Add Internal Hard Disk?

Question

Add Internal Hard Disk?

Hello, I have a running Windows 7 installation on my Mac Pro and recently added another internal hard disk. It is formatted in HFS+. However, Windows 7 does not allow me to add a letter to the new hard disk - whereas the third HFS+ hard disk already existing at the time of the BootCamp setup has a letter assigned.

Does this mean that, for having the new HFS+ disk reckognized correctly, i need to reinstall Windows 7??? Any suggestions would be highly appreciated.

Many thanks, Stefan

Mac Pro (Early 2008), OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Mar 22, 2014 5:52 AM

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Answer 1

turbostar

Level 4

2,941 points

Mar 22, 2014 12:23 PM in response to Stefan Stockinger

i don't have the direct answer to your question, but which OS will this drive be used?

if OSX, reformat as mac journaled

if Win, reformat as NTFS

if both, report back and will show you how

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Answer 2

Mar 23, 2014 4:30 AM in response to turbostar

Hi turbostar, thank you for your response.

It is a brand-new hard disk freshly formated as mac journaled. My plan was to use it as a data container with de-activated user rights and Paragon HFS+ installed on the Windows 7 side (just because I will mainly use this drive under MacOSX and just sometimes under Windows 7; and hd space on the Windows 7 partition is very scarce).

So I guess the answer is "both". Paragon HFS+ documentation tells me that I shall assign a drive letter under Windows 7, and this is currently not feasible.

Again, thank you for listening.

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Answer 3

turbostar

Level 4

2,941 points

Mar 23, 2014 5:47 AM in response to Stefan Stockinger

i haven't used paragon so don't know why you're having issues, but i know if you format your drive as ExFAT this way, you'll be able to use it on both OSX and Win with no issues

connect the drive in OSX, open disk utility

go to the partiton tab and select '1' ... format should be ExFAT ... in options select MBR

format the drive

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Answer 4

Mar 23, 2014 6:03 AM in response to turbostar

Thank you turbostar, but since I am mostly in MacOSX and regularly use Time Machine, ExFAT is (currently) no option for me:

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/06/review-is-microsofts-new-d ata-sharing-system-a-cross-platform-savior/2/

Since the only reason for me switching to Windows is currently VirtualDub (yes, there is nothing comparable in MacOSX), this would be too much of a compromise. ArsTechnica basically also recommends Paragon HFS+, so I will try to further sort that out.

Cheers, Stefan

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Answer 5

turbostar

Level 4

2,941 points

Mar 23, 2014 6:48 AM in response to Stefan Stockinger

got it, you didn't mention time machine originally. then, you need to need to format it as mac journaled and let time machine manage it. note, i would not use this disk for any other reasons, then, so you don't risk corrupting your backups.

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Answer 6

Mar 23, 2014 8:01 AM in response to turbostar

Yes, I did not mention it, and frankly I had not thought that far until I encountered Ars Technica. After further consulting with Paragon (I am already in touch with them), I might consider setting up Windows 7 from scratch again - since it's more or less just Virtual Dub, this is a manageable task. Thanks again for your help - if anybody else has ideas, they're more than welcome.

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