Fat32 & NTFS

[Skyswordsman]

I read somewhere that Mac's can read but can NOT write to a NTFS drive. Is this true? I don't want my external 250 gig to be unusable.

[auric]

Yes. It's definitely true. Same with Linux. That's because for some reason (I don't know which one) it isn't easy to  implement support for NTFS in a Linux kernel.
The implementation allows you limited write, but that so unstable, that all Linux distributions and Mac OS X disables this.

FAT32 is supported, even as the Linux EXT3 filesystem. Only NTFS isn't. Quite annoying, I know.

[zizdodrian]

You can write to NTFS with MacFUSE.

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/how-to-read-and-write-ntfs-windows-partition-on-mac-os-x.html

[auric]

You're absolutely right! Wow!
But the tutorial you're pointing to, seems to be a bit outdated. It talks about version 0.1.7 while they're already at 0.2.5, so I made a small one myself

I'm now trying it out, till now: no problems

[zizdodrian]

You're absolutely right! Wow!
But the tutorial you're pointing to, seems to be a bit outdated. It talks about version 0.1.7 while they're already at 0.2.5, so I made a small one myself

I'm now trying it out, till now: no problems

Hehe, glad to help.

Nice tutorial.

[Skyswordsman]

Awsome.

[Gremlin]

Speaking of fat32 and ntfs I have a few questions ...
1) I have an external usb hard I used on my PC. I formated it in ntfs. Is there a way on mac I could format it into fat32?

2) This ties in to the first question. From what I understand the flaw of fat32 is that it has limited size. Meaning that only a 40gig hard can be fat32 (or only 40gig particion?) Anyways this doesnt make much sense to me. But still - better check, right? Is there such a limitation to fat32 format?

3) Well this kind of ties in to the whole hard disk dillema altho it does have to do with bootcamp as well.
If I have a 60 gig hard can I split it in 3 partitions (15/15/30) and format one into ntfs (for XP), the other into fat32 (for OS X) and have the third partition as fat32 where I could store all my documents, pics etc. And would that third partition be accessable by both systems?

[zizdodrian]

1) Yes. /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility
2) Actually the limit of FAT32 is 32GB where 1KB = 1024B. Windows allows you to format larger drives (unwisely) with FAT32, but they're unstable and... well, FAT32 is an antiquated filesystem, and doesn't hold a candle to the other modern formats.
3) You could mount the NTFS partition using MacFUSE as above. (yes, reading and writing supported.)

[auric]

3) You could mount the NTFS partition using MacFUSE as above. (yes, reading and writing supported.)

Copy that!

[Gremlin]

Well I think you kind of missed the point of the question no.3.
I was wondering if all data on the third partition (without an OS) would be sharable between BOTH systems.

Example: I put my movies on the 3 partition. It can be formated into FAT32 or NTGS, doesnt matter. Could I access those movies while running XP as well as when running OS X?

[Shmi]

Well I think you kind of missed the point of the question no.3.
I was wondering if all data on the third partition (without an OS) would be sharable between BOTH systems.

Example: I put my movies on the 3 partition. It can be formated into FAT32 or NTGS, doesnt matter. Could I access those movies while running XP as well as when running OS X?

3) You could mount the NTFS partition using MacFUSE as above. (yes, reading and writing supported.)

Yes.

[Gremlin]

Ok, sorry for kind of resurecting this thread buuuuuut ...

I followed the guide found at http://www.bermione.be/?q=comment/reply/53#comment-form and unfortunatly I still cant copy files to my NTFS.

Now I realise that I might have forgoten one small yet vital question ... does MacFuse and NTFS writing work on older macs? Meaning pre-intel processor, pre-boot camp macs.

Just to check if I messed up or if the op was messed up from the start. 

[zizdodrian]

Ok, sorry for kind of resurecting this thread buuuuuut ...

I followed the guide found at http://www.bermione.be/?q=comment/reply/53#comment-form and unfortunatly I still cant copy files to my NTFS.

Now I realise that I might have forgoten one small yet vital question ... does MacFuse and NTFS writing work on older macs? Meaning pre-intel processor, pre-boot camp macs.

Just to check if I messed up or if the op was messed up from the start. 

It works on PowerPC Macs.

Try following the earlier posted tutorial if that one doesn't work for you.

[donderwolkje]

i had exactly the same question

i have a 250gb NTFS external harddrive. and i haven't been able to decide how to reformat it FAT32 HFPS, drifferent partitions. i will give this a try.

thanks a lot

[auric]

I can indeed confirm that this works on older machines. I have a last-but-one generation Powerbook (so no bootcamps here) and it works great.

Note that encrypted or compressed disks won't work...

My disk is a 500GB LaCie, on which I've created a 150GB NTFS partition