Ableton Forum

Well,

Dell royally pissed me off and I am having to send my NEW laptop in for repairs which they say will fix a sound/processor problem. I can get into more detail later, but the gist is that I am having to use my MBP for both work and Ableton for at least the next few weeks. Maybe forever after this fiasco.

I had a question about partitioning the hard drive. Almost a month after I bought my MBP something went wrong and it would not load any of my pics into iPhoto, or load any of my docs into office. Being Mac illiterate, I freaked and copied what I could onto an external HD and went right back to using Windows.

Now, I am stuck having to use my MBP for work and play. Some of the work programs I use, require Windows ODBC drivers you can't use inside any type of Mac OS Windows emulator.

So, since I will be splitting between Mac OS and Windows, what is the most effective way to partition my 320GB HD?

I was thinking

1: MacOSX - 60 GB of MacExt
2: MacOS Data -140 GB of MacExt
3: WINXP - 60 GB of NTFS
4: WINXP Data - 45 GB of FAT32

On this setup, would I be able to place files like pictures and music for both OSes to use in the Fat 32 partition?

Does anyone see a problem doing this with bootcamp?

hmm..sounds ace as far as i can see

u might have less space to play with, if im not mistaken 320gb leaves 297gb effective space?

may i ask what u do that requires Windows ODBC and are u sure that it doesn't work if, say fusion, accesses a boot camp partition to work from?

but yeah that would work grate...

just remember (i probably know this but it doesn't hurt to say) windows can only create a 32GB partition using FAT32, it can mount more, and use more and other programs can make bigger FAT32 partitions but not WinXP

If that's the internal drive, that setup won't work because Bootcamp allows for 2 partitions only on the internal drive, one for OSX and one for Windows. If it's an external drive, that will work fine.

If internal, my advice is to keep it simple... partition it 50/50 for OSX and WinXP using Bootcamp, install Windows and format the partition as NTFS during setup, then install the Bootcamp drivers immediately afterwards.

A non-upgrade version of WinXP SP2 is required to install Windows. I had to create a slipstreamed CD of SP2 since my original disk was SP1. I'd presume that SP3 would work during install, but don't know for sure.

would I be able to place files like pictures and music for both OSes to use in the Fat 32 partition?

Yes, with a FAT32 partition, files can be accessed and written to from both OS'es. It's even possible to share a single Ableton Library between the two systems.

If WinXP is installed under NTFS, which is what I would recommend doing, OS X can read and copy files from the WinXP NTFS partition, but can't write to it; WinXP doesn't see the OS X partition at all, as if it isn't there.

What I use is a little portable WD Passport drive formatted as FAT32 to move files bewteen the two systems. It's a worthwhile $80 for a simple solution.

Good luck. It's pretty simple to get up and running. Too simple, actually.

PS. In OS X, I use Carbon Copy Cloner and Winclone to make backup images of both partitions. Can be used if you later change your mind and want to resize the partitions, by cloning the Win partition, uninstalling/reinstalling Bootcamp, then restoring the Win partition, all from within OS X. I've done it several times, works great.

Except for there not being a BIOS, WinXP installed with Bootcamp turns a MBP into a PC. If you can run it on the Dell, it will run on the MBP when booted into Windows.

I would not partition your hard drive if you do not need WinXp native speed or Graphic Driver speedy access (mainly games).
Personally I use VMWare Fusion and I'm happy with that.
Recently I have checked this out. It's free and does everything I need:
http://www.virtualbox.org/ It's a free virtual for the mac.

This way you can move your VM machine to an external drive when you need more space in your internal MPB drive or access the same documents/files in both OSes due to shared folders between the guest and the host.

- Hope it helps
- Best
- Pashs

Thanks all, I went ahead and partitioned it as originally planned, but have yet to install XP.

I will let you know when I get it done, checking out bootcamp (no longer free in beta for Tiger ) and vmware as suggested.

I guess I may just change it to 50/50 also. Microsoft Access is the only thing keeping me from going all Mac. Pisses me off to have to pay 300 bucks for just the XP operating system that is how many years old? But as a software developer, I don't do pirate software so I guess I will just shut up and enjoy not being on Vista.