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How do I make NTFS format for partition in disk utility ?

Hi, how would I format a external hard drive partition to NTFS for windows ? There's no option in disk utility. Only MS-DOS ( FAT ) , ExFat, free space, Mac OS extended- journaled, Mac OS extended, journaled case sensitive.

The other partition would be mac os extended journaled . Does it have something to do with partition scheme ? I'm running mountain lion .

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Sep 15, 2013 9:01 PM

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Posted on Sep 15, 2013 9:17 PM

Mac's on OS X can't format or write to NTFS formatted drives, they can read from it though.


Your best option is to format the external drive on the Windows machine using exFAT as it will do it correctly, the Mac has issues formatting exFAT for Windows.


Once the drive is formatted exFAT on Windows, it will work like a charm between both platforms and can use +4GB sized files, which FAT32 (MSDOS) cannot.


.Drives, partitions, formatting w/Mac's + PC's



Some may argue for you to install third party software to allow the Mac to format and write NTFS, but that's a waste of money and can be glitchy, break when you need it to work or have to reinstall OS X for some reason.


exFAT is free and it works.

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Sep 15, 2013 9:17 PM in response to anonymous4a

Mac's on OS X can't format or write to NTFS formatted drives, they can read from it though.


Your best option is to format the external drive on the Windows machine using exFAT as it will do it correctly, the Mac has issues formatting exFAT for Windows.


Once the drive is formatted exFAT on Windows, it will work like a charm between both platforms and can use +4GB sized files, which FAT32 (MSDOS) cannot.


.Drives, partitions, formatting w/Mac's + PC's



Some may argue for you to install third party software to allow the Mac to format and write NTFS, but that's a waste of money and can be glitchy, break when you need it to work or have to reinstall OS X for some reason.


exFAT is free and it works.

Sep 15, 2013 9:20 PM in response to anonymous4a

ok i wasn't clear, I want to make a backup of my windows partition and mac partition on my macbook pro retina on to ONE external hard drive. So I wanted to make two partitions on the external hard drive, one mac os extended journaled and one NTFS .

I was going to use disk utility to make these partitions. I read NTFS is more stable but there is no option to choose NTFS in disk utility. How would I make a NTFS parition ?

Sep 16, 2013 8:18 AM in response to anonymous4a

I want to make a backup of my windows partition and mac partition on my macbook pro retina on to ONE external hard drive.


Best then to create the backup drive partitions both as Mac OS Extended. The first would be for making a bootable clone of your Mac partition. Disk Utility can do that. Or you can use the third party apps Carbon Copy Cloner, or SuperDuper!. Either of the latter are much preferable because once the initial full clone is complete, either paid, full version can do incremental updates which will change only what is necessary on the cloned drive to match the source. Disk Utility can only do the full drive every time, so you have to wait for the entire drive to be cloned, every time.


The reason for making the second partition also Mac OS Extended is that you never even have to leave the Mac OS to backup your Windows partition. Purchase Winclone. With it, you can create backups of your NTFS drive as a disk image to the Mac formatted drive, or restore it. All without ever leaving OS X. The second partition can then also be used to backup any other data from your Mac instead of being locked in as an NTFS partition, only good for cloning Windows from within Windows.


NTFS isn't more stable. At least, not to the Mac. It's great for Windows when Windows is the OS you're in. If you're in OS X, Mac OS Extended is course the most stable since that is OS X's native drive format.

Sep 17, 2013 9:34 AM in response to anonymous4a

anonymous4a wrote:


ok i wasn't clear,


That would have helped. 😝


I want to make a backup of my windows partition and mac partition on my macbook pro retina on to ONE external hard drive.


Ok, so you have OS X and Windows in BootCamp on your Retina MBP.


You want to make a backup of both to one drive and this is what you should do.


Get another powered external drive slightly larger than your internal boot drive.


Use Disk Utility to format this external drive with a GUID partition table and two partitions each slightly larger than your MacintoshHD and BootCamp partitions


The first external partition formatted OS X extended journaled (MacintoshHD2) and the second one exFAT (WindowsBootcamp2) The OS X parittion is first at the top.


Download these two programs, Carbon Copy Cloner and Winclone 3.


Use CCC to clone the OS X MacintoshHD to the MacintoshHD2, and use Winclone 3 (runs in OS X) to backup Windows BootCamp to WindowsBootCamp2.


The OS X clone on the external drive is bootable if you hold the option key down while booting the computer.


The Winclone 3 partition on the external drive is not bootable, it's a backup only as Windows is copy protected and will invalidate itself if it ran.



Warnings:


Don't use CCC to clone BootCamp, it's not designed for that and won't restore to run Windows.


There is no software that can do both parittions at the same time and be bootable or restore properly to a different sized drive or restore the RecoveryHD partition. Some have tried with some other softwares and have problems with lost drive space.


Both partitions have to be cloned/backed up seperatly as there is some intelligence involved and the user needs the option to adjust partition space.


Also, backup your files in Windows (and OS X) to a regular external exFAT drive that was formatted on the oldest Windows machine your going to connect to, OS X doesn't do exFAT correctly so Windows can't read it. The exFAT partition using Winclone likely won't be readable by a Windows PC.


Most commonly used backup methods


.Drives, partitions, formatting w/Mac's + PC's



Again, you can't run Windows from a external drive, it's copy protected and takes the hardware id's into that, so it's essentially worthless to use NTFS on the external WindowsBootcamp2 partition.


All you need is a partition format that can handle over 4GB sized files, and exFAT is ideal and free to use. FAT32 can't handle 4GB+ files and is being phased out.


http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/06/review-is-microsofts-new-d ata-sharing-system-a-cross-platform-savior/

Sep 17, 2013 9:59 AM in response to ds store

The exFAT partition using Winclone likely won't be readable by a Windows PC.


That is true, but unnecessary for Windows to be able to read a disk image of itself. You restore it with Winclone while booted to the Mac OS.


Well, maybe not entirely unnecessary if you want to pull one, or a few files out of the backup while in Windows. In which case, I would suggest Norton Ghost. Once installed in Windows, it can create a live backup. Once done, you can open the backup and pull any files out of it you want. Two caveats with that, though:


1) You need an NTFS partition on your external drive to create the backup to. Which isn't a terrible thing because you then you have an NTFS drive you can throw other data on while booted to Windows.


2) In order to restore the backup, you have to boot to the Norton CD. Again, not a bad thing, just a few more steps you have to wait through.


I haven't really looked at other Windows backup solutions in a while. Norton was the best one I came across in my hunt at the time. What Norton actually did was buy out the makers of Drive Image, which I still own a copy of. If you look at that older software, it's pretty obvious Norton lifted the whole thing, did a little (very little) tweaking and put their name on it.

Mar 20, 2014 7:00 AM in response to anonymous4a

Hello!


Since MAC's native format is not ntfs, you need to install an app to have an option for NTFS partition.

Examples are Tuxera, Paragon NTFS or the open source NTFS 3G.


Now once you have installed any of these apps... The NTFS option in DIsk Utiltily will be available.


I have been doing NTFS partitions since Snow Leopard and I will assure you that it's reliable as Windows partition.


- note -


* FAT partition has a file size limitation when transferring of up to 4gb only.


Good luck!


Ernesto

Organic Superfoods Store

Mar 20, 2014 7:59 AM in response to ds store

Really good post but I don't think there is a good reason for two partitions. If you do go with 2 partition, no need for one to be ex-fat at all. With winclone, just as easy to keep the winclone image on a Mac extended journaled partition. Maybe keep it at root level and tell CCC not to delete things at the root level but delete everything else. If restoring from the clone, just exclude winclone image. If two partitions, safer to keep it on a mac extended journaled.

Apr 22, 2014 8:28 AM in response to anonymous4a

Getting back to the original post...

"I want to make a backup of my windows partition and mac partition on my macbook pro retina on to ONE external hard drive. So I wanted to make two partitions on the external hard drive, one mac os extended journaled and one NTFS ."


All of these solutions suggest using separate third party backup programs for both bootcamp and OS X. Can one set this up to use time-machine to do regular updating of the backup? It looks like WinClone is the best for the PC side, but I can't tell from these posts if one can use time-machine when doing the dual backups on the same external HD that has a partition for both bootcamp and OS X.


I guess my question is, how do you set up a partition, on a single external HD, to backup bootcamp and OS X, while still being able to use time-machine to do the OS X backup?

Thanks

Apr 22, 2014 8:43 AM in response to DaveM2148

Two partitions would be the minimum. Time Machine can only backup Mac OS Extended formatted partitions. It will not, and cannot backup any other type of drive. The partition TM is using for your Mac backups also must be Mac OS Extended. Further, you cannot manually drop any other data onto a partition being used by TM, or you will screw it up.


So the other partition must be used for your other backup data not being handled by Time Machine. Winclone can write the Windows disk image to a Mac formatted partition, so it doesn't need to be NTFS. It can also restore the Windows partition while booted to OS X. Since the Winclone data is a disk image, the drive is free to be used for any other files you want to manually copy to it. It doesn't need to be reserved for Winclone's data.\


The drawback is that Windows itself cannot use the Mac formatted drive for manual backup of individual files unless you purchase something like HFS+ for WIndows. Then both the Mac and Windows can use the same Mac OS Extended partition for manual file copying, while still leaving it open for Winclone to create full disk image backups of your Windows drive.

Apr 22, 2014 10:44 AM in response to DaveM2148

Insert your external HD, then open Disk Utility.


1. Click the ext. HD

2. Click Partition tab

3. Under Partition Layout, choose 2 partitions (drop down menu)

- 1st partition - format is MAC OS extended

- 2nd partition - NTFS(in my case I have installed tuxera NTFS app)

4. Hit Apply


Once done, remove and insert back the ext. HD and it will ask you if you want to set it as TM backup. Choose accrodingly...



That's how I did it.

May 2, 2016 11:03 PM in response to anonymous4a

I don't know if you have ever solved this problem. You just make 2 partitions like you would normally (extended - journaled). Then with bootcamp you install windows (the windows installer can format disks, making them NTFS). Otherwise you'll need an external program like the earlier suggestions, or operate in a windows environment, since apple doesn't really support NTFS: reading only, not writing.

How do I make NTFS format for partition in disk utility ?

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