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bootcamp & ext. HDD question

  • 23-05-2006 1:15pm
    #1
    flogen
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 10,247 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    While going mac is still at least a while away, I was wondering if someone could answer my questions on Ex. HDD;
    My PC laptop recently died and once I replace it I intend on getting a caddy to salvage all my lost files from it; if I go mac will I still be able to do this, even though the HDD is formatted to windows? Will I need to transfer them over via PC or something instead?

    Secondly, once I've gotten what I need from the HDD I'll probably format it; would I be able to use this seperate drive for Windows through bootcamp instead of partitioning the existing mac drive, or do the two OS's have to be in one place?


Comments

  • #2
    Dont be at yourself
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,592 ✭✭✭✭Dont be at yourself


    As far as I know, OSX can read and write FAT32, and can read from NTFS drives. So you should be able to take your files from the harddrive, but you may need to reformat before you can write to it.

    I'm not sure about the bootcamp question, but I am going to dirty my lovely mac mini with XP later on tonight, so I'll let you know if I see an option!


  • #3
    flogen
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 10,247 Mod ✭✭✭✭flogen


    NekkidBibleMan wrote:
    As far as I know, OSX can read and write FAT32, and can read from NTFS drives. So you should be able to take your files from the harddrive, but you may need to reformat before you can write to it.

    I'm not sure about the bootcamp question, but I am going to dirty my lovely mac mini with XP later on tonight, so I'll let you know if I see an option!

    thanks for that!


  • #4
    silverlining
    Closed Accounts Posts: 425 ✭✭silverlining


    As Nekkid said, you'll be able to grab the files from the PC formatted drive onto the mac by just plugging it in.

    According to this you can get windows running from the external drive (you have to reformat it though and you still have to put the minimum 5GB windows partition on the Mac's internal drive even though you wont be using it)


  • #5
    dub45
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 12,450 Mod ✭✭✭✭dub45


    Might be of interest to you:

    http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050521110452194


  • #6
    silverlining
    Closed Accounts Posts: 425 ✭✭silverlining


    silverlining wrote:
    According to this you can get windows running from the external drive (you have to reformat it though and you still have to put the minimum 5GB windows partition on the Mac's internal drive even though you wont be using it)
    Actually, I'd reccomend that you put at least a 20GB Windows partition on the mac's internal drive with bootcamp and use the USB drive with both Windows and OSX as normal. It's probably a lot less hassle than trying to get windows booting off the external HD


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