External Hard Disks Windows And Mac Compatible

Question

I have recently bought an external hard disk, which I plan to have one 80gb partition onto which I can do regular backups of my mac hard disk onto, and then the other 220 or so just for data storage. however I want to have the 220gb readable by both macs and PC's, and the 80gb as bootable by OS X (I am doing a complete Hard disk clone onto the external disk)
anyone have any ideas

Answer 1

If you looked at Disk Utility [...]
I didn't mention Disk Utility at all. You do know that Disk Utility is just a simplified GUI front-end for the full functionality provided by diskutil, don't you? This does not make diskutil any less "officially supported".
Furthermore, the Mac OS X hints article is probably
not supported by Apple and therefore I didn't mention
it. I'm not in the habit of going against Apple
policies. Especially while I'm still under their
warranty.
I have no idea what are you talking about here. Is this just FUD or what? Of course it is not "officially supported". Neither are many other useful hints provided at that website or elsewhere. So what? In no way does that mean that it cannot be done, not even that it shouldn't be done. Just do it at your own risk, there is nothing legally or ethically wrong about doing it.
Had you just advised the OP not to do that, I would have had no problem with it, and wouldn't have "corrected" you. But that's not what you said. What you said is wrong and had to be corrected, it's as simple as that.
I did Google what you asked and didn't find any
relevant articles.
I wonder what did you Google for and whether you did actually read anything you found. These are just from the first 20 results I get:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man8/diskutil .8.html
http://forums.macosxhints.com/printthread.php?t=41187
http://www.groovelicious.org/david/2004/12/
http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?t=236147
http://www.macusersg.org/forums/?topic=14579.new
If you have a solution why not you just explain it
Because it's not a simple solution and it's much better explained by providing a link to the web page where it's fully discussed by people who have actually tried it and compared it to other approaches. You're not trying to make me believe this is a bad idea, are you?
instead of trying to correct another poster.
Oh, man! You were wrong and had to be corrected. You're not saying that correcting someone who posts wrong information is a bad idea, are you?
Why have you chosen to take this personally I don't know, but I urge you to keep this discussion in strictly technical terms and support your assertions with facts, which as of now you've not done yet -- not that it has stopped you from requiring me to do it, despite I clearly had already done it, though.
It should be your intent to help the OP, not to try and
correct another poster, even if it didn't work.
Abe, I really urge you to calm down and re-read what you're saying. Correcting wrong assertions is part of helping the OP, isn't it?
Now, if you really think you were right when you said "There is not a way to have two partitions on a disk with one being Mac OS X format and one being Windows format", please support your assertion with facts and keep the discussion in technical terms instead of just telling me I shouldn't correct you. And yes, I will accept links to publicly accessible web pages that support your assertion as facts and won't require you to explain them.
Regards.