I want to partition an external device for OSX and Windows. Opened Disk utility but Partition is not an option

I want to partition an external drive for OSX and PC. Went to Disk Utility but Partition is not an available option.

Why not? does the partition tab not exist?

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External Drive for OSX and Windows

Dear all,
I read somwhere that it is possible to use an external HD which can be used as an intermediate for documents between a PowerMac and Windows 2000 computer.
The article suggested that when using the Disk Utility program of Apple, the Ext. HD should be erased using the MS-Dos modus. This I did. After that it mentioned that by clicking on the Partion tab, under the "Option" button MS-DOS file structure should be selected.
However my DU program says: "No Options Available".
I'm still using OS 10.3.9 and I will upgrade when OS 10.5 becomes available.
Question: Why is the "Options" button not available? If this is because of using 10.3.9 how can I bypass the option and make the Windows computer see the External HD as well?
Thanks for your input,
Hans.

For now, while you need 10.4.6 to select GUID partition table, you can still setup a drive with FAT32 partitions. Format it on Windows perhaps.
Disk Utility -> Partitions -> Options....
GPL/GUID for Intel Macs
APL for PowerPC
Master Record Block for Windows
With Intel Macs you can install and run Windows XP SP2, Vista, XP Pro.
Hans, right now is probably the best time to update the OS. Tiger 10.4.9 is as complete as possible probably and esp. for PPC Macs. I think it runs better than 10.3.9 did.
While 10.5 will offer something different and new, the best time to upgrade is not when it is released sometimes, but rather once it reaches 10.5.3+ (ie, a year from now or later). Play and test it but depend on it 100%? Usually there are needed changes to software and hardware to "catch up."
Right now Tiger DVD 10.4.6 are available. Apple felt it worth putting out newer DVDs.

How do I convert my Windows 7 Folder to an ISO image to burn to a USB, in order to use Bootcamp Assistant to partition my MacBook Pro for Mac and Windows?

How do I convert my Windows 7 Folder to an ISO image to burn to my USB Flash drive (16GB) in order to use Bootcamp Assistant to partition my MacBook Pro for Mac and Windows?

Sorry - confusing - My question has NOT been solved yet - can anyone help?

I have an external hard drive that shows up in disk utility but Verify and Restore are greyed out.

I have an external hard drive that shows up in disk utility but Verify and Restore are greyed out. I am trying to determine what is wrong with the drive.
I need the data on the drive and it won't show up in Disk Warrior. I have tried different Mac's and different USB cords only to find the same outcome. When selected in Disk Utility the information read as such...
Disk Description : WD Elements 1023 Media                      Total Capacity : 500.11 GB (500,105,740,288 Bytes)
Connection Bus : USB                                                               Write Status : Read/Write
Connection Type : External                                                     S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
USB Serial Number : 575837314135304D36373132        Partition Map Scheme : Unformatted
As the drive shows in Disk Utility there must be some life left in it surely. There is a possibilty that the physical connection between the USB cord and the external drive is damaged but since the drive shows up I believe it's unlikely... before I give it to the pro's is there anything else I can do to diagnose the issue?

Hello,
I have just experienced the same thing!
Although my external drive shows in Disk Utility, it does not show in Finder.
And the Verify/Repair buttons are also greyed out.
Also, although the drive is 2TB. DU shows it as having Total Capacity of only 4.14GB! (Which should be the Free Space).
I was wondering if you solved your problem, & if so, would you share your solution.
I´m afraid to Erase in case I lose all my Data on the drive.
Thanks in advance for your reply!

I bought a CD and it charged me for it and said it downloaded it but it's not showing up in my library...

I bought a CD and it charged me for it and said it downloaded it but it's not showing up in my library...I tried to check for available downloads and it says it is all downloaded but the songs are not in my library

You must not post here because you have a portable. The problem is related to iTunes so you should post into the iTunes for Mac section and you may also have better luck in answers as iTunes specialist are there.
Cheers
Simon

New external drive for mac and windows

Hello,
I am looking to buy a 500gb maxtor external drive. Partition it 250gb for winxp and 250gb for my imac. I am really looking to make these drives as backup drives. I currently have an old 250gb (not all used) formatted as os x entended. I use it for all my itunes, photos, movies... photoshop, you get the picture... I just want to drag and drop to that drive. The same for my windows.
Does this sound correct? Has anyone done it this way?
Another way, would be to have it formatted for windows and drop and drag into two different folders : win and imac. But then I will be losing the naming conventions from the os x? isn't that why and want to use os x extended?
Thanks for all ideas,
Charlie

Piece of cake!
For those who want to know:
usb connection to imac first. I started disk utility. Split the partition to two parts and formated only one partition as OS X extended. After done, copied my directories as a bkup.
usb connection to windows. I started computer management and saw that the usb disk had two partitions: the first was healthy but unknown. That was ok, I wanted the second partition to be NTFS and formated. Then copied my directories to that drive as well.
Connected back the imac and saw both partitions, imacbkup and winbkup. I forgot, just like what I do with the imac and winxp, I can see the c: drive via the mac.
Very cool and easy. Maxtor drives are very reliable and easy to use.
Thanks,
Charlie Cooperman
If anyone wants more detail info, you can email me at [email protected]

How to I set up PSE12 to be the external editor for Aperture - aperture is exporting the photos but they are not showing up in PSE

I want to use PSE12 as external editor for apetture . the photos are exportd but do not show up in PSE. Must be some adjustment I can't find?

The article below is for PSE 10, but should be relevant for PSE 12. I recently used the instructions for editing Aperture photos in PSE 11
http://barbarabrundage.com/2011/10/05/adobe-hide-and-seek-setting-pse-10-as-exte rnal-editor/

Hard drive formatting for OSX and Windows 7 using GUID

Hey,
I am currently trying to format a 2TB WD Elements external hard drive so that I can use one half with Time Machine and the other half with Windows 7 (run using Boot Camp). From looking around online it appears that GPT is the best to use, and so using Disk Utility I formatted the hard hard drive into 2 partitions, one being Mac Os Extended (Journaled) and left the other as empty space. I then switched to Windows 7 (on the same machine) and formatted the empty space as NTFS. The problem is that now Windows 7 can see both partitions (and can see the contents of the HFS partition which I didn't think would be possible) but OSX can only see the NTFS partition (and has changed the label of the HFS partition from what I set to "disk0s2" when viewed in Disk Utility). I've probably done something very wrong, can anyone help?
Cam

you would have been fine had you set the free space to FAT instead.
You can read only from Windows to HFS unless you buy 3rd party HFS driver.
Same for NTFS only reverse.
You do not need or want to use BC Assistant for that external drive. At. All.

Mac Pro - Separate HD for OSX and Windows?

Hello Mac Pro users - maybe some of you can help...
Are going to buy a Mac Pro soon - which will be used for graphic artwork and Windows games. Today I have a Mac and a PC - for the same purpose - and now I want to build the Mac Pro with a harddisk for OSX - and another harddisk for Windows (XP or Vista). Is it possible to have 2 separate HD's (or more) with each systems using the standard setup by Bootcamp - or do I have to make a partition on the OSX HD and then install Windows there?
I'm asking this pro forum because I can't get a clear answer here in Denmark where I live - a Apple supplier first said it was impossible - then 2 days later, that it was possible, but they will charge me for 2 hours of support - and in another forum some have told me it was easy - but have given me no help how to do it - and again some have told me to use some software called "rEFIt".
So is it possible - and hard to do?
If possible, please tell me in steps how to do...
BR FLASH

Boot Camp will allow you to
utilise an entire disk for Windows. If you go to the
Boot Camp web page you can actually see it in a
picture…
http://www.apple.com/bootcamp/
The only thing you need to be wary of is that the
Boot Camp Assistant will not wrok from a Mac OS X
installation that is on a RAID set. As long as you
boot mac OS X from a single drive then it's really
easy.
I had a setup for awhile of two drives in RAID-0 for my Startup drive, a backup single drive, and a separate 300GB drive just for Windows.
In Windows the "Startup" drive in Control Panel would not show the RAID-0 Startup volume, but I could startup from it by hitting Option when it rebooted.
Steve

Partition Table Looks Different Between OSX and Windows 7

Hey all,
I recently replaced the hard drive on my 2007 iMac, going from the 320GB drive to a 1 TB drive. It actually worked! The previous drive was failing in very odd ways, though booting into the Windows side (more on dual boot later) always seemed to work, and S.M.A.R.T. always reported that the physical drive seemed OK.
The previous drive (320 GB) had around 200GB devoted to OSX and 100GB partitioned off for a working Windows 7 installation (custom installed x64 Win7 Ultimate). I had the Windows system image backed up to my NAS, and had a Windows system bootable disc to restore that image.
After replacing the drive (and almost crying that I had actually done it right), I first restored OSX from a Time Machine backup, and let it take the full 1TB of space as Journalled HFS+. Then, I used Disk Utility to shrink OSX down to 500GB, and created a second partition (formatted to NTFS) with the remaining 500GB.
Now, restoring a Windows system image is an odd thing, as it tries to do a lot of partition work as opposed to simply restoring the Windows install to a partition. I tried Macrium Reflect first (made a backup in that, too), and it looked like it was going to let me restore to the second partition. It completed the restore...and the entire hard drive was hosed. Partitions had been moved, renamed, resized, and nothing was bootable. I had to use Recovery from an external USB thumb drive to go back to the single, full-drive install of OSX.
Then I tried again. Made the second NTFS partition and used the basic Windows System Restore disk to restore from the standard system image I had on the NAS. I was not expecting this to work. But it did. Windows started showing up in Startup Manager when "option" was pressed on bootup, and both OSX and Windows booted properly and ran fine. This is where I (finally) get to the supreme oddities:
OSX Disk Utility still reports two 500GB partitions, one for OSX and one for Windows.
In OSX the Windows partition shows as having NO DATA on it. Not sure what would happen if I tried to write a file to it when mounted, but there is no data on it when viewed from OSX (I was always able to see the Windows files when I mounted that partition on the previous drive).
The Windows partition does not show up as a valid bootable system in System Prefs --> Startup Disk (naturally, I suppose, since OSX doesn't think there is anything there).
From the WINDOWS side, Windows still sees the old partition table: 200GB for the "unknown" HFS partition, and then the rest of the space can be devoted to Windows (started as 100GB, but I was ablt to expand it to use the remaining ~750GB!). Windows thinks it can have 750GB of space even though I know its partition is only 500GB in size!
Windows cannot see the OSX HFS partition data using HFSExplorer. It CAN see the HFS partition on the attached backup drive (the drive I use for Time Machine).
GParted (a partition program on a Linux bootabld CD-ROM) shows the same partitions as OSX Disk Utility (2x500GB), and also thinks the Windows NTFS partition is empty (all space reports as "unused").
Did I mention both OSX and Windows work fine???
There are, of course, two other partitions on the drive: the first partition is the 200MB one I always see (EFI/GUID portion?), and then between the HFS and NTFS partitions is the 600MB recovery partition (which also shows at option-pressed boot time). OSX, GParted, and Windows see all four partitions, and in the same order. It is just that Windows sees the wrong sizes, and OSX cannot see any data in the Windows partition.
Surely this is all going to break spectacularly at some point, isn't it? What if I ever did write a file to the Windows side from OSX, or what if OSX starts taking more space than the 200GB Windows thinks is the max for that partition? What if I try to make Windows use more than 500GB because it thinks it has almost 800GB to use? What if I defrag the Windows drive?
I had no idea a partition table could look this goofy and yet still have everything be bootable and workable. Is there something I can do to get everything in sync? Basically, I am assuming I need to get Windows to do some low-level kung fu in Disk Manager in order to properly get everything lined up with the "right" partitions as reported by both GParted and OSX Disk Utility. But how do I do that?
By the way, any ideas that totally nuke the drive and start from scratch are completely fine (if it seems like they are doing something different enough that I'd give it a try). I have good backups of both OSX and Windows and have restored them about a half dozen times already as I dealt with the previous failing hard drive and with trying to get dual-boot working again. Not to mention, this iMac is now my secondary machine to the new Mac Mini I got a couple weeks back when I wasn't sure how much more life I was going to get from this 6+ year old iMac.
Thanks for listening to me ramble about this very odd issue, and a huge THANK YOU in advance to anyone who has ideas to help.
Thanks,
sutekh138

Update:
I am pretty sure the issue is a simple GPT/MBR discrepancy.
I installed rEFIt and used it's partitioning tool (gptsync built in) upon bootup. It was able to show the GPT table and the MBR table, but it thinks the second partition of the drive (the Mac OSX bootable partition) is "extended" in the MBR table and says "will not touch this disk."
However, it does look like an MBR sync should be straightforward, as there four partitions in the GPT table and four in the MBR (and MBR allows a max of four, AFAIK). I just need gptsync to relax some rules. I found a link to a supposedly newer version of gptsync compiled for OSX, so I will try that later.
First, I will try Partition Wizard, a free tool I found for the Windows side. It has a "Repair MBR" option that I would have tried last night if I weren't running a new Windows Image Backup in case all of this goes haywire. *smile* The PW tool also has an option to change the MBR over to GPT entirely. That might work, but then I am not sure Windows 7 will boot (from what I read, x64 Win7 running on EFI-enabled hardware should work, but who knows).
Anyway, I will try the following things, in order, until something works, when I get home tonight:
From Windows, run Partition Wizard and try "Repair MBR".
From OSX, download recent gptsync and try to run it.
From Windows, use Partition Wizard to do a full MBR --> GPT conversion.
Nuke the Windows partition in OSX Disk Utility, expand the HFS partition to take up the whole drive, and then add a Windows-bootable partition via Boot Camp-ish command line commands (diskutil). Because if nothing else works, I have to assume I just created the partitions wrong in the first place such that a Windows restore miraculously works, but the partition weirdness is just a timebomb waiting to happen.
Finally, if none of the above work, I'll just get things back to the way they now work and wait for the timebomb to (possibly never) go off. *smile*
I'll update this thread if I get something figured out, in case anyone else stumbles upon it...
Thanks,
sutekh138

HDD formatting for OSX and Windows

How can I format a HDD so that it is readable and writable from under both windows and osx?

My "problem" is fairly simple.
My brother gave me 2 200GB SATA disks from his Windows machine with his data and a new 500GB WD MyBook external HDD and asked me to move stuff from his 2 200GB disks onto the new external 500GB drive. I copied the data from his 200GB disks onto my Mac, then formatted the 500GB drive like I would for OSX and copied it. He could not read it. I re-formatted it to FAT32 and could not copy much. Then I formatted it to NTFS using some very very old laptop I found but could not copy anything onto it. HAHA. So now I am stuck with 400GB of his data on my HD and I need to not only give him his data, but also rid my HD of 400GB of his stuff.
I tried doing the MacFuse and NTFS-3G but it did not work. I don't have access to his computer so I can't install anything onto it.

Cannot repair disk errors for OSX boot volume using Disk Utility while booted from different disk

I have tried three times to repair my boot volume (OSX 10.6.8 Snow Leopard) permissions using Disk Utility while booted up on a different volume (running Snow Leopard 10.6.4). After hours of Disk Utility reporting that it HAD fixed the problems, an immediate click of "Verify permissions" immediately results in the apparently same continuous stream of permission errors.

Then better luck next time around. Here are some ideas for then:
How to Install Lion Successfully - You must have Snow Leopard 10.6.7 or 10.6.8 Installed
A. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions:
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. Then select Disk Utility from the Utilities. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.3.) if DW cannot fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall Snow Leopard.
B. Make a Bootable Backup Using Restore Option of Disk Utility:
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the backup volume. Source means the internal startup volume.
C. Important: Please read before installing:
If you have a FireWire hard drive connected, disconnect it before installing the update unless you will boot from this drive and install the update on it. Reconnect it and turn it back on after installation is complete and you've restarted.
You may experience unexpected results if you have installed third-party system software modifications, or if you have modified the operating system through other means. (This does not apply to normal application software installation.)
The installation process should not be interrupted. If a power outage or other interruption occurs during installation, use the standalone installer (see below) from Apple Downloads to update. While the installation is in progress do not use the computer.
D. To upgrade to Lion:
Purchase the Lion Installer from the Mac App Store. The download will start quickly. Lion is nearly 4 GBs so a fast internet connection is essential. Download time could run upwards of 4 hours depending upon network conditions and server demands at the time.
Boot From The Lion Installer which is located in your Applications folder.
Follow instructions for installation.

Webcam for OSX and Windows

Hi, I would like to buy a webcam that can work on OSX and Windows XP as I have two computers but only want to buy one webcam. Can anybody recommend a webcam that works on both operating systems?
Thanks.
6400 (7.5), G4 PB (10.3.x), MM (10.4.x), 15GB pod, and then some! Mac OS X (10.3.9)

I recently bought an Ezonics 1Contact Pro which works with both systems.

Can an external HD be partitioned into 2: one for OSX and the other for XP?

As the topic says, i got an external HD to backup all the stuff. But since I use a desktop PC as well as my macbook everyday, it would be nice to use the HD for both of them.
If the answer is yes, what program should i use? Thanks in advance.

A couple of things to be aware of for what you want to do:
1. File size: If you want to avoid the file size limitations of FAT32, then set one partition as NTFS and one as the OS X partition. Then, if you connect the external HDD to the Mac, you'll be able to read the NTFS partition but not write to it. The Windows PC will not be able to read or write to the OS X partition. Use FAT32 and both operating systems will be able to read and write to the FAT32 partition, but file size is limited to 4GB on the FAT32 partition.
2. Access the external HDD across a network, and the format is irrelevant--you can have an OS X (HFS) partition and an NTFS partition, and both operating systems can read and write to it. The reason is the SMB protocol, which does the translations for you, on the fly. For, example, I have several Mac and PC systems on a network, sharing is enabled on each computer, and two of the computers have an external HDD (one HFS, one NTFS) connected. From any computer on the network, I can access (read and write) any file on any other computer or external HDD.

Ho do I use one monitor for OSX and Windows 8.1 bootcamp

I am a long time Mac user, but find the fairly recent Apple switch to thunderbolt for monitor input very frustrating.
For several years I have ran a Mid 2010 IMac 27" and input video from a Mac Mini running Boot Camp Windows 7 using Target Display Mode on the IMac.
This worked fine until I upgraded to a Late 2013 27" IMac and discovered that the IMac has moved to thunderbolt as the input for Target Display Mode. The new late 2013 27" IMac just will not display native Windows 7 or 8 from a Boot Camp Mac anymore.
My problem is that I have two business/job related Windows apps that must run on a native windows 7 or 8 platform, and won't function under either Parallels or VMWare Fusion.
I have tried.
And there appears to be no way to get any Windows machine with DVI or Mini Display Port output to drive a late 2013 IMac in Target Display mode.
So, with great frustration, I have concluded that I need to purchase a non-Apple 27-30" monitor, and drive it with either a Mac Mini, or my Early 2013 15" MacBook Pro retina, running one of the Macs into on of the mini-Display Ports on the monitor and a native Windows 7 or 8 machine into a second mini-display port, switching between the two video inputs. The Dell 30" monitor seems to get the nod.
Has anyone found a better solution to switching between OSX and native Windows on one monitor?
Thanks...

Hi William,
I had the same experience in December 2013 and contacted Apple about it. According to Apple it's an issue of Windows with Thunderbolt. Your older iMac from 2010 is using DisplayPort and not Thunderbolt for the Target Display Mode. Note that just the connector looks the same but it's still a different technology. Please further note that the response below does not apply for the new iMac 27" with the 5K display because this iMac does not support Target Display Mode at all, hence can't be used as external display. Of course you can still attach one or two external displays to the iMac 27" 5K.
Hope this clears things up for you and the others.
Thanks,
Martin
So, here is the important part of the official response from Apple:
"... The Thunderbolt controller in an iMac is running exclusively in host mode. As such it cannot emulate a device mode Thunderbolt display. Instead it implements a custom Target Display Mode protocol that shares video between two peer to peer machines running with both controllers running in host mode. The "client" side of the driver does not exist on Windows so windows cannot speak to the "server" half in the iMac. There are no plans to implement a client driver for Windows since there is no Thunderbolt SW stack available for Windows. The reason this used to work is that the older iMacs used DisplayPort for Target Display Mode. In this scenario the iMac was able to expose the panel in such a way that it looked exactly like a Display Port Device which Windows does have driver support for. ... "
Target Display Mode: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - Apple Support

I want to partition an external device for OSX and Windows. Opened Disk utility but Partition is not an option

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