Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

matthew692692

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 11, 2010
2
0
Right, I understand that Mac OS X can only read NTFS files but can a Windows partition using Bootcamp that is an NTFS drive read and write NTFS files? And will it therefore be able to access my files on my NTFS external hard drive?
If you dont understand my question, please ask.
 
The question doesn't really make sense: a Windows partition is just a disk partition: it can't really do anything.

What I suspect you mean to ask is: "If I use Bootcamp to partition my drive, install a legal, licensed copy of Windows on that partition and then boot into Windows can I access an external NTFS drive for read and write?". Then the answer is yes: you are running Windows. Mac OSX has nothing to do with it anymore. It's just like being on a PC.
 
Your 'windows partition' will have full native read/write capabilities with an NTFS disk (and FAT).

OSX natively can only read NTFS partitions; however if you install NTFS-3G you will be able to write to NTFS drives (this will not work on Snow Leopard 64bit as there is no 64bit MAC Fuse driver so you will have to boot into with a flag forcing it to boot in 32 bit mode).
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.