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    Format external drive to multiple formats?

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by hoolyproductions, Aug 19, 2008.

  1. hoolyproductions

    hoolyproductions Notebook Evangelist

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    Is it possible to format a 250GB USB drive so that 200GB is an HFS partition and the remaining 50 is FAT32?

    Lots of googling left me none the wiser :)
     
    hoolyproductions, Aug 19, 2008
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  2. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    It should be...I just do not know how to do with with OS X. If the OS cannot do it, try GParted Live CD.
     
    Greg, Aug 19, 2008
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  3. awes1003

    awes1003 Notebook Guru

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    I did this about a year ago, top level HFS, next NTFS, and the last FAT32. I think I used a combination of partition magic and disk utility. Disk utility to first create the partition sizes I wanted (and I think if you just want HFS and FAT32, disk utility is all you need). If you want to add in NTFS you can use ghost (or even windows disk utility) to convert from fat32 to ntfs.
     
    awes1003, Aug 19, 2008
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  4. hoolyproductions

    hoolyproductions Notebook Evangelist

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    Thanks both.

    I don't need/want NTFS so will have a go with Disk Utility when the disk arrives.

    Mind you, if I had an NTFS partition I wouldn't have that annoying FAT32 file size limit...
     
    hoolyproductions, Aug 19, 2008
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  5. awes1003

    awes1003 Notebook Guru

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    yeah I use the ntfs to install windows games and for HD movies
     
    awes1003, Aug 19, 2008
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  6. orthorim

    orthorim Notebook Evangelist

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    Yes, it works. I have done it before.

    Caveat: My HFS partition didn't work as a startup disk in OS X. But that's probably because I partitioned it on Windows.
     
    orthorim, Aug 19, 2008
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  7. awes1003

    awes1003 Notebook Guru

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    meant partition magic in my first post, sry
     
    awes1003, Aug 20, 2008
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  8. sulkorp

    sulkorp Notebook Deity

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    Yea what I did is make the first partition HFS+(200gb) then the remaining(50gb) FAT32. (this is using disk utility within OSX)

    Then I went into bootcamp and reformatted the fat32 partition to ntfs.

    Dont think you can directly format ntfs within OSX.
     
    sulkorp, Aug 20, 2008
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  9. awes1003

    awes1003 Notebook Guru

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    I actually think you can if you install ntfs-3g or at least I remember having the option when I had ntfs-3g installed. Just hoping ZFS solves this stupid file size limitation when it comes out for OSX...
     
    awes1003, Aug 20, 2008
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  10. masterchef341

    masterchef341 The guy from The Notebook

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    osx file size limition? 8 exbibytes just not cutting it for you?

    (8 billion gigabytes, i am pretty sure). i think even the largest hard drives are about 1000 GB? man, to get 8 billion GB we are talking one serious array of hard drives....

    they better hurry up and fix that file system ;)
     
    masterchef341, Aug 21, 2008
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  11. awes1003

    awes1003 Notebook Guru

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    my bad for some reason I was confusing fat32 with hfs -> we'll chalk it up to jetlag
     
    awes1003, Aug 21, 2008
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  12. masterchef341

    masterchef341 The guy from The Notebook

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    in all fairness, zfs is a more robust file system.
     
    masterchef341, Aug 21, 2008
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