NTFS drive on OS X

[shady]

I've just formatted a drive and created a single NTFS parttion in windows to use as a fresh install in a OS X mac. But mac can't see drive, so deleted the partition and still no joy, I'e previously heard that NTFS not comp[atible with macs, but I thought it would be OK under OS X (I realise it needs to be reformatted when in the mac, but thought it would at least recognise the drive.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Would a fat32 file system work for your purposes?

 

[FreeStream]

Errm, I guess this is a new HD?

Bung it straight in, no need to mess around with formatting in a PC...

Start from the install CD, then format it in Disk Utility and there you go.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Ah, now I get it. Use a tool like DBAN to nuke the partition tables on the disk then let the OS X installer take care to formatting the drive. It'll want to make it HFS+.

 

[shady]

erm no its an old drive, worked in the PC and the Mac before but evbery now and then I like to reinstall from scratch and I always have this problem, just always forget what i do to get round and why it happens,

 

[Jonny69]

Why is it other operating systems can happily use FAT32 on large disks but Windows can't? It's had me baffled for a bit, is it just NT security in Windows?

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Why is it other operating systems can happily use FAT32 on large disks but Windows can't? It's had me baffled for a bit, is it just NT security in Windows?

From the font of all human knowledge:

Windows 2000 and Windows XP can read and write to FAT32 filesystems of any size, but the format program on these platforms can only create FAT32 filesystems up to 32 GB. Thompson and Thompson (2003) write[4] that "Bizarrely, Microsoft states that this behavior is by design." Microsoft's knowledge base article 184006[3] indeed confirms the limitation and the by design statement, but gives no rationale or explanation. Peter Norton's opinion[5] is that "Microsoft has intentionally crippled the FAT32 file system."

In theory, OS X would be able to create a 2 TiB fat32 partition. I don't know if anybody has ever actually done this.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Shady, what do you want to do? Do you want to INSTALL OS X on the hard disk in question or do you want to use it to SHARE files between Windows and OS X? Please be specific.

 

[Echo toxin]

Mac OS X sees NTFS partitions as read-only. If you want to share files on a partition between Windows and Mac, you need to either create it as FAT32 or keep it in the Mac's native format (HFS+) and purchase a piece of utility software called MacDrive which allows Windows to read/write HFS+.

 

[shady]

Shady, what do you want to do? Do you want to INSTALL OS X on the hard disk in question or do you want to use it to SHARE files between Windows and OS X? Please be specific.

I want to install OS X on the blank disk once I can get the mac to see a blank, unformatted disk, whch it can';t at the moment

 

[BillytheImpaler]

a blank, unformatted disk

DIdin't you say it's formatted NTFS? Use DBAN to destroy the partition tables then install OS X on it. If the filesystem currently present on the disk is the problem this method will alleviate it.