Partitioning Internal Hard Drive between Mac and Windows

So I receently ordered a new MacBook to replace my old PC and my old Mac. With 2 GB of Video Ram (With the Nvidia 750M), I was hoping to be able to run my Steam Games decently (I understand that a Mac isn't going to run on max graphics or anything, but I figure it will do alright) using Boot Camp.
My question is how would you guys recommend partitioning the 1 TB internal drive? I was hoping for a Mac and a PC System Partition with the majority of the storage space left as "shared" between them (I use Paragon NTFS for Mac, and MacDrive for PC, so I'm not sure what format would be most stable for the shared storage). What do you guys recommend?

Well, let me start by saying that with the default Boot Camp tools, you probably won't be able to setup more than the 2 OS partitions on the internal drive of your notebook. Not that it can't be done with other tools, but it is not a quick and easy setup to do, so if you are going to undertake it, please be prepared for issues, and do it from the beginning. There is a decent thread on this forum about "repairing after you change your partitions" which has plenty of information about the problems you will be facing and how to work around most of them.
Having said that, when I was using Boot Camp on my MBP with a 750GB drive, I gave 500GB to MacOS, and 250GB to Windows 7. I also used Paragon's NTFS for MacOS driver, and Paragon's HFS+ for Windows driver (after having use MacDrive for several years). This combination allowed both OSes full access to the entire 750GB drive, and I put my Thunderbird and FireFox profiles on the MacOS partition, but could access them from either OS that was booted. That solution worked great for me for years (until I upgraded my MBP and opted to eliminate Boot Camp and only run VMs for Windows).
With the proper drivers, either OS would be able to utilize your external drives, but keep in mind there are still some Mac utilities/apps which will only work with an HFS+ formatted partition, just like there are some Windows programs that do the same with NTFS. Personally I found that I would have to "share" my external drives with other Windows users more than Mac users, so I formatted most of mine NTFS, and just took the minor performance hit when accessing them under MacOS.

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Hi,
I have two Western Digital external HDs with nearly exactly these specs.
Partitioned them with GUID partition scheme and have Partition 1 as bootable OSX clone and partition 2 with FAT32 for file storage/sharing between OSX and Windows.
So, what you want is what I have/use right now.
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I have a 500GB external HDD which I had to format o Fat32 a while ago. I don't remember exactly how I did it, but I remember it was a pain in the *** and took forever (I was under Windows XP).
So short answer to your question is yes. It is possible and as the above person said, you need to format to Fat32. Long answer is it will take some time and effort. Here are a few links to help you get started:
http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm
http://macosx.com/forums/mac-os-x-system-mac-software/270038-format-new-hard-dis k-into-fat32.html
http://en.kioskea.net/faq/sujet-676-formatting-your-drive-with-fat32
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I'd like to use my Mac-formatted iPod to back up some personal files om my work PC laptop, and then transfer them to my Mac at home. I need to repeat this process every month or so.
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(8873)

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Currently we have 1 "master computer" which is a mac that stores all the data formatted in mac os extended (journaled). But we are always having rights issues with that and if that users machine is off, or having network problems we loose access.
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3rd machine runs bootcamp constantly.
all macs are Lion 10.7.5
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Fat32
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How do I format an external HD for use on Mac and Windows? She has two laptops and have to use both.

format the external for Mac and use MacDrive or HFS+ for Windows on the windows side.
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format the drive NTFS and install e.g. the NTFS 3G driver on the Mac.

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Hey all,
Is it possible to set up an external hard drive with a partition that has one side compatible with Mac and the other with Windows, similar to a Boot Camp setup on an internal drive? If so, how do I do that? Thanks for any advice you can give.

Rekishika:
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I have over 200Gb of HD wedding videos I captured with FCE to an external hard drive. I would like to mail the hard drive to the groom but he uses a PC.
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He will also not be able to view the codec in which your material is written. You would need to convert everything to files using something like H.264.
If he installed Mac Drive 7 on his computer he could read a Mac formatted drive, but that wouldn't solve the codec issue.

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Hello,
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Hi Eric and welcome to Discussions and the Apple world.
Mac OSX can read and write from Windows partitions (like the BootCamp Windows partition you are about to create) when using FAT32 as file system for Windows.
However with FAT32 you are limited to a partition size of 32GB.
Mac OSX can also read from Windows partitions that uses the NTFS file system, but it can not write to them unless you use a third-party helper like either Paragons NTFS for Mac http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/ or NTFS-3G http://www.ntfs-3g.org/
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Partitioning Internal Hard Drive between Mac and Windows

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