HELP: Windows Refusing To Recognize FAT32 Partition on Macbook Pro
OK, So my brother just got one of the brand new Core 2 Duo Macbook Pros with LED backlighting and the 8600M GT. I tried to set him up with a similar set up as mine, in which I partitioned my hard drive into 3 parts.
The first is the OSX partition. The second is the Windows Vista Home Premium partition, which disk utility describes as a Microsoft Basic Data partition. The third is a FAT32 partition labeled "MUSIC". They are listed in that order in OSX's disc utility from top to bottom.
I have a Core Duo Macbook Pro and I use bootcamp to access windows mainly for gaming and sometimes I just feel like using windows, and I've stored all my music on the FAT32 "MUSIC" partition so that both operating systems can access it. It works beautifully.
So I tried to do the same for my brother, and the Windows installation went perfectly and Windows was giving me no problems until I found that his fat32 "MUSIC" partition wasn't showing up under My Computer.
Apart from the hardware (his Macbook Pro being one of the newer ones and having a bigger hard drive), there are a few differences in the set ups. His Windows partition ended up being described as NT Filesystem (or something like that) and his Windows partition is the third one down listed in disk utility from top to bottom with OSX at the top and "MUSIC" in the middle.
I don't know what to do. The internet has proved useless so far and I can't figure out how to force windows to mount a FAT32 volume that it doesn't mount automatically. Please help me!
The first is the OSX partition. The second is the Windows Vista Home Premium partition, which disk utility describes as a Microsoft Basic Data partition. The third is a FAT32 partition labeled "MUSIC". They are listed in that order in OSX's disc utility from top to bottom.
I have a Core Duo Macbook Pro and I use bootcamp to access windows mainly for gaming and sometimes I just feel like using windows, and I've stored all my music on the FAT32 "MUSIC" partition so that both operating systems can access it. It works beautifully.
So I tried to do the same for my brother, and the Windows installation went perfectly and Windows was giving me no problems until I found that his fat32 "MUSIC" partition wasn't showing up under My Computer.
Apart from the hardware (his Macbook Pro being one of the newer ones and having a bigger hard drive), there are a few differences in the set ups. His Windows partition ended up being described as NT Filesystem (or something like that) and his Windows partition is the third one down listed in disk utility from top to bottom with OSX at the top and "MUSIC" in the middle.
I don't know what to do. The internet has proved useless so far and I can't figure out how to force windows to mount a FAT32 volume that it doesn't mount automatically. Please help me!
Comments
OK, So my brother just got one of the brand new Core 2 Duo Macbook Pros with LED backlighting and the 8600M GT. I tried to set him up with a similar set up as mine, in which I partitioned my hard drive into 3 parts.
The first is the OSX partition. The second is the Windows Vista Home Premium partition, which disk utility describes as a Microsoft Basic Data partition. The third is a FAT32 partition labeled "MUSIC". They are listed in that order in OSX's disc utility from top to bottom.
I have a Core Duo Macbook Pro and I use bootcamp to access windows mainly for gaming and sometimes I just feel like using windows, and I've stored all my music on the FAT32 "MUSIC" partition so that both operating systems can access it. It works beautifully.
So I tried to do the same for my brother, and the Windows installation went perfectly and Windows was giving me no problems until I found that his fat32 "MUSIC" partition wasn't showing up under My Computer.
Apart from the hardware (his Macbook Pro being one of the newer ones and having a bigger hard drive), there are a few differences in the set ups. His Windows partition ended up being described as NT Filesystem (or something like that) and his Windows partition is the third one down listed in disk utility from top to bottom with OSX at the top and "MUSIC" in the middle.
I don't know what to do. The internet has proved useless so far and I can't figure out how to force windows to mount a FAT32 volume that it doesn't mount automatically. Please help me!
Don't know about vista, never used it, but XP used to have this disk utility under control panel>administration tools, that was able to enable/disable/format drives. Xp also has given me these strange not-mounting problems. See if Vista has similar utility and try to force mount from there
Don't know about vista, never used it, but XP used to have this disk utility under control panel>administration tools, that was able to enable/disable/format drives. Xp also has given me these strange not-mounting problems. See if Vista has similar utility and try to force mount from there
When I go to Vista's disk utility, I see the three partitions: Mac OSX, the Fat32 volume labeled "MUSIC", and the Windows NTFS volume. When I right click the FAT32 volume in disk management (in the graphic it displays of the hard drive partitions), all the options are grayed out except for "Delete" and "Properties" (or something similar to that). Beyond that, I couldn't figure out anything else to try from vista's disk utility.
I reinstalled MACOSX and Vista, but first i partitioned the disk with mac's disk utility through the install disk. I made os x the first partition, vista the second, and the shared fat32 drive the final (bottom) one. I deleted and formatted the vista partition with the vista install disk, and it combined with 128MB of unallocated space that disk utility placed in between the vista and mac partitions. I made an NTFS partition out of it and installed vista on it. THe fat32 drive appeared on both Operating systems.
This is exactly the same set up I have on my macbook pro, and, I don't know why, but placing vista in the middle (between mac and the fat32 drive) and getting rid of the 128 MB between the vista and mac partition solved the problem. I originally placed windows in the final partition (bottom most) because that's where the windows partition is supposed to go (in the final most one). Doing that, however, prevents one of the OSs from recognizing that fat32 drive.