Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!


NTFS? | 67 comments | Create New Account
Click here to return to the 'NTFS?' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
NTFS?
Authored by: dhdeeg on Oct 29, '05 11:23:56PM

This method is fantastic!

I had a question though. I changed the FAT32 partition to NTFS via Windows (simply re-formated it). Mostly because I have to store and share large disk images from it which FAT32 couldn't handle.

Now, the only problem is that it won't automount within MacOS. It has to be manually mounted via the hdid command. I know – not a big deal but I was wondering if there is anyway to make it automount like the FAT32 partition used to.

I tried changing the partition id to 87 (NTFS VS) but it didn't seem to help. I'm guessing because it has something to do with pdisk still thinking it's a FAT32 drive as when you check it in there it still comes up as "DOS_FAT_32 DOS_FAT_32_Untitled_3 72481856 @ 83886144 ( 34.6G)".

Any ideas? I'm pretty happy though. I thought a bootable/shareable HFS+ and NTFS partition would be impossible.



[ Reply to This | # ]
NTFS?
Authored by: scared on Dec 08, '05 01:25:32PM

i'm a bit late in replying here, but i just faced the same problem. i used silentaccord's method for setting up a firewire drive with two partitions: hfs+ and fat32. then i plugged it into a windows xp box and reformatted the fat32 partition as ntfs. this worked perfectly in windows, but the mac wouldn't recognize the drive.

the problem, as you were guessing is that the apple partition map still think it's fat32, so it doesn't line up properly. to fix this, i unmounted the drive and used sudo pdisk.

first use e (edit device's map) and your particular drive.

then use p (print the partition table) to get the current setup. the partition that has been reformatted to ntfs should be listed as type: DOS_FAT_32.

use t (change a partition's type) and enter the appropriate partition number. it took me a while to find this part, but the correct type should be Windows_NTFS.

next use w (write the partition table) and q followed by q again to quit out of pdisk.

the drive should automount now…



[ Reply to This | # ]
NTFS?
Authored by: dhdeeg on Dec 21, '05 09:34:07AM
I gave it a shot though and it keeps saying it can't write to the partition map when I give the 'w' command... Not sure why, made to sure unmount it and tried many times. This is a 10.3.8 machine.
Last login: Wed Dec 31 17:40:00 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!
Put-Workstation-ID-Here-X38-GM:~ schooladmin$ sudo pdisk
Password:
Top level command (? for help): e
Name of device: /dev/rdisk1
/dev/rdisk1
Command (? for help): p
/dev/rdisk1  map block size=512
   #:                 type name                  length   base      ( size )
   1:  Apple_partition_map Apple                     63 @ 1        
   2:           Apple_Free                            0+@ 64       
   3:            Apple_HFS Apple_HFS_Untitled_2  83623936 @ 262208    ( 39.9G)
   4:           DOS_FAT_32 DOS_FAT_32_Untitled_3  72481856 @ 83886144  ( 34.6G)
   5:           Apple_Free                            0+@ 156368000

Device block size=512, Number of Blocks=156368016
DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0

Command (? for help): t
Partition number: 4
New partition type: Windows_NTFS
Command (? for help): w
The map has not been changed.
Command (? for help): q
Top level command (? for help): q
The end
Put-Workstation-ID-Here-X38-GM:~ schooladmin$ 


[ Reply to This | # ]
NTFS?
Authored by: Ruahrc on Jan 03, '06 11:59:25PM

I too wanted NTFS and HFS+ on my external HD. Here's my situation:

I have a 200GB external HD that I wanted to use to back up both my laptop (Powerbook) and desktop (Windows XP PC). The PC is formatted NTFS, the laptop is HFS+, and I had 20GB spare (200GB - 120GB PC - 60GB laptop = 20GB spare) on the external that I wanted to partition as FAT32 for common access.

I followed the instructions above (tiger, 10.4.3) and it all worked fine. Then I mounted the drive in Windows and reformatted my 120GB partition into NTFS. As you said I can no longer see the NTFS volume from OS X (or at least it doesn't automount) nor do I see the HFS+ volume in Windows. For me though this was no issue. Since the NTFS and HFS+ volumes are for backup only, I only need access to the appropriate volume on the appropriate platform, which happens. The FAT32 volume shows up on both platforms. This way, in fact, is even a little cleaner since connecting the drive to either computer will now only automount the appropriate 2 volumes! Maybe this wasn't working for you though since you needed to access your NTFS volume on OS X (but read-only? OS X cannot natively write to NTFS volumes)

Should I be wary of any other effects I may have incurred by switching from FAT32 to NTFS in Windows? I'm worried about bootability. My current external hard disk is (was) USB, but since I learned here that OS X needs Firewire to boot from, I have since returned my HD and will get a firewire one instead. If I follow these same procedures AND reformat the big FAT32 into NTFS in windows, will I have trouble making a bootable HFS+ clone of my current PB disk?

Thanks for the tip- this one was great! Now I need to go back and better understand the logic behind it all hehe...



[ Reply to This | # ]