ive tried, and can't

As already explained, it'll be listed within Disk Management under Windows, from there you can nuke it.

ive downloaded tuxera ntfs and formatted it to windows nt filesystem, i previously only had it as exfat because there was no ntfs option.
like i said i couldnt do anything with it within windows, it just wouldnt let me do any sort of format at all

What filesystem did you format the Windows partition to? NTFS?
You using mountain lion or lion? Are you using native OSX NTFS support or a 3rd-party?

Certainly sounds like OSX has fucked it if you were writing to it from within OSX then Windows complained that it was blank.


Edit - Personally i would start again - completely nuke the entire drive within Windows, format the entire drive to NTFS and then shrink that partition leaving space at the end of the drive. Boot OSX, create a new partition within the space and format it HFS+.

[Edited on 29-11-2012 by Dom]

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucker id just saved 3 hours worth of solidworks to the fucking drive :@

fucking hell, my windows partition on the mechanical has failed already! the mac partition is fine.
i wrote file to from within osx to the windows partition then booted windows and the whole partition was showing as a blank "local disk"

Virtual box, install 7 on that.

well ive formatted the drive in and now cant do anything to the drive in windows, but i can save from within windows and osx to the exfat partition im just worried it wont last

What happens if you change the exFat partition to straight FAT; can Windows format it then?
Failing that, remove the 'Windows' partition, ie: leave space at the end of the drive, then from within Windows create a partition in the space and format.

If that doesn't work, then as mentioned nuke the whole drive from within windows and setup the windows partition only, then create the HFS+ partition using Disk Util in the empty space.

I never had this amount of headaches when i've done it :lol:


And Logic?! Eurgh! Cheap Mbox off eBay and Protools is where it's at :cool:

i prefer osx to windows, so im not going full windows before you suggest it :lol:
but, my dj software works a million times better on osx than on windows, and i like to play with logic which is osx only

What do you need to use in OS X that you can't do in Windows?

no i can access the exfat partition from both os's but i cant format either partition on the 500gb from within windows

Both SSD and the 500GB drive aren't accessible via Windows? Does Windows still boot?! :boggle:

Sounds like you've fucked what is a relatively simple process though :lol:

The 500GB should still be listed within Computer Management (control panel > admin tools), will show something like 'Disk 2' and then it'll show a blank structure of the drive if it's HFS+; select (might need to 'import foreign disk' first) and do a quick format to NTFS, shrink volume, then create a new partition in the space.

Tbf, you should be able to shrink and partition the drive using Disk Util from OSX but i'd format the space using windows to NTFS.

And if you need to access the OSX partiton from Windows then there are a load of applications like HFS for Windows (Paragon), HFSExplorer etc. Iirc someone asked about reading OSX a few months back so do a search.

i cant do anything with either drive within indows now. i have succesfully saved files to the windows partitition though and its accesible through osx as well

Try but in the past i've always partitioned the drive in Windows; one NTFS (for Windows) and then leave the other as FAT. Boot OSX and then format the FAT partition to HFS+.

ive partitioned it in osx to mac osx extended for use with osx and exfat for windows, does that sound right? when i go to w7 i cant format the partition i intnded for use within w7, it says i dont have permissions but it only allowed me the option of NTFS anyway?

If it was plain file storage then you could get away with formatting the drive to FAT but as you're planning to use it for programs then i would partition the drive.

i may set up 2 partitions, and then install macdrive so i can access my mac stuff from windows. shouldnt need to get at any windows stuff from within osx its only for solidworks and mathcad

Never done this, but even if the above was ok, I would've thought it best practice to give either seperate partitions.

ive now got my macbook up and running with a dual boot of windows 7 ultimate. ive got a 128gb ssd with a 90gb osx partition and a 35gb w7 partition, then ive got my 500gb hdd in the optical bay.
the 500 gb drive was accesible from osx but when i went into windows an tried to open it it said it couldnt, then i went back to osx and it faield to mount so i had to repair it through disk utility and it was fine.

ive found a programme called macdrive which i install to windows which allows me to just format the hdd to osx journaled and windows can read/write to it. but will this allow me to install windows programmes to the hdd as well or do i need to make another partition thats windows only to be able to do that?