Transferring large files between win and osx

[wasaki]

I have a file larger than 5 gigs, and I am trying to just move it from OSX to Windows XP(bootcamp). Since I had my bootcamp partition formatted at FAT32, I couldn't drag and drop it in to the bootcamp drive since my file too big!

I have an external drive (Western digital 500g), and I tried using that but (I think) since the drive is formatted for Mac OSX, Windows can't see it. I also tried formatting the external as FAT32, but that didn't work since (again ) my file is too big.

Is there any way to do this!?!? Compressing?? I have no idea!!

If you could be so kind to help
thank you

 

[LTX]

What type of file is it? You aren't able to use it on the Windows side at all unless you reformat that partition as NTFS and install Windows again, but then you would need MacFUSE and NTFS-3g installed on the Mac side to be able to access the Windows partition.

Even if you compressed it (keep in mind, most movie files and music files are already compressed, so you wouldn't see much size decrease), you would have to uncompress it to use it in Windows, but you cannot because FAT32 does not recognize files over 4GB.

Otherwise, I don't think you have any other options. Sorry!

Good luck!

Edit: Another option, if you wanted to use the file off the Mac partition or external drive but not copy it to the Windows partition, you could get MacDrive, which will let you access Mac-formatted partitions/drives from Windows.

 

[kastenbrust]

Just a note to stop this happening to other people, when you first install xp using bootcamp, make another empty partition on the drive about 10GB big (however big you want), and format it FAT32, then you can drag files there of any size you want and swap them between Mac OS X and Windows, or you can keep all your music there and play it in Itunes in both operating systems. Its called a swap file, and also you can backup all your work etc there and even if you have to format your Mac or Windows partition all the work in the swap file will be safe.