Partitioning Scheme
 

I would like to setup my 500GB external drive in the following way:

1. 40GB - MacOS Extended (journaled)
2. 60GB - UFS
3. 6x32GB (roughly 200GB) - FAT32 (I'd prefer just one 200GB part. but I guess
32GB is the Windows limitations on FAT32).
4. 200GB - NTFS

The problem is that I initialized the disk on a Mac (running Tiger). I basically created the MacOS and the UFS file systems and left the rest of the space free using Disk Utility. Now, when I connect the disk on a PC, it's not seeing any partitions and wants to re-initialize it. Should I have initialized the disk on the PC first, created the FAT32 and NTFS partitions and then added the MacOS and UFS part's on the Mac?

Any info would be greatly appreciated :D

100% Male cow doo-doo. 32Mb is an artificial limit imposed by the Winblows XP installer. Use ANYTHING else and you're fine up to 2TB. I've got a 120GB FAT32 external under my desk - runs fine.

If you want a cross-platform drive, then format it on a DOS machine, and put the Mac partitions at the end of the drive. I would use something like Partition Magic if you have it.

Unless you want to boot from the HFS partition I would leave it as a FAT32 partition and create a HFS disk image. It's one more click when you plug it in to your Mac but it keeps all the partitions fully readable by the less capable OS.

If you DO want to boot from the HFS part (and what are you using the UFS one for?) then make 4 primary partitions with Partition Magic or fdisk, format them all as FAT32, then reformat (rather than repartition) on your Mac.

32 GB not the real limit on FAT 32
 

As as been mentioned before, a variety of utilities can make FAT32 partitions larger than 32 GB (including the Disk Utility of OS X); the 32 GB limit is on FDisk utility in Windows. Various products, like Partition Magic, for example, can create FAT32 drives up to 2 TB (I think) and Windows has no problem dealing with them; it just won't CREATE them.

Joe VanZandt

P.S., I've mentioned before, however, that it is not a great idea to use Disk Utility to create FAT32 partitions to be accessd by Windows, as they are, for some reason, not ENTIRELY compatible; but a FAT32 partition created by an Window-based program will not produce any difficulties for your Mac.

Joe

Thanks both of you. I didn't realize you could create FAT32 using Disk Utility - I don't see that option in the pulldown list - it has a few types of MacOS extended fs, UFS and free space.

I'm not concerned about all partitions being readable on all systems. I would like some shared space for Macs and PCs but also HFS part. so that Windows can't access it as well as a NTFS part. so that OS-X can't get to it.

Maybe some clarification is in order.......
 

A FAT32 partition can, indeed, be used by both the Mac and PC, but if it is created by Mac's Disk Utility, Windows sometimes has problems with it, hence the suggestion that you create it using a Windows-based program.

Creating an NTFS partition will certainly prevent Mac users from making any alterations to files on it, but it won't prevent read-access to the partiiton. OS X can read NTFS, but it appears as read-only. It that'g good enough, you're in business. I don't THINK Windows can read HFS+ natively, but it can if you have the partition set to allow Windows access (otherwise, Widows machines couldn't attach to Mac file servers, and they can).

At least, this is the way I understand the state of the situation.

Joe VanZandt

1. Windows XP is not the only version of Windows that Microsoft has artificially blocked from formatting FAT32 drives larger than 32 GB. Windows 2000's built-in formatting tools also will not format a FAT32 drive larger than 32 GB. I'm not sure about Server 2003 or Win NT 4. Windows ME and Windows 98SE2 both will definitely format a FAT32 drive as large as you want it. As will Partition Magic on any version of Windows.

2. You can read an HFS+ drive on a Windows computer if you use MacDrive http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive6/ I'm told that MacOpener http://www.dataviz.com/products/macopener/index.html can do this as well, but I've never used it.

3. I've never personally had a problem with accessing FAT32 drives from a PC that were formatted on a Mac. That doesn't necessarily mean that there's no problem with doing this, but I've never seen that problem.

Trevor

How do I create a FAT32 partition using OS-X's disk utility? I don't have that option.

I think it is called "MS-DOS File System"

When you select the drive to format it FAT32, select the drive mechanism, which will be listed at the left margin of the volumes in Disk Utility. Do not select the drive name that you've given it, which will be indented in the list.

When you select the actual mechanism, (and of course, it can't be the mechanism of the drive that you are currently booted to), you will see the option "MS-DOS File System" as an option under the Volume Format popup menu. That's Apple marketing name for FAT32, just like they call HFS+, "Mac OS Extended".

Trevor

Thanks for the help guys! *sigh*
So, I'm disappointed by Disk Utility. I initialized the drive on a PC and created my PC partitions leaving the rest of the space free. After that I connected the drive on the Mac and tried to add my MacOS partitions using the free space. No dice! The disk utility wants to repartition the whole drive instead. Anyway, I gave up on my original proposed partition scheme, and wiped out the partitions, created a two MacOS partitions at the end of the drive for my Mac stuff and formatted the rest of the space with NTFS on PC. I guess I'll be sharing stuff between the Macs and the PCs over the network via CIFS/SMB.

Findings:

1. Partition Magic 8.01 doesn't allow for FAT32 partitions to be bigger than 196GB.
2. I tried using Disk Utility to create a 400GB FAT32 partition - it worked fine but Windows will not put a file bigger than 4GB on it so it was useless. I wanted to use MSBACKUP to backup my PC to it.
3. Partition Magic wouldn't see any paritions on the drive after I created MacOS part's on the Mac. It reported bad part. table and of course, I couldn't create NTFS part's using PM. Surprisingly, the Win XP Disk Manager saw the Mac partitions (reports "Unknown Type") and let me add a NTFS part in the free space without distroying the Mac FS.

This has nothing to do with Windows. FAT32 inherently cannot handle files larger than 4 GB. It is a very old, very bad file system. It's one advantage is that it is also a very compatible file system.

Trevor

Ah, I see. So having a big FAT32 partition is useless if you're planning on putting files bigger than 4GB on it.

Yes, it is.

Trevor

Having a 4.5GB FAT32 partition is useless if you want to put a 4GB file on it.

Unlike some other users here, I like FAT32. It's readable, writable (and fixable) by almost anything running today. It has limitations, but so does everything else. We just havent reached those limits yet, much as FAT16's limits were over the horizon in 1989.
Microsoft seems to have a real bias against the format, however. Intentionally crippled native support, no split option in MSBackup, and it's THEIR filesystem!!
Realistically, I wouldn't want a partiton to be huge no matter what filesystem it was. Too many eggs in one basket. Sure, it's the same spinning piece of metal, but I've had a lot more directory failures than hardware failures.

I understand all that but we're not in 1989 and I find FAT32 useless in my scenario. I don't think MSBACKUP needs the option to split files. I'd hate having my backup in multiple files. Aside from MSBACKUP I use Virtual HDDs a lot so the 4GB limit really is a big deal. I hated the idea of having to use FAT32 from the start since NTFS if far more superior but I'd bite the bullet if it meant compatibility betwen Mac and PC - because of the 4GB limit, I have no use for it. I haven't had a lot of directory failures using NTFS - it's always the hardware. The main purpose of the big drive is so I can backup all my systems to it.

UGH! ...so my MacOS partitions at the end of the drive are not bootable. It's time to re-partition again, put the MacOS part's in the beginning and NTFS in the back. Hopefully that will work.

Ever tried the segment option in Disk Utility? Each DMG file can be as big or small as needed, and the pieces behave as a single image when mounted.

Maybe a different approach to the backup?
 

MSBACKUP has never been a very robust backup program, even when disks and files were a whole lot smaller. I'm betting you can locate a decent backup program for your Mac that will back up your PC to either a Mac partition (Retrospect will most certainly do it, and there are probably other programs that aren't TOO expensive that would as well), or maybe even to a FAT32 partion (I'm guessing it has ways around the 4GB file size limit in its backup scheme).

Unless you have a TREMENDOUS amount of memory in your machine, I'm not sure why the VDDs would pose problems. You surely can't make them bigger than 4 GB anyway, can you? (or maybe I don't know what you intend by the term VDD...I took it to be a RAM-based disk).

I'm also convinced that backing up the whole drive of your PC is pretty much a waste of time. If you were to use MSBACKUP, you'd have to re-install the OS before you could even launch the program to do the restore! So, I think it is probably wiser to just backup essential data files, not program files. Re-installing programs is a pain, but easy enough to do. You just need to protect the original product of your creative work from being lost! That significantly reduces the time required for backup, as well. Anyway, that's my attitude toward the process of backing up machines.

Joe VanZandt

Actually, I've been pretty happy with MSBACKUP (NTBACKUP.exe) ever since Veritas started helping MS with it (with the release of Win 2000). The NT4 version and the Win9x releases were a disaster - I won't argue with that. I can boot the system with a WinPE CD that has NTBACKUP on it and restore the system withtout installing the OS first. If you only backup user data there is always a chance that you'll miss something critical - it's happened way too many times and getting the system back to the exact state it was in before the crash takes weeks if you have to reinstall all the apps.

Personally, I despise Retrospect.

There is no limit on VHD (virtual hard drive) file size as far as I know and the VHD size has nothing to do with the amount of memory in the system. I'm talking about Virtual PC. Most of my VHDs are way bigger than 4GB.

Thanks everyone for your input - I'm pretty sure that I know what I want to accomplish at this point - I just still don't have the details figured out. I'm basically going to try to setup the MacOS partitions at the beginning of the drive so that they're bootable and then create NTFS out of the remaining space. Hopefully that will work.

Sounds like a good way of getting DVD ISOs into your GMail account :)

Good points...sorry for my confusion!
 

I'm not in love with any backup program I've ever seen, unless using CCC to a FireWire drive counts. You're right that Retrospect leaves as much to be desired as the rest, but it DOES work in a mixed networked environment and isn't god-awful expensive.

Sorry about my confusion over VDD...I was actually WAY back in the 80s in my thinking on that one, for I was thinking of RAM-disks (which, way back when, had their use!), not the virtual drives created by things like Virtual PC (now it's my turn to despise a product!), so I was just confused, but I hope that explains my reference to RAM in my response.

It sounds like you'll get things working the way you need them to. Your thread just points out that hardware development is actually a lot faster than software, so we'll probably continue to run into barriers built into our operating systems, which the developers built under certain assumptions (often not that unreasonable) that have been superceded as the technical capacity of the devices increases and their relative cost decreases with each passing month. Best wishes on getting this system working properly!

Joe VanZandt

Thank you for the wishes and all your help, sir! :D

It looks like the Mac + the big drive = NAS. It turns out that I can't make partitions bootable if the disk was initialized on a PC so I basically re-init'ed the disk on the Mac, created some MacOS partitions and I'm going to share it via NFS, CIFS/SMB and AFP over the LAN. Oh well.