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what is the largest partition for boot camp

I'm at 34 GB now and need more room. Can I go larger? I'm running XP on my windows side.


Rick

Posted on Oct 5, 2011 4:41 PM

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16 replies

Oct 5, 2011 4:51 PM in response to Richard Coffman

You can shrink your primary (OSX) partition to make more room for BootCamp. You would need to backup data from the XP side, delete that partition, shrink your OSX partition. Then you can have a larger BootCamp partition after you reinstall XP.


But once a partition is created, you cannot change the *beginning* location on the disk.


But if your OSX partition was minimized to make room for XP, your priorities are not quite correct.


It is a Mac system first. Your OSX partition needs 10%-15% free space at all times, and if reinstalling/expanding XP partition drops that "free space" too low, it is time for a new disk.


Please do not take offense to anythng I wrote ... I did not intend to insult at any point.

Oct 5, 2011 9:53 PM in response to steve359

I set the size of the partition based on the limit that windows could see or use with the XP software. I remember reading somewhere in the setup for boot camp that 32GB was the most that windows could address or something like that, I profess my lack of knowledge of all things PC. The Mac side is not a problem, I'm working with a 500GB drive. So what you are saying is that I can make the partition 64GB if I want? Will I have create multiple volumes on it for the software to be able to see that much space?

Oct 5, 2011 10:06 PM in response to Richard Coffman

I do not run XP anymore, not for years.


XP is long in the tooth, and a new install will likey have 3 days of patches.


Windows 7 can be had for $200 (Home Premium), and is more stable and actually acknowledged by MS as a system. Far fewer patches after initial install, as well.


As to partitions: BootCamp needs a 1 partition disk to even start running, and only two partitions can exist under BootCamp (OSX and Windows). Both on the internal disk.


I guess you can make your BootCamp partition as big as you need or want or feel the version of Windows will support.


I was just stating rules about having to "undo BootCamp" to purge that partition and rebuild it to have it any larger.

Oct 6, 2011 5:05 AM in response to Richard Coffman

Windows XP has a practical limit for partitions at 2TB due to the used MBR (Master Boot Record) not being able to address larger harddisks.


32GB is the limitation Microsoft has set for using FAT32 as file system.

Partitions over 32GB have to use the NTFS file system.


(Third-party tools can nonetheless format partitions greater than 32GB with FAT32).


And you don't have and shouldn't create multiple volumes inside the BootCamp Windows partition as this renders your XP partition useless !!


Stefan

Oct 6, 2011 5:19 AM in response to Fortuny

Fortuny wrote:


Windows XP has a practical limit for partitions at 2TB due to the used MBR (Master Boot Record) not being able to address larger harddisks.


32GB is the limitation Microsoft has set for using FAT32 as file system.

Partitions over 32GB have to use the NTFS file system.


I'm sorry but that is a hoary old wives tale, it's also incorrect, the maximum size for a Fat32 partition is 8TBytes


Here's some data about it.



  • Clusters cannot be 64 kilobytes (KB) or larger. If clusters are 64 KB or larger, some programs (such as Setup programs) may incorrectly calculate disk space.
  • A FAT32 volume must contain a minimum of 65,527 clusters. You cannot increase the cluster size on a volume that uses the FAT32 file system so that it contains fewer than 65,527 clusters.
  • The maximum disk size is approximately 8 terabytes when you take into account the following variables: The maximum possible number of clusters on a FAT32 volume is 268,435,445, and there is a maximum of 32 KB per cluster, along with the space required for the file allocation table (FAT).


Hmmm, formatting is odd, here's a link to the original MS article

Oct 6, 2011 6:09 AM in response to Fortuny

Fortuny wrote:


And 500g is so much bigger than 2TB ??

The OP was talking about an internal 500G drive, you told him 32G was the maximum partition for Fat32, I think that 500G is the limit, and if he had a 2T drive then 2T would be the limit, but please keep spreading the information, correction is never far away.

Oct 6, 2011 6:16 AM in response to Csound1

What I wrote was:


"32GB is the limitation Microsoft has set for using FAT32 as file system.

Partitions over 32GB have to use the NTFS file system.


(Third-party tools can nonetheless format partitions greater than 32GB with FAT32)."


Microsofts own Format program refuses to use FAt32 with partitions bigger than 32GB.

Third-party tools do it nonetheless


Stefan

what is the largest partition for boot camp

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