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external harddrive and bootcamp
- Thread starter apattee
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Yes, this is doable. You need to format the drive as FAT32 for Mac OS X and Windows to both be able to read from and write to it, though.
apattee et al
I think I'll throw my 2c in!
i am a new owner of a MacBookPro - 2.4g - 3gm mem - 160 gb 7200rpm. Love the machine: elegant, powerful, great display, mischievous and frustrating at times though. I come from a long WINDOWS (& MSDOS before that) and I still run extensive networks at my place of business (point of sales workstations, backoffice machines, etc...) and of course I do not intend to "switch" to MAC for business purposes at all (basically not enough biz software and hardware compatibility out there: but that's never what Apple has promoted the mac about, rather it is about photo/movies/music processing). But that's OK. Of course, as is I am sure the case with a lot of folks suddenly acquiring Macs and talking about "switching", the real draw (or potential draw, we'll see!) if the looming Mac capablity to run Windows native. Hey, why not: after all, I myself have achieved wonderful things businesswise with Win machines and software, but I am getting to believe that the more tightly integrated (even though Vista is catching up fast in that department) Mac environment is indeed condusive to creativity in general, especially re: photo/movies/music/recording on optical media.
So, here I am, both enjoying the elegant capabilities of the Mac, AND looking very deeply into bringing with me some of the good Win stuff I have learned to appreciate (even if it is just dumb things like the right mouse key functions - meanwhile, THANKS Apple for the multi button MightyMouse - that one button Mac Mouse was/is in my opinion a dumb thing!)
Now, re: the external drive business and the corresponding read/write + NTFS/FAT32 issue.
I have just corresponded with a very helpful fellow on the Apple Forums >> Apple Hardware >> Mac Basics & Help regarding something relating to that issue, as follows:
Quote:
Originally Posted by WirelessInn
1- Networking with Winxp/2000 enviroment - i understand that one can (as I am doing) read from win based drives over the network, but NOT write to them unless that are FAT32 formatted. HOWEVER, I find that you CAN actually write to for example the main hdrive in a win machine over the network (which happens to be NTFS formatted) but NOT to an external USB NTFS Drive attached to a win machine on the network. So it seems that the FAT32 read/write restriction applies ONLY to external drives on win machines on the network?
Put it slightly less convoluted way - Macs have read-only access to NTFS drives. FAT32, FAT16 and most other formats Macs can read have read/write access.
In any case, this restriction is rooted in the Mac's drivers and not in some artificial limitation. If you plug in an external NTFS drive or put one into a spare hard drive bay in your Mac (okay, bad example since you're using a MBP, but still) it'll be able to read but not write.
However, if you connect to a networked PC with file sharing enabled you will be able to read and write because the Mac isn't using its hard drive drivers, just the network drivers - the PC is the one that is doing the interfacing with the hard drive, and it knows how to write to NTFS.
Hope that helps to clear it up for you.
Enjoy your new Mac!
That did it for me: A Mac can read/write to NTFS and FAT32 on an external drive connected to a network through a Win machine, and including that Mac. I currently have the MBP wirelessly networked to my Office main Win machine which has a NTFS Maxtor FireWire drive connected to it. I have kept all my voluminous photo/movie material on that drive (close to 300gb) and I freely access it from my MBP , i.e read and write. Granted, there might be a bit of speed penalty in accessing the drive via a wireless network AND another, Win based machine. But it works!
Hope this helps: this was a big issue for me, as I am not really "switching" to Mac, but adding its convenience (especially in the A/V area) to my networked Win equipment which I shall - Of course (is there a choice??) - continue to operate!
Now, re: BootCamp and Win, I am going later to take that jump, once I am familiar with most things Mac! Big issue for me: effective operation of my MBP + BootCamp + Win *XP Sp2 most likely) + MS Flight Simulator X (only "game" I play!) Any input out there?
= Roger T
- Roger T
I think I'll throw my 2c in!
i am a new owner of a MacBookPro - 2.4g - 3gm mem - 160 gb 7200rpm. Love the machine: elegant, powerful, great display, mischievous and frustrating at times though. I come from a long WINDOWS (& MSDOS before that) and I still run extensive networks at my place of business (point of sales workstations, backoffice machines, etc...) and of course I do not intend to "switch" to MAC for business purposes at all (basically not enough biz software and hardware compatibility out there: but that's never what Apple has promoted the mac about, rather it is about photo/movies/music processing). But that's OK. Of course, as is I am sure the case with a lot of folks suddenly acquiring Macs and talking about "switching", the real draw (or potential draw, we'll see!) if the looming Mac capablity to run Windows native. Hey, why not: after all, I myself have achieved wonderful things businesswise with Win machines and software, but I am getting to believe that the more tightly integrated (even though Vista is catching up fast in that department) Mac environment is indeed condusive to creativity in general, especially re: photo/movies/music/recording on optical media.
So, here I am, both enjoying the elegant capabilities of the Mac, AND looking very deeply into bringing with me some of the good Win stuff I have learned to appreciate (even if it is just dumb things like the right mouse key functions - meanwhile, THANKS Apple for the multi button MightyMouse - that one button Mac Mouse was/is in my opinion a dumb thing!)
Now, re: the external drive business and the corresponding read/write + NTFS/FAT32 issue.
I have just corresponded with a very helpful fellow on the Apple Forums >> Apple Hardware >> Mac Basics & Help regarding something relating to that issue, as follows:
Quote:
Originally Posted by WirelessInn
1- Networking with Winxp/2000 enviroment - i understand that one can (as I am doing) read from win based drives over the network, but NOT write to them unless that are FAT32 formatted. HOWEVER, I find that you CAN actually write to for example the main hdrive in a win machine over the network (which happens to be NTFS formatted) but NOT to an external USB NTFS Drive attached to a win machine on the network. So it seems that the FAT32 read/write restriction applies ONLY to external drives on win machines on the network?
Put it slightly less convoluted way - Macs have read-only access to NTFS drives. FAT32, FAT16 and most other formats Macs can read have read/write access.
In any case, this restriction is rooted in the Mac's drivers and not in some artificial limitation. If you plug in an external NTFS drive or put one into a spare hard drive bay in your Mac (okay, bad example since you're using a MBP, but still) it'll be able to read but not write.
However, if you connect to a networked PC with file sharing enabled you will be able to read and write because the Mac isn't using its hard drive drivers, just the network drivers - the PC is the one that is doing the interfacing with the hard drive, and it knows how to write to NTFS.
Hope that helps to clear it up for you.
Enjoy your new Mac!
That did it for me: A Mac can read/write to NTFS and FAT32 on an external drive connected to a network through a Win machine, and including that Mac. I currently have the MBP wirelessly networked to my Office main Win machine which has a NTFS Maxtor FireWire drive connected to it. I have kept all my voluminous photo/movie material on that drive (close to 300gb) and I freely access it from my MBP , i.e read and write. Granted, there might be a bit of speed penalty in accessing the drive via a wireless network AND another, Win based machine. But it works!
Hope this helps: this was a big issue for me, as I am not really "switching" to Mac, but adding its convenience (especially in the A/V area) to my networked Win equipment which I shall - Of course (is there a choice??) - continue to operate!
Now, re: BootCamp and Win, I am going later to take that jump, once I am familiar with most things Mac! Big issue for me: effective operation of my MBP + BootCamp + Win *XP Sp2 most likely) + MS Flight Simulator X (only "game" I play!) Any input out there?
= Roger T
- Roger T
Roger, hate to break it to you.
A mac can read/write an NTFS volume. You simply use MacFUSE + NTFS3G. Performance has been improved to almost native too.
A mac can read/write an NTFS volume. You simply use MacFUSE + NTFS3G. Performance has been improved to almost native too.
external harddrive and bootcamp
kingjr3: what is NTFS3G? A flavor of NTFS, native to Windows?
- Roger T
kingjr3: what is NTFS3G? A flavor of NTFS, native to Windows?
- Roger T
NTFS3G is a plugin for MacFUSE that allows Mac OS X to read from and write to NTFS-formatted disks. MacFUSE is a project, originally developed on Linux then ported to Mac OS X, for enabling Macs (and Linux systems) to use filesystems they don't natively support.
external harddrive and bootcamp
So, NTSF3g AND McFuse have to be installed & work together? Any penalty in performance, EITHER from the Mac or the Win side?
- rt
So, NTSF3g AND McFuse have to be installed & work together? Any penalty in performance, EITHER from the Mac or the Win side?
- rt
external harddrive and bootcamp
Any way to partition such an external drive connected to the Mac, into 2 partitions formated FAT32 and NTSF respectively? The FAT32 one - limited to 32gb (right) could be used JOINTLY by both the mac and the Win sides, while the NTFS partition could be used when WIn read/write is necessary while Mac just needs to read. For example, I would envision having the large NTFS partition for all my photos (300 gb of them at the moment) and my Win needs, while using the smaller FAT32 partition to read/write stuff produced with the Mac (photo slide shows, movies, etc...). ALSO, I could use the FA32 partition to backup the Mac side, ad the NTFS partition to back up the Win side.
Oh well, trying different things to accommodate different purposes, since I am NOT "switching" to the Mac, but merely "inserting" it into my network.
THANKS for any input!
- Roger T
Any way to partition such an external drive connected to the Mac, into 2 partitions formated FAT32 and NTSF respectively? The FAT32 one - limited to 32gb (right) could be used JOINTLY by both the mac and the Win sides, while the NTFS partition could be used when WIn read/write is necessary while Mac just needs to read. For example, I would envision having the large NTFS partition for all my photos (300 gb of them at the moment) and my Win needs, while using the smaller FAT32 partition to read/write stuff produced with the Mac (photo slide shows, movies, etc...). ALSO, I could use the FA32 partition to backup the Mac side, ad the NTFS partition to back up the Win side.
Oh well, trying different things to accommodate different purposes, since I am NOT "switching" to the Mac, but merely "inserting" it into my network.
THANKS for any input!
- Roger T
Yes. There's a slight performance penalty on the Mac side, and zero on the Windows side.
I don't know if this is possible or not, but with MacFUSE/NTFS3G there's really no need to do this. You can use 1 NTFS partition and be done with it.WirelessInn said:
NTFS-3G is available here: http://www.ntfs-3g.org/
You'll also need MacFUSE, which can be found here: http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/
There was a guy who wrote some installers for this, but he seems to have pulled it off his site. I'd suggest Fink + Fink Commander for making compiling easy.