Windows user got questions about switching

should be fine. keep in mind that bootcamp is basically a bootloader + drivers package... in other words... it will run xp as just about any other computer. keep in mind there are really no hardware differences between apples and non-apples anymore except for bios vs efi.

Shouldn't be a problem. I am a student and my school requires some Windows only programs. I made the switch a little over a year ago and never looked back. VMware Fusion and bootcamp work perfectly for the few Windows applications I needed.


Depending on how the harddrives are formatted will predict how the harddrives will play together. If they are FAT32 both Windows and Mac can read/write to them but I have found that the Mac has trouble with larger files on a FAT32 drive. For example I do some video work here and there and when I try to write a 20GB file to a FAT32 drive I get a write error. Reformatted the drive to a Mac format and no trouble. So as long as the files are not huge this works for both.

If the drives are NTFS the Mac wont play well with them. I am not sure if the Mac will be able to read the drive but writing to the drive will be a no.


Running XP in bootcamp is just like having a Windows machine. All the drivers are installed and all the hardware is working. Since it all is Intel hardware the programs wont even know they are on a Mac running XP. Games even play well as long as they are within the hardware capability. You could even do something like VMware Fusion where you run Windows inside of OS X as a virtual machine, works fine for programs but don't expect to game on it.

On the note of the Axim, if you plan to sync it inside the Windows portion it will work just like it did on your Windows machine. However if you want it to work on a Mac you need The Missing Sync to get the Axim running Windows Mobile to sync with the Mac. I have not tried this personally so I don't know how well it will go.

I just googled it and Mac OS X can read NTFS drives but they can not write to them. If you are in bootcamp and on Windows then NTFS is just fine to read and write to. When you make a bootcamp partition on your harddrive and you boot into OS X there is an option to see the Windows Partition. If the Partition is FAT32 the OS X operating system can both read and write to that Windows partition. If it is NTFS Mac OS X can only read it.

So

[Mac OS X] - FAT32 (Read/Write) - NTFS (Read only)

[BootCamp Windows] - FAT32 (Read/Write) - NTFS (Read/Write)

If you plan to be in WIndows 24/7 on the Macbook Pro then the format of the external drives do not matter, but if you plan to use OS X and still want to use the external drives then you need to check if they are FAT32 or not.

i haven't used the following as i move files via the network, which allows me to read and write through my respective machines. when i get a new external drive i'll probably play with it and see how it works.

MacFUSE

Extra Info

Fozz: FAT32 has a file size limit of 4 gigs...no OS can write files bigger than that, not just OS X.

Just some background info...

Running XP via bootcamp, you ARE running XP. It will be the exact same as running XP on any other PC. If you can work with it on other PCs, you will be able to work with it on a Mac. This also means you have all the problems of running XP(Lockups, Virii, etc).

Talking to other hardware like external HDs is completely dependant on the OS, not the hardware. This includes other formats of hard drives. As mentioned, by default Mac cannot write to NTFS, however MacFuse might very well be able to fill in that gap. Along those lines XP by default cannot read or write to HFS+, which is the default filesystem for Mac OS. Again there is software out there to allow this, but this is actually for pay if memory serves. So FAT32 is the most easily availiable format to talk between them, but some some severe limitations obviously.

Seablade

Yea I know. I was merely stating that I had to sacrifice Windows compatibility for the ability to write larger file sizes. I did put a lot of info in the post and rereading it I see I forgot to put something in to the explanation.

From what I understand from googling the topic is FAT32 is the only format that both Windows and OS X can Read/Write, but like you said it has file size issues. If you need file sizes larger than that you need to sacrifice some compatibility somewhere.

The way I read it seemed that you were blaming OS X for not being able to write the large file, so I figured I'd clarify

But yeah, FAT32 is the only file system that any computer in the world can read and write to. But it's just not a good FS for modern computers anymore. Someone needs to come up with a cross platform replacement or something.

Luckily, if you do stuff over a network the file system doesn't matter, so you can hook your external up to either computer and access it without problems over the network if you want complete compatibility.

Ext2 is supported on Windows with a driver, Linux natively, and I believe Mac OS natively as well.

HFS+ is supported on Linux via a module in the kernel, natively on Mac OS, and on Windows with a paid driver.

ZFS, eh maybe we will be lucky

MS will do their best to keep someone else's filesystem from being supported in my opinion.

Seablade

Hehe, lack of sleep seems to hinder my ability to form complete thoughts sometimes.

I don't have an airport base station. If I remember correctly they have harddrive capability built in. However I do have a linksys adapter for hard drives but I have not used it in a while sadly. I may have to plug it back in and give it a whirl. The one thing that bugged me about it was that the hard drives I was using were always on and spinning. They generated a lot of heat and the power buttons on the hard drives would not work unless the USB cable on the hard drive was unplugged.

Normally this wouldn't be a problem as always having them on and ready would be great but here in the Desert the heat was a bad thing during the summer. So I took the hard drives off the network and just manually plugged them in. Maybe if I get better enclosures that have fans in them it would be a better solution.

That, and enclosures that might have native power saving features w/o relying on a direct connection to an OS which tells the drives how to behave. I'm not sure however, how this sort of setup would play with a USB connection to a router or some such thing.

Mac OS will work fine with any mouse. I believe that with the appropriate drivers included in bootcamp, Windows will work fine with a mighty mouse as well.

Seablade

not to hijack the thread but i'm weary of seeing multiple thread of "i'm a windows user and i'm wanting to switch but what about X" threads. so here's my question:

has any mac os X users found a good and free (or perhaps paid software as well) alternative to truecrypt?

i really like truecrypt as a windows user but i have not been able to find anything that's comparable to it on mac.

anyone?

From what I read on the net is Mac OS X has something built in just like that. Encrypted disk images. There are some articles google brought up on how to do it.

I just checked it out and you can make encrypted disk images quite easily.

- Open disk Utility
- choose new image
- give it a name and under encryption choose AES-128
- Choose a size and imput the password

When the image is open you can put stuff into it. Close it and it locks and to open it again just input the password again.

Fuse seems like it would do it quite well.

Seablade