Hard Drive in mac & Xp

Would like to know if I can format a internal 500G HD to use the full capacity in both win & mac to store files. I do it on my network drives but can't seem to do it on internal. Is it possible and how can it be done. Just can't limit myself to the 128m just too small. I really just want to share the same drive under both OS

Thx

 

In a word no.

OSX must be installed on an HFS+ or HFS+ journaled partition, and windows must be installed on FAT32 or NTFS.

Here's what you can do: If you are using Parallels, you can share your volumes folder and gain access from your VM to the entire drive, but you will have no access to the VM files from OSX unless the VM is running and you access files over the network after setting up appropriate sharing.

If you are using bootcamp, you can format your XP partition FAT32, and install MacDrive (commercial product) and access all of the drive from both environments (as two partitions).

 

Win XP & OSX on HD

Thanks for you response and help but how and why does both OS reads my network drives and USB drives but cannot read the internal drive. They are all NTFS and I can read and write on all of them from Mac or PC on Parallels, Tried the MacDrive but that does not work It can't seem to find it

 

MacDrive will work in bootcamp, but not Parallels because bootcamp has direct hardware access that Parallels does not give the VM.

When you access a network drive, the low level access is being done by the host OS on the machine you are accessing so the drive format is irrelevant as long as the host OS understands it. You can access your Mac internal drive as a network drive, over the network the same way you access any other (Mac) network drive.

The bottom line is that until Parallels allows direct partition access, you can't do what you want without going through a network stack.

Next problem...

 

MacDrive will not work in Boot Camp if the Parallels Boot Camp tools are installed.

 

Be aware that you must have at least Parallels beta 2 Build 3094 installed (and "Parallels Tools for Boot Camp" uninstalled) in order for MacDrive to function correctly under Boot Camp. It was broken in the first public beta build (3036).