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The LaCie .pdf manual for my drive says to partition the drive into one FAT32 and one HFS partition to use the drive between Windows and a Mac. I am having trouble doing this.


Only Mac OS 10.4.6 (and newer) is capable of creating both Mac and Windows partitions on the same drive. Use Apples Disk Utility. Select the Partition Tab, click on the Options button and select GUID Partition Table. You can then create the partitions.

If you have an older OS, there are two ways to set a drive up so that it can be moved and data be accessed from Mac and PC.

Use MacDrive on the PC
MacDrive will allow Mac formatted hard drives (HFS and HFS+) to mount on a PC. Drives can be formatted for the Mac from the PC. For information and to order go to: http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive

    Advantage:
    • Allows Mac users to keep their disk formatted in HFS/HFS+.
    • Drive bootable on Mac OS system (assuming if System Folder is installed and Mac CPU supports booting of FireWire/USB drives).
    • Works with Windows 98 to XP and allows seamless support for Mac formatted disk drives.
    • Prevents users from seeing the Mac OS hidden files & folders.
    • There is less chance of deleting critical system and/or resource data files.
    • Allows Mac users to use Mac utilities to test for disk corruption and permit disk repair.
    • Built-in file translator. Works with all cross-platform software, including Microsoft Works, Office, AppleWorks, Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker, FreeHand, QuarkXpress, FileMaker Pro, and more.
    • Supports Mac OS X long file names.
    • No notable speed decrease in transfer rates verse using native MS-DOS.

    Disadvantage:

    • Mac Drive would need to be purchased.

Format the drive FAT32
The Mac will be able to mount a drive formatted FAT32. (OS 10.4 can mount NTFS partitions but they will be read-only.) You are limited to a maximum size of 32GB per FAT32 partition.

    Advantages:
    • Customer can format FAT32 from the PC. (limited to maximum size of 32GB per partition).
    • FAT32/MS-DOS partition(s) works on OS 9.x, OS X 10.1.2 or later and Windows 98, ME, 2000 and XP.

    Disadvantages:

    • Mac OS X 10.1.5 and below does not have full FAT32 implementation and may not work reliable on some applications or when mounting multiple or large MS-DOS partitions.
    • Drive will not be Mac OS bootable.
    • Cannot use standard Mac utilities like Disk Warrior to test for disk corruption or disk repair on a MS-DOS volume.
    • MS-DOS has slower speed performance on Mac systems than using native Mac OS HFS/HFS+ file systems. Not recommended for Final Cut Pro or iMovie video capture.
    • Cannot copy certain files and folders from HFS/HFS+ volumes to MS-DOS volumes. Due to Mac OS X UNIX style privileges and system protection, you may or will get error -50 (Error in user parameter list) or the Finder will unexpectly quit during data transfer to a MS-DOS volume.
    • Limited file names and characters (does not apply to OS X). Mac OS 9 allows up to 32 characters to display file names. If files exceed 32 characters, Mac OS 9 will auto insert the file name with a "#" sign and additional characters.
    • Many files may not display the correct icons or not link the proper association to a cross platform application like Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Word, and etc. Users will need to name and save their files with 29 characters + 3 suffix (see Common File Formats Apple article #24464) to ensure cross compatibility between Mac/Windows systems.

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