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Shared partition windows and mac

iver23

iver23

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 5, 2016
3
1
Hi, I’ve been trying to create a shared partition for sharing data between Windows 10 and OSX El Capitan, but nothing seems to work.

I have a 400Gb for OSX and 100Gb for windows(BootCamp), I’ve reduced the OSX partition by 100Gb to create a new one formatted with ExFat (I've found that Exfat is supported by both OSs), but when I’ve tried to boot on Windows it stops on a blue page telling me that my PC need to be repaired using an installation media. When I’ve plugged in the installation media (USB) it told me that there is any windows partition or any previous windows installation in my hard drive.

When I returned to OSX, I’ve deleted the BootCamp partition, created a shared partition in Exfat format, and used BootCamp to create a windows partition and to install Windows 10, but once in the installation process, the BootCamp partition is not recognized and it tells me that windows could not be installed in that partition???

Please help, I’m running out of ideas.

"Sorry for my English, it's not my native language"
 
B

Buggyflayer

macrumors regular
Nov 13, 2014
113
17
West Sussex, UK
You can use exFAT for sharing data, as in have a partition that both systems can see a 'Documents' folder.
The Windows Operating System (after Visa) has to be installed on an NTFS formatted partition.
The Mac Operating system has to be installed on HFS+ (Logical Volume OSX Extended Journaled)

So give 60GB to Windows on Bootcamp but format the other 40GB (or more) to exFAT for read/write access to shared files.
OSX will READ NTFS, its the writing that you need additional tools for.

This is useful for filesharing between systems but don't try to use the Photos application with exFAT for example, it won't work as it depends on attributes of the HFS+ filesystem
 
Shirasaki

Shirasaki

macrumors P6
May 16, 2015
15,633
10,938
BootCamp install does not allow third or more partitions on the disk? I don't know. My Mac has only poultry 128GB so there is no space for shared partition.
My solution is using third party drivers on Mac and Windows. So that sharing files is no longer a problem, plus I can always use the best partition format for each OS.
One thing is certain however: if you modify partition table after installing Windows using BootCamp, Windows will fail to start.
 
B

Buggyflayer

macrumors regular
Nov 13, 2014
113
17
West Sussex, UK
ah yes Shirasaki, there was something about Bootcamp getting messed up if you used Disk Utility on OSX later on.

I'm not dual booting now so I'm out of date but I seem to remember using a 3rd part application to shrink the NTFS partition and then using the free 'windows' space to format exFAT from Windows?
 
richard2

richard2

macrumors regular
Oct 21, 2010
236
51
England, United Kingdom
You shouldn't use ExFAT to store important data because, unlike HFS+ and NTFS, it doesn't support journaling, which makes it considerably more susceptible to corruption.

You can use Tuxera NTFS to make NTFS volumes writable on OS X; however, I don't know whether it supports Boot Camp volumes.
 
Last edited:
Shirasaki

Shirasaki

macrumors P6
May 16, 2015
15,633
10,938
Buggyflayer said:
ah yes Shirasaki, there was something about Bootcamp getting messed up if you used Disk Utility on OSX later on.

I'm not dual booting now so I'm out of date but I seem to remember using a 3rd part application to shrink the NTFS partition and then using the free 'windows' space to format exFAT from Windows?
Click to expand...
BootCamp uses some different GUID partition tables. I cannot find a way to manually create it from terminal.
No matter which software you use, changing partition table to add new partition will result Windows fail to start.

Uh, Camptune X is a good utility to adjust BootCamp and Mac partition sizes. It does not allow you to create new partitions however. It just helps you to resize two partitions if you want to change partition size later on.
 
K

KALLT

macrumors 603
Sep 23, 2008
5,361
3,378
Bootcamp does not allow any other partitions on your disk except EFI, Macintosh HD, Recovery and Bootcamp. It is likely a limitation in the bootloader.
 
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IowaLynn

IowaLynn

macrumors 68020
Feb 22, 2015
2,145
588
Paragon HFS+ for Windows, NTFS for OS X.

Maybe an external NTFS drive for data instead, and keep system partitions as OS only.
 
B

Buggyflayer

macrumors regular
Nov 13, 2014
113
17
West Sussex, UK
Shirasaki said:
BootCamp uses some different GUID partition tables. I cannot find a way to manually create it from terminal.
No matter which software you use, changing partition table to add new partition will result Windows fail to start.

Uh, Camptune X is a good utility to adjust BootCamp and Mac partition sizes. It does not allow you to create new partitions however. It just helps you to resize two partitions if you want to change partition size later on.
Click to expand...

a long time ago there was a time consuming workaround but I don't think its a good solution and the loophole may have closed by now

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/multiple-partitions-with-boot-camp-teh-no.199262/
 
iver23

iver23

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 5, 2016
3
1
hi, sorry for my absence.
I have tried to make two partition with the Disk Utility, and installed Windows on one of them. Later on on Windows I have formatted the third partition with Exfat. But the Disk Management Tool on windows changed all the partition from "base" to "Dynamic", and neither Windows nor OSX would start. I've reinstalled all OSs from scratch.
I think there is no way to get things done. So i surrender :(:(:(
Thanks for all your replies :):):)
 
Shirasaki

Shirasaki

macrumors P6
May 16, 2015
15,633
10,938
iver23 said:
hi, sorry for my absence.
I have tried to make two partition with the Disk Utility, and installed Windows on one of them. Later on on Windows I have formatted the third partition with Exfat. But the Disk Management Tool on windows changed all the partition from "base" to "Dynamic", and neither Windows nor OSX would start. I've reinstalled all OSs from scratch.
I think there is no way to get things done. So i surrender :(:(:(
Thanks for all your replies :):):)
Click to expand...
Hmm, you have changed the partition table under Windows again.
No matter. Use external disk to store shared data. ;)
 
M

mildocjr

macrumors 65816
Jul 3, 2011
1,157
677
Somewhere between the buyer's guide and the forums
It's about like this, by default Windows doesn't know how to read or write to Mac OS formatted JHFS+ volumes, by default Mac OS doesn't know how to write to NTFS volumes. Bootcamp installs support for JHFS+ volumes but you'll need something like Fuse for NTFS support. Paragon NTFS is a paid version and did well for me when I needed it.

If you need an external drive that you can share format that drive in exFAT. This will allow you to copy data as needed. You can also use FAT32 as long as the file size is less than 2 GB.
 
zarathu

zarathu

macrumors 6502a
May 14, 2003
631
358
Get rid of Boot Camp. DL the free Oracle Virtual Box, and put windows in a cage(I mean a window) on your desktop. The copy and paste or drag between windows. Works great. I have windows xp in a windows running a couple of legacy programs that will never be ported into apple world. Additional XP is the last system that didn't have MS intruding into my life.
 
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