Fat32?

I have a External USB HDD, but having issues with the format of it.

Currently it is running FAT32, however I beleive for it to run faster and for me to have ore control over it I will need to format to the OSX format OS Extended.

However I Also use this on Windows machines I assume then I will not be able to read this on a windows machine

Would it be worth partitioning my HDD 250gig, so I have 1/2 FAT32 and the other 1/2 as OSX , and if so where can I find an app that will do this?

FAT32 is readable on both platforms. If you format the drive to HFS+, (the Mac format), Windows won't be able to read it.


Edited to add:

Oops! Sorry. I didn't really answer your question here... In my defence, I haven't had any coffee yet this morning and my head is full of sleep-bugs... :^P

Disk Utility can do it. With the drive plugged in, open Disk Utility and click the drive and a 'Partition' tab will appear. Select a 2 partition layout and set one of them to be a Windows/MS-DOS partition. When you click the 'Erase' button it will apply the new scheme and the drive should appear as 2 mounted volumes, one HFS+ formatted and one FAT32.

So peoples opinions then ?

The reason I am doing it is becuase everytime I take the HDD to a Windows PC and create files etc. when back on the mac i cannot delete them or do anything with them other than read.
Do most of you have it has fat32 if you use both machines or do you have partitions?

I have a few drives formatted as FAT32. Haven't had any problems like what you described, and they are used cross-platform. Maybe a fresh erase and reformat as FAT 32 would fix your problems.

Yes I will do that I think reformat it to FAT32 within MAC

If you are feeling adventurous, the Linux standard ext2 file system is supported on both Windows and Mac. ext2 is an excellent choice because it preserves owner and permission attributes from your Mac.

For Windows ext2 support, see:

http://www.fs-driver.org/

For Mac ext2 support see:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsx/