Partitioning current TM Drive for use in windows help?

[superman666]

I have a pretty small internal HD partition for Bootcamp (around 20-28GB), and I want to purchase Age of Conan. Because it requires like 30 or so GB's, I was thinking maybe i could install it to my 500GB external...

HOWEVER...

My external HD uses Time Machine... so I have no idea where to start. Basically i'm thinking of partitioning my current external so that some of it is recognizable by mac (and therfore i can use TM), and some if it is recognizable by windows (so i can install AoC to it).

Now, can you tell me if this is even possible? And if so, how can I do this... I want to be really careful with partitioning because i'm pretty sure all current TM files get deleted? Again I don't even know...

Thanks in advance

 

[superman666]

Common I really need to figure this out before i buy the game... Will anyone (unless you want to spam WoW gold...) reply?

 

[iToaster]

You might want to try using Disk Utility to partition the external drive to the required size and then see if you can format it so Windows can read it (FAT 32 if you can, but I'm not sure if you can use Windows to format that into NTFS).

 

[superman666]

Which would be better: NTFS or FAT... Isn't there a certain limit for one of them (i'm gonna need around 30GB..)

BTW thanks for responding

 

[blogfooyung]

Option 1) *Highly* recommend buying iPartition as it can create two partitions on your external drive without destroying data plus it can resize them anytime you want. However, it's $50 so it may or may not be worth it.

Option 2) Use Disk Utility to format the drive into two partitions - one in HFS+ so you can still use TM and one in FAT so you can use it in Windows. Once this is done, go into TM and do a full backup since partitioning will erase all your data, then boot into Windows to format the FAT partition into NTFS.

 

[iToaster]

Partitioning in Leopard will not erase you data (OP, I'm assuming you're using Leopard here). I know Disk Utility should be able to do FAT 32, but that has a 4 Gb file size limit, so I would then recommend you see if Windows can transform that into NTFS.

 

[superman666]

Well I am using leopard - and you say doing a partition doesn't erase data? I've never heard that before...

If that's not true Ipartition seems like a very good option. But if by using leopard partitioning my TM drive doesn't remove data that obviously seems like the best option...?

Anyways, so yea if i partition one part of the external as FAT, you say there is a 4GB maximum? That's not an option, is there a way that i can work around that?

Really appreciate the responses

 

[superman666]

Ok sorry for double posting but i didn't feel like editing:

Approve my plan/Tell me what's wrong with it:

1. Partition external 500GB drive, so part of it remains the TM drive, and about 60GB will be in FAT format. Supposedly this will not result in any data loss... but again i would like some confirmation on that or something.

2. I will boot in windows and using this site:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307881
I will convert the FAT formatting to NTFS formatting. This should result in no data loss.

3. I will install 30GB of AoC awesomeness and play when in proximity of the External.

Sound good?

 

[blogfooyung]

Step 1 will only work with iPartition. Disk Utility can't create new partitions without destroying data, it can only resize partitions that are already there. The rest of it sounds good.

Ok sorry for double posting but i didn't feel like editing:

Approve my plan/Tell me what's wrong with it:

1. Partition external 500GB drive, so part of it remains the TM drive, and about 60GB will be in FAT format. Supposedly this will not result in any data loss... but again i would like some confirmation on that or something.

2. I will boot in windows and using this site:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307881
I will convert the FAT formatting to NTFS formatting. This should result in no data loss.

3. I will install 30GB of AoC awesomeness and play when in proximity of the External.

Sound good?

 

[Slip]

I'm in the same boat as the OP, I'm on Leopard and want to partition my 320GB external drive into 315GB Mac OS Extended and have 5GB as MS-DOS just so I can transfer some files to my Windows PC and so really just want confirmation that it'll just format 5GB of the unused space (around 80GB) into MS-DOS without damaging any of my other files on there; losing them would be a... nuisance, to say the least.
Cheers.
And oh, sorry for dragging up an old thread.

 

[logana]

I'm in the same boat as the OP, I'm on Leopard and want to partition my 320GB external drive into 315GB Mac OS Extended and have 5GB as MS-DOS just so I can transfer some files to my Windows PC and so really just want confirmation that it'll just format 5GB of the unused space (around 80GB) into MS-DOS without damaging any of my other files on there; losing them would be a... nuisance, to say the least.
Cheers.
And oh, sorry for dragging up an old thread.

In Leopard would it not be easier/simpler to use BootCamp to create the windows partition on the external and then just forget to install Windows on to the partition.....

I am going to give it a try anyway but not for the above reason.

 

[logana]

Ok - just tried it in BootCamp - "you cannot partition an external drive....."

Just to save people trying it...

 

[merl1n]

Step 1 will only work with iPartition. Disk Utility can't create new partitions without destroying data, it can only resize partitions that are already there. The rest of it sounds good.

This is wrong.

Disk Utility can take space from one partition and use that space to create another partition by simply clicking the "+" button in the Partition tab. You can then initialize that partition for MS-DOS (FAT32). This will not destroy any of the data on the existing partition.

MacOS can do the following with Windows partitions:
FAT32 read/write with a maximum file transfer size of 4GB
NTFS read only (unless you use 3rd party software like MacFuse)