the MBRFormat (the disk won't probably be bootable in OS X).

If you are not comfortable with terminal commands i suggest you find another solution.
Click to expand...

sorry i do not understand that at all.but at the minute i have no other solution.
could you explain if have time?
thanks very much
 
Sure I can explain ;) but:

IMPORTANT: if you make a mistake you could end up deleting all your data on the mac so be sure to know what you are doing.

It's a command that you should write in the Terminal application. It will open the diskutil application and tell it to create two partitions that should be like you specified above. Each piece of that command is an instruction for that program.

What you need to know is the name of the device you want to partition and replace "disk1" in the previous command.


A way to find out the name is to disconnect the drive, open the Terminal application (you can find it under Applications/Utility/Terminal) and type in the Terminal:

diskutil list

notice what is there then connect your external drive and type

diskutil list

another time. Now you should have at least one more entry. This should be the external drive. What interest you is the "Identifier" column. Take note of the value for the new entry (should be something like "disk1" or with another number).
Try doing this first, it won't do any harm and report what you got each time.
 
Hey. this totally works!!
i have a MacBook 160GB and ive been trying to find a way to get my sister & dad's XPs backed up and my Iomega HD. when i plugged it in the drive was recognized by the PC but no volumes showed up. not the case on the Mac since its pre-formated for it. ive been looking for this for bout 2 weeks but in all the wrong places.

i didn't try the terminal thing but the partitioning the drive and then put them all with the "GUID partiton table" option and one of them in the MS-DOS format worked for me...
the MS-DOS partition is read/writable on both Mac and PC and all of the volumes are bootable.
friggin perfect!!:p
thanks for the post!!!:apple:
♪37v♪
 
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