Convert Mac OS Extended HD to FAT32

[adsl3g]

Ok, I realise this is asking much but is there a utility out there that you know of that can convert an existing Mac OS partition to FAT32 without affecting the data on the disk? I am not in the mood to copy everything to my lan drive and then putting it back after a format.

Reason is that I have an external USB drive formatted to Mac OS but I want to use it on my PC at work as well.

 

[bwana]

Not that I know of

You could always buy MacDrive and then not have to worry about those 4gb max file sizes.

 

[adsl3g]

Thanks, will give it a try... Looks good and should work fine for what I need it for..

 

[koffiejunkie]

There are only two instances that I know of that you can change filesystem without affecting the data:

1. Fat32 to NTFS (theoretically safe but I've seen it fail about as many times as succeed).
2. ext2 to ext3 (since ext3 *is* ext3 with a journal added). You can go back to ext2 - just remount as ext2 and it will ignore the journal.

There is one big problem with changing from OSX's filesystem (hfs+ I think) to Fat32 or even ntfs - neither support the unix permission structure. It's pretty hidden from you in the OSX graphical environment, but it's still there...

 

[adsl3g]

@Koffie - Thanks for the info - I have done the Fat32 to NTFS w/o problems on my PC many years ago so I thought there might be something available for OSX to Fat32 - but never mind. The MacDrive software is a great piece of software - can access my Mac OSX USB drive on the Win PC now fine - did a backup of my backed up iTunes library on the USB drive via my Win PC to my LAN drive. The Win PC is connected to the router via ethernet while the Macbook is wireless. Get better throughput via ethernet of course.
I will have to buy this software. Now going to install in on the work PC.

Talking about the OSX filesystem - you can see the unix hidden file structure on the USB drive via the Win PC and there are quite a few since it is bootable from my Macbook.

 

[LandyMan]

Ok, I realise this is asking much but is there a utility out there that you know of that can convert an existing Mac OS partition to FAT32 without affecting the data on the disk? I am not in the mood to copy everything to my lan drive and then putting it back after a format.

Reason is that I have an external USB drive formatted to Mac OS but I want to use it on my PC at work as well.

Funny thing, I am thinking about doing the same ... all my photos are on an external (HFS partition), but I would like to make it available to my wife's XP machine ... time to get her a Mac I guess

 

[bwana]

Funny thing, I am thinking about doing the same ... all my photos are on an external (HFS partition), but I would like to make it available to my wife's XP machine ... time to get her a Mac I guess

Or you could share it? Possibly via an airport extreme.

 

[LandyMan]

Or you could share it? Possibly via an airport extreme.

That is an option ... she spilled a cup of coffee over her HP last week, so I don't know how long its going to last in any case

 

[koffiejunkie]

You may remember I asked about network storage devices some time ago. I ended up not buying anything. I have an old P-III notebook at home that happens to have USB2 ports. It has Debian Linux on and was meant to be my super-light travel companion (12" - has no CD-ROM, weighs 1.5kg) but it looks like I might already be the proud owner of a new MBP before I ever travel anywhere again...

So I hooked the external drive up to it, set up nfs and samba shares on it, closed the lid and put it out of the way. nfs being "filesharing the unix way" it works extremely well with OSX, dare I say, beter than smb shares.

Maybe this is an idea if you have an old PC lying around. You don't need much more than a P-II, 64mb ram will do - you just need to put a USB2 or Firewire card in. Set up the shares, hide it in a corner. It just works.