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Create an HFS+/NTFS/FAT32 external drive
Authored by: js27pub on Dec 21, '08 11:04:36PM

Neither the original hint nor the hint that started this thread worked for me, but I found that Brooklynshot's solution worked great! FYI, my configuration was a MacMini, OS 10.5.6 Leopard, external USB hard-drive. Windows XP Pro SP3 via Bootcamp.

Here's the issues I encountered with the original hint:
- (in windows) the windows partitioning went smoothly (I did 3 partitions, no formatting), using (Start>control panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management->Disk Management)
- rebooted to OS X 10.5.6 (Leopard)
- the command line instructions for OS X terminal from the original hint worked fine up through and including the newfs_* commands, for both the HFS+ and FAT32.
- but when I did the final "hdid" step, it gave an error message that it couldn't mount the drive. So I gave up on this solution.

Now, here's the issues I encountered with the hint that started this thread:
- (in windows) did windows partitioning, all 3 partitions (no formatting)
- rebooted to OS X 10.5.6 (Leopard)
- did the command line instructions, formatted all 3 partitions as FAT32 with names of my choice
- went to OS X Disk Utility, and the renamed partitions all showed up just fine.
- but whenever I did the Erase step to set to Extended Journaled (or just Extended), it would revert the name of the partition to the rdisk2s1 (or s2, or s3) name, and would be FAT32, even if I had indicated Extended/Journaled. So I gave up on this solution.

Now, I tried Brooklynshot's solution:
- (in windows) partitioned first and second partitions as NTFS (they were bigger than 32GB each), and third partition as FAT32 (was <32GB), names of my choice.
- rebooted to OS X 10.5.6 (Leopard)
- all 3 partitions showed up on the desktop!
- opened OS X Disk Utility. All 3 partitions showed up. Did Erase with Extended Journaled for the first partition, it worked fine, didn't lose the name, etc. Repeated for second partition, worked fine.

So I don't know why the first two solutions didn't work (looking at the man page of "hdid" in 10.5.6 indicates it is an obsolete command, so maybe Leopard broke the original hint solution?), but since Leopard apparently can mount NTFS partitions, the simple approach works just fine.



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