Topic: What filesystem to use for OSX+Win2k/XP?

[crunchy]

I am using a 200GB (186GB actual size) Segate Drive and it has been working well as one large partition with both systems.

But no DISK size limit if you format that way? The reason I ask is b/c this is with a 200 GB drive.

[MattD]

Bump for another question because I'm finally trying to put this drive in:

Is the only way to format a 200 GB drive in a FW/USB case with the FAT32 format to use OSX to format? I can't format in Win2k/XP because they can't format a drive larger than 30ish GB to FAT32. I can't format from a bootdisk because I can't access a FW/USB drive from there. This is absolutely maddening. The MS website says it can read/access large FAT32 partitions, but not create them.

I am confused as all hell. If someone can confirm whether OSX can read AND write to a NTFS-formatted drive that is 200GB, I'll use that. Otherwise, I guess I'll have to use OSX to format the drive as a large FAT32 drive and see if Win2k/XP can handle reading and writing to it after that.

[JasonR]

Matt,

Yeah, given Windows limitation of 32GB while formatting FAT32 partitions, you'd have to work around that.  Microsoft suggests formatting in another OS (your OSX box should do the job perfectly).  To do it in DOS would require a boot disk that loads the USB or Firewire drivers so you can access the drive, or you could remove it from the case and connect it directly to an IDE interface.  Hopefully there's no crazy limitation like this from within a DOS version of fdisk and format.

Good luck!
- Jason

[scb]

the mac os used to have an issue with moounting fat32 higher than 137 gigs, so not sure 10.4 did anything to fix this.  so if it can't mount it, i'm guessing it can't format it

ask wayne