Dual boot scenario with multiple partitions to access

I'm new to mac (MacBook Pro 9,1), my question is, it there any way to run both OSX and Windows 7 and yet have multiple partitions accessible by both systems?

I'd like to have this scenario, to have have the choice to boot either in MACOSX or Windows7, and have full access (read and write) to two or more partitions from either.. I know BOOTCAMP does not allow it. Parallel, if allows it, does not seem like a feasible option to me.

Any advise please?, I'd really appreciate it.

 

If you're talking about drive space separate from the operating systems themselves, you can format those partitions to the exFAT file system, which can be read from and written to by Windows and OS X.

 

No.. I'm talking about installing (How to?) both systems on a single multi-partition Hard-drive that both OS(s) should have have full access to..

OSX requires GPT, While Windows requires MBR (Dynamic), If you install windows via BOOTCAMP, you'd only end up with 2 partitions for the two operating systems...

I know I probably have to use exFAT as it is supported by the two.. But here is what I have in mind

First Partition: MacOSX (Or Windows7?)
Second Partition: Windows7 (or Mac?)
Third partition: For Personal Data
4th Partition: Multimedia
and so on...

Any advise on how to accomplish this?

 

OS X needs the HFS file system while Windows requires NTFS. There's no way around that, as far as I know. As such, you would need 3rd-party software to read and write files to and from the boot partitions if you wanted to access data on them from either OS.

This link might have some more information: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3044

 

Ok... Let us assume I installed Windows7 on Mac using BOOTCAMP, how to create more partitions (exFAT) on the same HD afterwards?

Can I simply use Disk Utility, after installing Windows 7, to create 1 or more additional partitions?

 

yes, thats what he meant on the first place.

there is a limit to the active partitions though.

And yes you can redirect the personal folders of both OSes to the said partitions

 

I'm afraid this is not working. Create even a single exFat partition with Disk Utility (in MacOSX) after installing Windows7 and you'll be able to boot in Windows no more..

Just tried it many times and in many combinations.... Not working.

Any advice, please?

 

you are hitting the partitions limit that I talked earlier.

Download ML from the app store, save it in multiple medias, you are going to need it, since we are going to delete the recovery partition.

to delete the recovery partition you need to:

Launch the Terminal and type the following into the command line:

This will print out your drives partition scheme and look something like this:

Look for “Recovery HD” and see which identifier it is using, it this screenshot it’s disk0s4
To remove that partition we use the following command (you can also use the volume name):

The partition will be erased, you might want to do this with your standard Lion partition as well since you’ll be wiping the entire thing anyway. Regardless, you’ll now have a blank partition sitting around, so you’ll want to merge that with your other Lion partition:
diskutil mergePartitions HFS+ Lion disk0s3 disk0s4

This will merge the two partitions, with disk0s3 absorbing the space from disk0s4 and expanding, it causes data loss so don’t expect this to preserve anything

btw there is a limit of 5 partitions

 

Hello Karamazovmm;

I'm having another problem with the newly created partition... for some unknown reasons to me, the partition gets damaged and no longer accessible either form OSX or from Windows.

This particular new partition is formatted in exFat , the corruption seems to happen after copying data onto it and rebooting the system. This happened twice, exactly in the same way.

I thought I might be having problems with my harddrive and it is failing on me (that soon?) but smart status is verified and reading are all ok..

Any advice?

 

ok, how that exactly happened?

I dont have any issues with the exFAT partition that I created. And its a partition that OSX is directed as the Home Folder and windows uses it with the library system

I also discovered why there is 5 partition limit, GPT only can do 5, dumb I know, I didnt knew before

 

Well, here is what I did, I installed Windows 7 via BootCamp on the last 130MB of the hardisk. the used DiskUtility to create a an eXFAT partition from the Mac Partition.

The new partition was accessible form both os's till I copied my data for an external HD onto it and rebooted the system. The Partition was not even shown on MacOSX and inaccessible on Windows 7.

I reinstalled ML form a pin drive and the Windows 7 and seems to be working ok.. But now I have no partitions other than those for the OS's

 

I ended up having similar problems with exFAT on my MBP. I installed an SSD, put Mountain Lion and Windows 7 on it, then moved the old stock HDD to the optical bay. My plan was to format the HDD entirely with exFAT and put my user data, movies, and games on it in a single partition. It was fine until I needed to copy data from my NAS (external HDD connected to my Airport Extreme Base Station) to the exFAT drive. The process would start but stall after the first gigabyte and not move thereafter.

Reluctantly, I ended up re-formatting the HDD and dividing it into one HFS partition for OS X and an NTFS one for Windows. I don't know if there's some bug with exFAT and Mountain Lion, but re-working the partitions this way has worked perfectly fine.

 

Interestingly enough I never had any kind of problems...

OSX, exFAT, and windows...

Well here is what I have done:

Install OSX, update everything (you can download the updates before and install later, its one handy thing that I discovered in my last experiment), go to bootcamp app, let it download the drivers, partition your drive and install.

When it reboots to install, press alt/option boot into OSX, use diskutility and partition the drive again with one exfat.

restart, install windows, install drivers and thats all. Never had any hiccups.

 

saturnotaku; despite the fact Optical drive has a limited use nowadays, I still hate to have it removed, I'll try your approach, Karamazovmm, over the weekend and see how it goes..

However, I'm rather concerned that saturnotaku might be right about a "bug with exFAT and Mountain Lion", since I was booted in Mountain Lion while copying my data onto the exFat partition in both times I tried to do so.. That's why I have to ask you, Karamazovmm, Which version of OSX are you using?

 

Im still on lion, and have used that method on SL as well

and btw I forgot that once you install OSX, you have to delete as I described earlier the recovery partition, or you are going to be without usable partitions

 

I understand, though, I'm more concerned now that saturnotaku may be right with the bug theory.. I'll try it and let you know

 

Seems we're not the only ones who have had issues with exFAT and ML:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4359125?start=0&tstart=0

https://discussions.apple.com/message/19382891#19382891

Strange thing is, I have a 16 GB SD card that I use for file and program storage that's formatted in exFAT, and it works perfectly fine in both Windows and OS X when copying data back and forth among them. Maybe it's the fact that I was trying to move 80+ GB of data from my NAS to the exFAT drive. Who knows?

Now here's something interesting, and maybe you want to try this blue_contact: Boot into Windows and format your partition there. Choose a cluster size of 1024 or less and see what happens. Found this possible solution here: https://discussions.apple.com/message/13183877#13183877

 

I was thinking of the same, but thanks for bringing the issue of cluster size into my attention... I'll let you know of the result..

 

My approach is to use Fusion. When Fusion is running the Windows VM, the VM has access to the documents, pics, music, on OS X via Fusion sharing.

 

Hummm.... interesting I never there was a problem with ML and exfat...

 

I got it working; I do not know how.. Here is a step by step summary of my experience

- Deleted the Recovery Partition as explained earlier by Karamazovmm

- Started boot camp to partition the last 130GB on the Hard Drive for Windows, Rebooted MBP

- Pressing Option Key and booting into ML, created a new partition for the Macintosh HD, and erased in exFat

- Rebooted MBP and installed windows and drivers and re-formatted the intermediate partition in exFat, as advised by saturnotaku, maintaining partition name as it was created in ML. However, this can only be done from Command Prompt, utilizing the old "format" command and manipulating switches to force formatting to the desired file system and cluster size… Windows Explorer wont give that option.

- Here I noticed, and after formatting the partition in Windows, that the time from power on till selecting the OS system appears got drastically extended…. So I decided to take the risk and recreate the same intermediate partition, maintaining the same name, from ML….

- For some unknown reason(s) to me, all seems to be OK… I can copy my data, one of which is a 22GB backup file, from both systems to the exFat partition without problems… Booting time also has been reduced to normal..

Now, I’m not sure what did I do differently than my previous failed attempts.. and am very curious to know of why it did not work then, but worked now…