Mac and Partitions

allosunshine · 27 May 2009 at 18:14

I'm thinking of buying a MacBook and was just wondering if I can mimic how I have my partitions setup on my Vista laptop.
On my Vista laptop I've got the system partition and then my filestore partition so when I reinstall Vista I dont have to worry about backing up my data each adn everytime.
If I got a MacBook I would put Windows 7 on it, so would I be able to have 2 system partitions for Mac OSX and W7 and then a third partition for my filestore and be able to access the filestore no problems no matter what OS I was booted into.

Cheers.

Vonhelmet · 27 May 2009 at 18:28

I don't think you can do that directly via boot camp, though you might possibly be able to pull it off with some voodoo in the disk assistant.

Fillado · 27 May 2009 at 18:38

All Boot Camp is, is just a non-destructive automatic partitioner (with one designed function). Plus drivers on the Windows side of course. It's to disk partitioning what AirPort is to 802.11a/b/g/n. The same thing with a fancy name on it

All you need to do is:

Decide how big you want your filestore partition

Boot from the disc that came with your Mac, go into Disk Utility, format the disk with 2 partitions (with the second being your filestore partition)*

Install Mac OS X on the first partition

Go into BootCamp Wizard and it'll ask you to resize your OS X partition, which'll create room for Windows.

Install Windows

Done, 3 partitions

Of course if you're just going to install Windows on it anyway I would question why you are buying a Mac in the first place?

*The only filesystem that both operating systems can Read/Write is FAT32. This can cause problems if you have files over 4GB.

allosunshine · 27 May 2009 at 18:48

Fillado said:
All Boot Camp is, is just a non-destructive automatic partitioner (with one designed function). Plus drivers on the Windows side of course. It's to disk partitioning what AirPort is to 802.11a/b/g/n. The same thing with a fancy name on it

All you need to do is:

Decide how big you want your filestore partition

Boot from the disc that came with your Mac, go into Disk Utility, format the disk with 2 partitions (with the second being your filestore partition)*

Install Mac OS X on the first partition

Go into BootCamp Wizard and it'll ask you to resize your OS X partition, which'll create room for Windows.

Install Windows

Done, 3 partitions

Of course if you're just going to install Windows on it anyway I would question why you are buying a Mac in the first place?

*The only filesystem that both operating systems can Read/Write is FAT32. This can cause problems if you have files over 4GB.

Thanks for the headsup.
With regards to the why by a Mac if I'm gonna put Windows on it is because this would be a first time Mac buy for me never having used it and having Windows on it would make the transition a bit easier. Well thats my thoughts anyway.

yashiro · 28 May 2009 at 12:38

The only filesystem that both operating systems can Read/Write is FAT32

NTFS can be used with either free or paid for applications.

FreeStream · 28 May 2009 at 13:09

yashiro said:
NTFS can be used with either free or paid for applications.

But is a pain! IMO best to format mac and then use Macdive/macdrive *can't remember what its called*.

However I've had issues with that.

allosunshine · 28 May 2009 at 15:21

When you say ntfs can be used by a mac with software, can it be both read and written or just read?

Cheers

Fillado · 28 May 2009 at 17:46

Macs can read NTFS natively. Read/Write with NTFS-3G for free.

The reason why I didn't go into it is because all non-Microsoft solutions to dealing with NTFS partitions have required reverse-engineering Microsoft's NTFS and then re-writing it in an entirely different way.

Put simply: from both a performance and data-safety point, it's not a good idea to use a non-Microsoft NTFS solution. Unless you absolutely have to.