NTFS to Fat32 Queries

Mr_Roger_Bongos

Hi all,

The sister got a macbook for christmas and i'm trying to re-format a hard drive we both use for fat32 so she can read/write to it.

Been doing some research and i've read in a number of places that windows won't format to FAT32 if the drive is above 32GB, is this true?

My HDD is 150GB and ideally i'd like most of it in FAT32.

Im a regular reader in here and you guys know your stuff so any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated, thanks!

ntlbell

you can mount a fat32 formatted drive larger than 32gb in 2k/xp

but you can't format a drive larger than 32gb in 2k/xp

you can use a windows98 bootdisk and format drives larger than 32gb

google is your man.

the_syco

Think the only way is to have lots and lots of 32GB partitions.

Overheal

Why cant you both use NTFS?

leninbenjamin

Overheal wrote: »

Why cant you both use NTFS?

Mac's by default can only read NTFS drives (they can't write to them or some **** like that for some bizarre reason), but there are ways around this.

ethernet

leninbenjamin wrote: »

Mac's by default can only read NTFS drives (they can't write to them or some **** like that for some bizarre reason), but there are ways around this.

Because Microsoft's NTFS filesystem is proprietary. Windows does not support HFS+, ext2/ext3, ReiserFS, UFS and many others. Anyway, it has been reverse engineered and, after many years, one such workaround is the NTFS-3G Fuse module. It's becoming standard on Linux distributions and can also be used on the Mac.

Mr_Roger_Bongos

Thanks for that ethernet and everyone!

That 3G Fuse looks fantastic! Does that mean i can read/write to NTFS from MAC OS X?!

ethernet

Mr_Roger_Bongos wrote: »

Thanks for that ethernet and everyone!

That 3G Fuse looks fantastic! Does that mean i can read/write to NTFS from MAC OS X?!

That's exactly what it means

Capt'n Midnight

3G fuse sounds good

Other options
you could format to ext2 :pac:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsx/ - mac drivers
www.fs-driver.org - windows drivers

you could also repartition to a 137GB fat32 partion - unless you are using windows 98 without the updated fdisk but the only advantage of fat32 is that it's the lowest common denominator

ask around in the MAC forum or check on www.macwindows.com it's handy as it might answer other questions about mac/windows , like can windows read/write to the favoured MAC format

mick.fr

Keep in mind you will lose so much disk space in FAT32 too...

ethernet

Nearly forgot this one! Another option is to use HFS+ (supported natively on Mac) and buy a licence for Mac Drive. It lets Windows read from and write to HFS+ partitions. Perhaps not a runner but at least it's another option.

mick.fr

Another option would be to build or buy a small NAS (Network Attached Storage) that is compatible with windows/mac so you could both access this disk storage through the network. Pretty handy :-)

Something like that would do the trick
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=365605#ProductTabs

Mr_Roger_Bongos

Thanks for all the suggestions lads!