General Question

tantaikooi's avatar

Can a Mac OSX runs on FAT32 format?

Asked by tantaikooi (122points) July 24th, 2008

I am using mac osx 10.x, thinking to format it. currently i have boot camp(for switching to windows)..i can read my my windows drive on my mac..but couldnt read mac drive from windows(boot camp)...

my question is, can a mac os install and run on a fat32 format?
how about the performance?
and will it able to access from boot camp windows?

thanks!

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7 Answers

btko's avatar

Hmm… I think you can. I wanted the same thing as you – the ability to see my mac disk while in windows. I haven’t loaded up boot camp in awhile so I can’t remember if I can see it or not. But to answer your question:

Yes you can partition your mac drive into Mac OS Extended and MS-DOS FAT32. Keep in mind you are limited to a 32G partition for your windows side.

Hope that made sense :)

chaosrob's avatar

Okay, it would sort of work, but then immediately explode. Allow me to remind you of the file naming and maximum file size restrictions that plague FAT32. These limitations would definitely cause fatal problems for the Mac OS.

An alternative suggestion might be something like MacDrive on the Windows side. Perhaps it would allow you to see the HFS partition on the hard drive, not sure if BootCamp actively hides it from the Win OS.

evanchaney's avatar

Mac OS X will not install to a Fat 32 drive. It will install on HFS, HFS+ and UFS. You will receive the best results by using HFS+/Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

chromaBYTE's avatar

Not officially, no. FAT32 is incredibly old compared to mac’s formatting system.
One option you might want to look at is running windows virtually in a program such as VMware Fusion. You are able to run both windows and mac at the same time, and you can drag and drop files in between the two live.

richardhenry's avatar

The Mac OS X core system files cannot be loaded from a format other than those that evanchaney listed.

tantaikooi's avatar

thanks all of you!

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