questions on bootcamp, 32GB limit on fat, ntfs drives, etc.

[gman2]

Have a number of questions new to Mac just 17" MBP.

1. Need 80GB Bootcamp partition for windows programs with ability to write to drive (ie ntfs is the only way to get this big of a partition).

2. Terrabytes of photos in NTFS may need to write to these drives they are either sata, usb or firewire.

3. Windows activation issues using bootcamp & vmware. Want to purchase to oem version of xp (home or pro). Already spent enough $.

4. Should I wait for Leopard to do install windows. Just keep using my pc.

Does anyone have a simple solution?

Thanks

 

[yellow]

Sorry to be a stickler but your only question is:

Does anyone have a simple solution?

FWIW, you can create very large FAT32 drives, just not with Windows.
Microsoft crippled the formatting of FAT32 drives on purpose to force folks to move to NTFS.
OS X's Disk Utility allows for the creation of very large FAT32 drives.

 

[TheStu]

OK, if i understand you correctly, you want to partition off 80GB of your hard drive so that you can install Windows onto there. In addition to this, you have multiple terabytes worth of photos and whatnot on external drives, which are formatted NTFS, that you want to be able to access.

Furthermore, you want to have VMWare Fusion installed so you can access said BootCamp partition for when you don't want to restart, and finally you want to know if it would be best to wait for Leopard to do all this.

OK.

Download and install Bootcamp.

Run Bootcamp Assistant, this will let you partition your drive. You can definitely give it 80GB of space (assuming you have that much free ) however, there could be a situation where the OS cannot move files around sufficiently in order to let you partition. If that is the case, you may have to do a reformat in order to get the drive the way you like it, in that case, wait for Leopard.

If you are successful in partitioning your drive, burn off a Windows Driver Disk, drop in your Windows XP Pro SP2 disk and restart the computer.

Install Windows normally.

About the VMWare thing... you shouldn't have any issues with activation, but if you do, just call up Microsoft Support and explain the situation, they should be able to help you out.

As for waiting for Leopard.... I see no reason to unless you cannot partition the drive of course.

 

[gman2]

bump

bump

 

[sndcj1]

Another not on FAT32

There is a file size limitation. Yes, you can format fat32 up to 8TB, but the maximum file size is 4GB. You may/may not run into this, but dealing with uncompressed movie files about 26 gig in size made my more "compatible" fat 32 format external drive useless.

More file system info.

edit... another NOTE on FAT32

 

[yellow]

bump

You haven't really asked any questions. Maybe you should try again?