Viewing OSX partition from Windows

G'day all
Ok this may be a fairly obvious question but is Windows able (via any means) to view the data stored on my mac partition? When I load windows, I've got both partitions available however when I load windows I can't see the mac side of things. I presume this is due to the native HDD format that OSX uses but still, I want to be able to access files saved in OSX from Windows. Sure I can load OSX and transfer the files to the windows partition but that involves logging out, logging in, loggin out, logging in.
Any ideas?
Regards,

The file system you refer to is hfs. Sadly you will need an app in the windows side to be able to use it.
This app http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/ worked for me, i don't know how it will go in a bootcamp partition, but it should work fine.

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HT5628 How do I read OSX partition from Windows?

I am thinking of installing Windows 8 on my Macbook Pro using Boot Camp to create a dual boot system.
If I do this, how can I access my current Mac OSX partition from within Windows? Does boot camp mount the Mac OSX partition automatically?
If not, how can I share data between my Windows partition and Mac OSX partition?
(Apologies if this is an elementary question, but I couldn't see an obvious answer anywhere.)
Thanks.

If I do this, how can I access my current Mac OSX partition from within Windows? Does boot camp mount the Mac OSX partition automatically?
You can't access the Mac because it isn't running when you dual boot. You can purchase third-party software such as MediaFour's DriveOne to access the OS X partition. From OS X you will need a utility such as NTFS for Mac 10.0.2 or Tuxera NTFS 2012.3.6 to write to the Windows partition.

Can't see random files on osx partition from Windows

Has anyone noticed that not all files on the osx partition can be viewed by Windows? I.e. in \users\shared I have a directory with about 50 files, some of them don't show up when viewed from Windows on random basis, but if you boot up into OSX they are all there.
This used to work fine with the origonal version of snow leopard. It only started happening after I updated the OS.

Hi edwelch,
maybe it has its reason in 'reserved character and words' used in the filename of the files you miss.
Some characters/words are allowed in OSX but are not-allowed (reserved) in Windows and vice versa.
Have a look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filename
Regards
Stefan

Viewing OSX partition from Bootcamp

After partitioning my Hard drive (post installing my bootcamp partition), I was unable to boot from my Bootcamp partition. Which was fixed by following the instructions in this thread. After launching my bootcamp partition again I was unable to view my OSX and Storage partitions whilst on my windows partition.
sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0
gpt show: disk0: mediasize=320072933376; sectorsize=512; blocks=625142448
gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 625142447
      start       size index contents
          0          1         MBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640 294655544      2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
295065184    1269536      3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
296334720        640
296335360 135448576      4 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
431783936 193357824      5 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
625141760        655
625142415         32         Sec GPT table
625142447          1         Sec GPT header
sudo fdisk /dev/disk0
Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 38913/255/63 [625142448 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [     start -       size]
1: EE    0   0   2 - 1023 254 63 [         1 - 431783935] <Unknown ID>
*2: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 431783936 - 193357824] HPFS/QNX/AUX
3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused

Right, so the problem is that the MBR only contains the Windows partition, therefore Windows only sees itself. To fix this, you'd use gdisk to create a new hybrid MBR. Go to the recovery menu, r, create new hybrid MBR, h. And then follow the questions: yes to EFI GPT being first in the MBR; add partitions 2 4 5. Accept default type code hex values by just hitting enter when asked, and do not make 2 or 4 bootable, do make 5 bootable.
So the problem with this layout is that partition 3, Recovery HD, can't be added to the MBR. Therefore it appears to Windows as unallocated free space and is open game for being modified, erased, whatever. Which is why a 5 partition layout isn't recommended or supported and also has no meaningful advantage. But I'd fix it as suggested and just leave it alone until you have full backups of both environments and you're ready to do a major upgrade and blow everything away and start from scratch at that time. It's a fairly low risk that Recovery HD gets broken by Windows. And it's sort of risky to try to get rid of this extra partition you created, to go back to a 4 partition layout.

Not booting after creating a fat32 partition from windows 8 from boot camp

I have windows 8.1 on a boot camp partition. I created a fat32 partition from windows looking forward to be able to share files to Yosemite OSX. But now, neither the OSX or the windows are booting. When pressing options key is only abailable one option, a disk tagged as "windows", and after trying to use it, it refers to a error message "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME". I really really appreciate any help regarding this issue.

Your entire disk is a MBR disk. You will need to erase the disk, and start from the beginning and install Yosemite/Mavericks, and then use BC Assistant to create a Windows partition and install Windows. If you have a Time Capsule/Time Machhine backup, you can restore it after your erase using the command below.
You can erase the disk as follows
diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ OSX disk0
Here is the Usage help syntax.
diskutil erasedisk
Usage: diskutil eraseDisk format name [APM[Format]|MBR[Format]|GPT[Format]]
MountPoint|DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode
Completely erase an existing whole disk. All volumes on this disk will be
destroyed. Ownership of the affected disk is required.
Format is the specific file system name you want to erase it as (HFS+, etc.).
Name is the (new) volume name (subject to file system naming restrictions),
or can be specified as %noformat% to skip initialization (newfs).
You cannot erase the boot disk.
Example: diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ UntitledUFS disk3

Cannot access Mac OS Partition from windows 8 running in boot camp

So I installed Windows 8.1 Pro through Boot Camp but I can't access the Mac OS partition from windows even though boot camp partition shows up while I'm on Mac OS. I have installed all the drivers from apple but still it didn't work. Then I downloaded Paragon HFS+ which was free for windows 8 and 8.1 thinking that this would solve my problem. The instructions told me to change the drive letter for mac partition from disk management by right clicking the drive pressing "change drive letter and path" button. But the "change drive letter and path" key in grey color and I can't press it. Can somebody please help?

Here you go
1) diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *750.2 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         650.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                99.0 GB    disk0s4
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           *645.8 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 AFC82671-CBAA-4338-BAEC-7D272EC755B1
                                 Unencrypted
2. sudo fdisk /dev/<BootCampDisk> (from 1 of the form disk0)
i typed this: sudo fdisk /dev/disk0
Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 91201/255/63 [1465149168 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [     start -       size]
1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [         1 -     409639] <Unknown ID>
2: AC 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [    409640 - 1270110576] <Unknown ID>
3: AB 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [1270520216 -    1269536] Darwin Boot
*4: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [1271791616 - 193355776] HPFS/QNX/AUX
sudo fdisk /dev/disk1
/dev/disk1: Resource busy
3. sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/<BootCampDisk> (from 1 of the form disk0)
sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0
gpt show: /dev/disk0: mediasize=750156374016; sectorsize=512; blocks=1465149168
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Sec GPT at sector 1465149167
       start        size index contents
           0           1         MBR
           1           1         Pri GPT header
           2          32         Pri GPT table
          34           6
          40      409600      1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      409640 1270110576      2 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
1270520216     1269536      3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
1271789752        1864
1271791616   193355776      4 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
1465147392        1743
1465149135          32         Sec GPT table
1465149167           1         Sec GPT header
I didn't quite understand the 4th step. Sorry

Is it possible to resize a mac partition from windows?

Here's what's going on. I originally wanted to use Disk Utility to do this, which is clearly the easy way to do things, but my computer is so slow that Disk Utility immediately becomes unresponsive upon wanting to resize -any- partition. The windows side works fine though, it isn't slow as crap. Is there a way to resize the mac partition from windows (HFS+)? Any possible way? Even crazy ones? I'm open to suggestions.
Oh yeah, and in case you want to know...my Mac Mini just randomly started getting really, really slow, so slow in fact, that now my old iMac from 1999 is faster (it doesn't even have ANY RAM!). I tried resetting the PRAM/NVRAM, multiple times, booting into safe mode takes forever, but I left it for awhile and it finished. Almost worked, the finder showed up quicker than usual, but then it reverted back to it's slow self again once I opened Disk Utility. I tried booting into single user mode and typing /sbin/fsck -fy, and it's so slow, that it couldn't even do that! It got stuck at checking libraries or something, for hours, and i could type things in still, but it wouldn't recognize any commands (ie fsk - fy). I also cannot replace the RAM because it is an older mac mini and those things are hard as f*** to repair, trust me, i've tried. The weirdest part of all of this has to be that this is the computer that we DON'T download many apps onto, so it most likely isn't bloatware, adware, a virus or something else. We download most stuff to our MacBook, and go to the sketchy websites on it as well (it really should be the other way around, the mac mini would be around 3x less expensive to replace, it's just that it's the family computer). And that's always slow, but this surpassed it (btw, the laptop is a year or so older). I do not have the installation disk.
Can someone help? Mainly about the first thing...please. The second thing is hopeless, I will need to get a new computer pretty soon, and these macs don't last as long as they used to I guess, we'd most likely get a quality Windows PC to replace it, this has been a disappointment. I'm just trying to get a little more life out of it with Linux, maybe a year or two. That's what i've done with my old iMac. Runs GREAT. Especially for a 13 year old computer. The thing is, my folks don't want me to completely eliminate the mac partition even though it's virtually unusuable.

I'm not really understanding what the end goal was. But in case anyone else comes across the thread, neither the built-in Windows volume resizing utility nor any 3rd party Windows resizing utility should be used to resize either the Windows partition or the Mac OS partition. Invariably they all manipulate the NTFS volume in such a way that the secondary GPT is corrupt, the primary GPT is rendered invalid, and only correctly alter the MBR. It's a recipe for data loss.
Conversely, while Disk Utility can resize a Mac OS volume, it cannot resize an NTFS volume. With Lion and Mountain Lion, upon using Boot Camp Assistant there are already four partitions: EFI System, Mac OS, Recovery HD, and Windows. There is no more room for a fifth partition in the MBR partition scheme, and if you try to add one, Disk Utility will apparently let you and render Windows unbootable (because Disk Utility adds the fifth partition to the GPT, but can't add it to the MBR, and instead removes the hybrid MBR needed for Windows support and replaces it with a PMBR.)
So in effect this is not to be done except with 3rd party utilities.

Printer connected to Airport Express only works on OSX Partition, not Windows 7 Partition

I have a mid 2012 Macbook Pro, 13 inch with 2.9ghz processor and 8GB RAM that has a Boot Camp partition on it running Windows 7 Professional. I have had an Airport Express base station that I purchased in 2013, and have a printer connected to it, a HP Laserjet 1102w which is plugged into the Airport. When I am on the OSX partition, the wireless printing works perfectly, however, on the Windows partition, it will not 'find' the printer under a list of available printers. This is annoying as I primarily use Windows and have to restart my computer every time I need to print something. Is there any way to fix this?

You might want to take a look at Printopia to see if it will do what you want. There is a free trial, so you will know for sure before you buy.
The upside with Printopia is that printing from the iPhone will work just as if you had an AirPrint printer.
The downside with Printopia is that you must have a Mac running on the network to be able to print.
Printopia - AirPrint to Any Printer - Print from iPad - Print from iPhone ...
I have no interest in Printopia other than that as a customer.

Bootcamp unable to access my OSX files from Windows

I recently reinstalled Windows on my Macbook (Mid 2013) after it got formatted as I sent it to repair, however after reinstalling the system, I cannot seem to access my files from my OSX partition when I'm on Windows. I used to be able to do this but, not anymore. PLEASE HELP.

Please see windows 8 does not recognise Macintosh HD, No drive Letter.

Can you read/write to Mac partition from Windows 7 partition with bootcamp?

Hi there. I am about to take delivery of a new Air and want to install Windows on it. As accessing both simultaneously isn't important to me, I don't mind using boot camp and would like the performance gains (if there are any?) of booting straight into either.
The question is: would I be able to, from Windows, access and edit (have full access to) files stored on the Mac partition?
Furthermore, does anyone know whether I could run itunes on both using the same set of files (i.e. exactly the same itunes whether in OS X or Windows?).
Thanks very much for your help. I have heard contradictory things so wanted to see what the real answer was!
Thanks,
Tom.

iTunes has to be somewhere you can write. There are some tips on iTunes probably in the devoted forums.
But writing to Mac partition (HFS+) requires 3rd party driver. Same for writing to NTFS from Mac OS.
I would not recommend MacDrive8 for allowing Windows to write to Mac HFS, but that is and was the first to do so. Paragon-Software has been creating some file system drivers for Windows, Linux and now Mac to go both ways. Most of their products are in the backup & recovery and partitioning area.
Apple has added read-only feature to allow accessing HFS but the feature (and it is not really a service or driver that you can turn on/off or choose to not install, it is part of the Boot Camp package) has been known to need to be renamed/deleted. Not always but will sometimes trigger BSOD. Maybe reading a file with a file name? doubt it but I rename "AppleHFS" and "AppleMNT" so they don't load or function in Windows 7.
http://www.paragon-software.com/
http://www.mediafour.com/updates/macdrive

Boot Camp And Viewing\Editing Files From Windows

I just ordered Leopard and I'm going to putting it on my 20 Imac next weekend. My plans are to install Windows Vista home premium through boot camp. Is there a way to access files from Windows on Leopard and vice-versa? I have MS Office for Mac and Windows and I do photo editing and it would be nice to access and edit files as needed whatever OS I'm without having to reboot. Some kind of third party software available for this? Parallels is OUT OF THE QUESTION for me. I tried it a few months ago and it was nothing but a nightmare. Left me with a really bad taste for it.
Thanks.
pt

Thanks Kappy,
I did a quick look at MacDrive and looks like what I was wanting. Will download the trial after my transition. Another question: When I install and setup Boot Camp will there be an option to format the partition in NTFS or does it do it by default?
Thanks again for the tip on MacDrive. I've only had this Mac for about 6 months and just learning what is probably old news to you.
pt

Restore MAC OS X after removing its partition from windows?

I created a new bootcamp partition on my macbook air and installed windows 7. Then I realised I had little use for the MAC OS partition and, from windows, formatted that drive to get the extra space,so my MB had 2 particions:
- C drive (Bootcamp)
- D drive (labelled just "new drive").
Now I would like to restore the Mac OS partition on the D drive, but I do not want to erase Bootcamp. However if I restart the computer pressing the C key and with the USB reinstall drive in, the only drive where I can apparently install mac os is bootcamp.
I have not advance after that step since I do not want to erase bootcamp. Any clues as to how to proceed here?
thanks!

You can format "D:" again to HFS from OS X Lion or DVD
You do not want to use WinClone to the same hard drive, terrible.
You can install OS X to external drive - partition the drive for OS X, WinClone perhaps or CampTune (also makes backup restore images) - and for TimeMachine.
CampTune will also 'redistribute' space between HFS and NTFS partitions.
Their "Pro" Suite can convert HFS <=> NTFS without loss of data - of course it would be foolish to not have backups.

Accessing ext3 partitions from Windows with FS Driver

Hi everyone,
I have a slight probem. I'm dual-booting ArchLinux and Windows. Here is my partition scheme:
/dev/sda1 (NTFS) Lenovo Recovery partition
/dev/sda2 (NTFS) Windows
/dev/sda3 (ext2) /boot
/dev/sda5 (JFS) /
/dev/sda6 (JFS) /home
/dev/sda7 (ext3) [documents] partition mounted on /media/data
/dev/sda8 (swap) swap
Everything works fine on the Linux side (of course).
The problem is that I use http://www.fs-driver.org/ to access my documents (/dev/sda7) from Windows.
This worked fine (I was using Kubuntu) but now I had to format the disk in order to install ArchLinux and FS Driver would not recognize the "documents" partition.
I think it might be because the partition is not PRIMARY but LOGICAL. Is there a way to fix this without reformatting everything (just formatting /dev/sda7 is fine with me) ?
Thank you in advance
Last edited by yms (2009-09-11 14:08:17)

Hi, I just stumbled across this one and thought I'd throw in my two cents....
Something I've found about windows is that it's -very- picky about partition sizes.
For instance, on a new system of mine, I did dual booting windows/Linux from partitions on the same hard drive.
The windows partition was first. After creating my Linux partitions, windows would no longer boot, said the partition table was corrupt.
(All partitions were primary)
The solution? I created my Linux partitions using windows tools (which wasted around 10Gigs of hard drive space) and finished them off with linux tools.
Everything worked fine then.
Bottom line, Linux can use partition sizes that (some?) windows will refuse to use.
You should be able to simply remove the last 2 partitions (sda7 and sda8). Any partitioner should work (gparted, cfdisk, windows logical disk manager). Don't forget to move your documents. If you do this from your installed Linux system, don't forget to disable your swap space or you won't be able to remove that partition.
...might also need to unmount /dev/sda7 to use cfdisk... I think gparted does this automatically but don't quote me on that one...
Then you can recreate the last two partitions using windows. Then use Linux to set their types, format them, and restore your documents.
Just to simplify things with the swap space, it's probably easier to use a live distro than your installed Linux.
If your fstab uses UUID's, don't forget to update as formatting will assign new UUID's to the partitions.
... should solve at least half the problem.
laters,
b

I can see and read files on my Mac partition from Windows

I have a MBacBook Pro with Bootcamp installed on a partitioned drive.
I'm currently logged into Windows XP. My drives are:
BOOTCAMP (C:)
DVD-RW Drive (D:)
MB Pro HD (F:)
These three drives show up in Windows Explorer.
I'd never tried opening the MB Pro partition, but got curious tonight. Sure enough, from Windows XP, I can open the MacBook Pro partition, open the Users Directory, find my MacBook login directory, find my Documents Folder, see all the contents, and even open files!
That doesn't seem right.
In fact, that seems like a MAJOR security flaw.
Anybody else? Is this normal? Is there a way I can protect my Mac files from being accessed by someone using Windows on this computer?
Thanks!

It's your machine, anyone that uses the Mac side, would presumably have access to the Windows side.
But if you really want to remove it:
Click Start, then My Computer.
Double-click on the BOOTCAMP (C:) drive At the These files are hidden screen, click on Show the contents of this folder.
Double-click on the Windows folder. At the These files are hidden screen, click on Show the contents of this folder.
Double-click on the System 32 folder. At the These files are hidden screen, click on Show the contents of this folder.
Double-click on the drivers folder.
Locate the file AppleMNT (it is a .sys file) and rename it to something like AppleMNT_keep.
Click Start, then click on Shut Down.
Click Restart to restart Windows.
Taylor

View external content from window within site?

Issue solved by inserting an inline frame

Hi There
Admittedly, I've never really used the ability to actually view the URL from the RoboHelp Explorer pod. So if you say it worked in earlier versions and it has now stopped, I'd heartily advise you to report it to Adobe via the bug report. Click the link below to open the page to file the report.
http://www.adobe.com/go/wish
From what I'm seeing, your best bet at this point is to right-click the link and choose "Show Topic Links". Then from the Link View window, open the topic with the link and choose to preview and test the link from there.
Cheers... Rick

Viewing OSX partition from Windows

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