Hard disk partition as a neutral "go-in-between" MacOS and WinXP?

Hi gurus,
I have a MacBook with a 500GB hard drive partitioned between Mac (400GB) and bootcamp (NTFS, 100GB, running Windows XP). Unfortunately I am using old software which does not exist for a Mac, written under Win 95 and operating an external controller unit. I then analyze the incoming data with MatLab and ArcGIS, but need to do further data processing under Mac environment (further statistical analyses, image editing and writing up the results).
I was advised to use bootcamp to speed up the PC performance with GIS and MatLab because the data is quite "heavy" (memory and time consuming operations on rasters some of which are 100's of MB).
I find myself switching frequently between operating systems, accessing my data on a flash or an external backup drive. Last week when my backup disk crashed logically after an improper ejection, I realized that I eject and re-eject it too often now. So basically I would like to have an "internal" go-in-between partition, where I can save and read data from both systems exactly as I do from a flash stick.
Is that possible in any way? I tried to resize the mac partition and add a FAT one, but this doesn't seem to work at all (googled the error, followed recommendations, no good). I have been told there is software which lets Win read Mac partition and vice versa, but I don't want the systems to interfere with each other. I just want a neutral piece of land where I can place some neutral data...
Thanks,
Benny

Hi Benny and welcome to Discussions,
have a look here http://davidseah.com/wikilab/Creating-2-Windows-Partitions-with-Boot-Camp/
Hope it helps
Stefan

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