External HDD for Mac & PC use

Hi guys,

I've just ordered a 500gb USB2 external drive as I'm running a little low on space on both my Intel iMac and Vaio laptop. I need some advice on how to partition format the drive to get best use out of it. Is it possible to partition the drive into the following:

200gb MacOS media
200gb NTFS (PC) media
100gb MacOS leopard OS installation

I know there are filesystem overheads so I wont quite get that much space, but we'll just talk in round numbers here.

My bro is heading back from the states soon and went to WWDC07, so he claims to have the new leopard build. He wouldn't give me the last build he had from the developers site, so its not likely he'll give me this one, but in case I find a way to pilfer it off him, I want to know if its possible to install it to the external HDD while having these other partitions present on the drive.

Thanks in advance.

I don't think you'll be able to run an OS from an external drive.

As far as sharing for Mac and PC, you can partition it, but there's not real need to. Just have a file for Mac and a File for PC. That's what I do.

You could format the whole drive as FAT-32 on your Mac and use it on both computers.

IIRC, OSX won't boot from USB drives, but that might have changed.

Sorry for crashing the thread. I just have a relating question. I want to buy an external HD to move files from my mac to my pc and from my pc to my mac. Can I buy a new external HD and that will work? Can anyone recommend an external HD? I like the western digital passports, they look pretty cool.

If I wanted to can I buy a hd and hd enclosure and load the software on my mac and pc and do it that way?

I was also thinking of picking up a 4-8gb flash drive, not sure what I want to do.

Thanks for the help

Yes, it will work. Just format the drive as FAT-32 (on the Mac) and it should work fine.