MacDrive question

[bender.zgz]

Hi there,

I'm new to the Mac world (I recently acquired a MacBook), so I'm still migrating from Windows. I have Boot Camp installes (which works fine), and use MacDrive to access my Mac partition. I also have an external HDD, Mac formatted so I can install and run applications from it. Problem is, I need to install MacDrive on every PC i want to use my HDD in. The best way to do this would be to make two partitions, a big Mac one and a smaller FAT32 one, containing MacDrive software. Well, that's what I tried, now I have a 75 Gb Mac partition and a 5 Gb FAT32 partition, BUT, since I have to partition my HDD with MacDrive I can't see the FAT32 partition without installing MacDrive, which makes all this process pointless.

Can anyone help me with this? Thanks a lot!

Pablo.

 

[Temujin]

Hi there,

I'm new to the Mac world (I recently acquired a MacBook), so I'm still migrating from Windows. I have Boot Camp installes (which works fine), and use MacDrive to access my Mac partition. I also have an external HDD, Mac formatted so I can install and run applications from it. Problem is, I need to install MacDrive on every PC i want to use my HDD in. The best way to do this would be to make two partitions, a big Mac one and a smaller FAT32 one, containing MacDrive software. Well, that's what I tried, now I have a 75 Gb Mac partition and a 5 Gb FAT32 partition, BUT, since I have to partition my HDD with MacDrive I can't see the FAT32 partition without installing MacDrive, which makes all this process pointless.

Can anyone help me with this? Thanks a lot!

Pablo.

You should be able to see and use the FAT32 partition on both OSX and Windows wether you install MacDrive or not. Not possible in your case?

 

[Lollypop]

Can I ask a few questions, do you only have a mac formatted (HFS+) partition because you want to install and run applications from it?

If thats the case I would shrink the mac partition, keep the files on a bigger Fat32 drive, that way only your executables are on the mac partition and you have no need to access it (cant run mac apps on windows) but always have access to your files....

second option, fully format the entire drive with FAT32, on that drive you put all your files as well as disk images formated to HFS+ containing your mac apps...

 

[bender.zgz]

Partitions and reasons

Having two big partitions (say half and half) so one is for my mac apps and other for my windows files is terribly uncomfortable for a number of reasons. My needs for space of each type will vary and I just can't go shrinking and expanding partitions very often. What I need:

- A big HFS partition
- A small FAT32 partition, usable from Windows WITHOUT installing MacDrive

I can try this in two ways:

- Partition in Windows and format the big one as HFS: MacDrive won't let me
- Partition in MacDrive and format the small one as FAT32: Windows won't see it w/o MacDrive

Anyone can help? Thanks a lot!!

 

[bender.zgz]

More on

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[Lollypop]

Having two big partitions (say half and half) so one is for my mac apps and other for my windows files is terribly uncomfortable for a number of reasons. My needs for space of each type will vary and I just can't go shrinking and expanding partitions very often. What I need:

- A big HFS partition
- A small FAT32 partition, usable from Windows WITHOUT installing MacDrive

I can try this in two ways:

- Partition in Windows and format the big one as HFS: MacDrive won't let me
- Partition in MacDrive and format the small one as FAT32: Windows won't see it w/o MacDrive

Anyone can help? Thanks a lot!!

Why do you need a big HFS partition??

Can I suggest another option, partion in the mac os, using disk utilities, create one big HFS partition, and one smaller FAT32 partition, you can create that FAT32 partition in the mac os, or just leave it open and format it in windows as FAT32. I think when MacDrive partitions the drive it uses the mac os partition table, and thats why macdrive is needed.

 

[bender.zgz]

Why do you need a big HFS partition??

Well, I am migrating from Windows, so in a shot period I will be using mostly MacOS. Furthermore, HFS (or NTFS for that matter) is much more reliable than creepy FAT.

Can I suggest another option, partion in the mac os, using disk utilities, create one big HFS partition, and one smaller FAT32 partition, you can create that FAT32 partition in the mac os, or just leave it open and format it in windows as FAT32. I think when MacDrive partitions the drive it uses the mac os partition table, and thats why macdrive is needed.

Well, that's cool and easy! I was so focused on doing this today at work (just PCs) that I forgot I could do that easily at home. Thanks for thet tip!