Third (Neutral) FAT32 Partition on a MacBook Pro?

If I plan on installing bootcamp and having a large NTFS partition for Windows, a large HTFS (sp?) for my Mac side, is it possible to have a third, FAT32 32gb, partition that has neither operating system and that is accessible from both operating systems? And if so, how? If not, can anyone suggest another way to solve this problem?

You cannot use disk utility to create mixed mac - PC partitions on a drive.

Hang, on - I just worked out a way to do this on my USB stick

Use disk utility to partition the drive in to 3 partitions - all HFS+ using the partition tab in disk utility

Once you have 3 partitions, leave the mac one as is, select the other 2 individually and use the erase function to erase them as FAT 32 (you will have to do this twice, for partitions 2 and 3)

To format one of the partitions as NTFS you will need access to a pc, you should be able to format partition 2 as NTFS in windows, although I cannot test that for you

Yes it is possible. However it's almost as easy to just install software to allow OSX to read/write ntfs partitions and a program like MacDrive on windows to allow it to read/write HSF partitions.

However if you are set on having the swap partition, use bootcamp. You will have to combine the ntfs and fat partitions when you first start into a big ntfs partition, then when you get to windows setup simply delete the ntfs partition and create a new ntfs partition with the proper size (bootcamp wont let you leave free space over I don't believe).

Good luck

jdcollins said:

Yes it is possible. However it's almost as easy to just install software to allow OSX to read/write ntfs partitions and a program like MacDrive on windows to allow it to read/write HSF partitions.

However if you are set on having the swap partition, use bootcamp. You will have to combine the ntfs and fat partitions when you first start into a big ntfs partition, then when you get to windows setup simply delete the ntfs partition and create a new ntfs partition with the proper size (bootcamp wont let you leave free space over I don't believe).

Good luck

Click to expand...

I have heard MacDrive works very well and it is leading me to believe this route would probably make the most sense for my needs, quick question though, can you suggest a "software to allow OSX to read/write ntfs partitions"? And obviously I would use MacDrive on the windows side of things. Thanks again.