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+--- Thread: How to add HFS+ on an existing NTFS HDD (/thread-45790.html)
How to add HFS+ on an existing NTFS HDD - The Mob - 06-05-2009
to make a long story short, apple was pissing me off by telling me that i had to buy a new hdd since my existing "external" was written in NTFS, since time machine didnt support NTFS even though 3g
well, after a bit of searching around on the internet, i have found a way around this.
create a HFS+ partition on your NTFS partition!
heres how
first, you will need the following things.
a windows computer
an external hdd
Bootit NG
a macintosh
download bootitng and then follow these instructions for creating a bootable cd. (im assuming yall wont use a floppy, which is what i used)
Bootitng Manual Wrote:Step 1: Create the boot disk using the MakeDisk utility (Windows users)after you have done all of that, you now need to boot into that cd or whatever you used. restart your computer, then hit the del or f1 (whichever key that lets you into your bios). in the bios, change the boot order to cd first, then usb, etc etc. save your settings and exit.
1 Extract the contents of BootItNG.zip to a folder of your choice.
If you are using Windows XP/Vista and its built-in compressed folders feature, you can double click the ZIP file and then use the “Extract all files” link shown in the left pane of Explorer to extract the contents. Alternatively, after opening the ZIP file, you can select all the files listed, and copy them to another folder to extract the contents. Please note that whichever foregoing method you use, the contents of the ZIP file must be extracted to another folder before proceeding.
2 Run MakeDisk.exe from the folder of step 1. The MakeDisk welcome screen appears.
3 Click Next on the MakeDisk welcome screen. The BootIt NG license agreement screen appears.
4 Read the BootIt NG license agreement, and if you accept it, select the “I accept the agreement” button and click Next. The BootIt NG Mouse Support option screen appears.
5 Choose the appropriate option to either enable or disable mouse support, and then click Next. The BootIt NG Video Options screen appears.
6 Keep the default selection, “VESA Video”, unless you know for certain that you need to use one of the other video options. Click Next. The Boot Options screen appears.
7 Keep the “normal” option selected unless you plan on using Partition Work without installing. Click Next. The Default Device Options screen appears
8 Make any desired changes to the default device options BootIt NG will use when booting this disk on a system that does not have BootIt NG installed. The exception is the USB Controller and USB Device fix options which only apply to the command line which starts the BootIt NG program. Both of the “USB Fix” options may result in slower USB access, but will prevent hangs with certain controllers and/or devices. Click Next. The BootIt NG registration screen appears.
9 If you have purchased a BootIt NG license, enter the registration information you were provided with in the text boxes shown on this screen. If you wish to use the trial version of BootIt NG, simply leave the text boxes empty, which will result in BootIt NG operating in a 30-day time-limited trial mode.
Click Next. The “Select Target” screen appears.
10 Choose the target that MakeDisk should use. If you choose the “ISO File” option, you must supply an ISO file name. Click Finish, and respond to subsequent prompts as necessary. MakeDisk will then create your bootable media or ISO image. When it is done, the success screen should appear.
11 If you opted to create bootable media in step 10, you are done with Step 1, proceed to Step 2: Installing BootIt NG on Your Hard Disk. If you selected the “ISO File” option instead, you will first have to use other CD/DVD authoring software, such as BurnCDCC, to create a bootable BootIt NG installation disc from the ISO file. Once you have done that, proceed to Step 2: Installing BootIt NG on Your Hard Disk.
the computer will restart boot into the bootitng.
at the welcome screen click ok. when it asks if you want to create more than 4 primary partitions, select no. it will then ask you how you want to partition choosen, again select no. it will finally ask you if you want bootitng on its own partition, again choose no. you can work with bootitng without installing anything. you will finally see a screen like this
![[Image: ss5.jpg]](http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/images/ss5.jpg)
click on parition work.
you will then see a window like this
![[Image: ss6.jpg]](http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/images/ss6.jpg)
you can view all your hard drives on the left.
select your external one. the way you can tell is that it wont have a MBR on it. the external HDD is also most likely the second one on the list. this screenshot is dealing with FAT32, while you most likely have a NTFS HDD. you will also most likely only have one partition on your hdd. your task is to create a new partition.
click on the Resize button.
it will bring up a dialog box similar to the one in the above picture, only it will show how much HDD space you have, and that it is in NTFS. enter the new size you want the external to have and then click ok. this will shrink the the volume down to that size. you will then discover that you have something labeled as "free space". that is whatever amount that is left on your hdd. this is unformatted stuff.
click on create. call it whatever name you want. leave the size alone. for the file system, click on the drop down menu and choose UNIX. click ok. it will now create a UNIX partition. but that is not what we want, we want HFS+. so click on properties, and in the drop down menu in there, find and select HFS. click ok. now exit everything and turn off your computer, unplug the external etc etc. now its time for the mac portion.
plug in your external to your mac. in finder, type in disk utility. open the app. it will scan for hdds. choose your external hdd by matching the capacity to the amount you allocated on the external. click on verify disk. it will be unable to verify. (thats another indication that it is your newly minted free space). this is perfectly fine, because you are going to erase it and let osx rebuild it. click on the erase tab, making sure that this is the partition you want to erase. also make sure that the volume format is Mac OS Extended (Journaled). you can also name it if you want. hit erase, and osx will erase and reformatt the partition. hit verify just to make sure everything is ok. congradualtions! you have just created a new partition under HFS+.
the true beauty of this is that you now have NTFS and HFS+ side by side, all on the same external HDD. while your mac will be able to read and write to the NTFS part (see my other guide here), your windows machine cant write to the HFS+. (there is a way to do that, but i need to research that myself. ill post a how to later)
you can now use your external as a time machine hdd. (my sole motivation for going through all of this mess, haha) but you wouldnt need to write to the HFS+ from your windows side anyways, as you can just write to NTFS and have your mac read that.
note, i assume no responsibilities for damages that may arise from this. you do all of this at your own risk. (i had to play around with it myself) good luck and have fun.
leave questions, comments, etc etc. rep would be nice for this epicly long diu smartass2