Member Avatar for jpdbaugh

Hey Daniweb,

I a 13.3 inch Macbook Pro (5,5) running Snow Leopard that I would like to triple boot Snow Leopard, Windows 7, and Ubuntu 9.10 on. I am running an 80 GB Intel X-25M as my primary drive and I after I have the three operating systems installed via the optical drive I plan to replace the optical drive with 320 GB hard drive to use as a data drive for all of the operating systems. My question is, how should I format all of my partitions? I am assuming that on the primary drive I will have an HFS+ partition for Mac OS X, NTFS for Windows 7, and an ext3 partition for Ubuntu. Is there any format I can make the data drive so that it can read and written to by all 3 OSs? Maybe Fat32? I do plan to put movies and large files on the drive though, so the format needs to support large files and I think FAT is only up to 4GB...

Thanks for Any Help,
jpdbaugh

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Quick, practical primer for a triple‑boot on your 13.3" MBP (5,5) that builds on the points from , and without repeating the basics already mentioned.

Start with structure, not filesystems. Pick a GUID partition map for the machine and plan a hybrid MBR only for the Windows installer/BIOS layer — that avoids the most common boot problems. Install in this order: Mac OS X first (so it owns the GUID map), Windows second, Linux last. Use a boot manager like rEFIt/rEFInd after the Windows install to keep GPT/MBR in sync and to chainload GRUB; when installing GRUB, put it on the Linux partition rather than overwriting the MBR so you can fall back to the Mac boot path if needed. Always image the SSD before any repartitioning.

Partition sizing on an 80GB SSD: leave roomy system partitions (OS X: ~30–40GB; Windows: ~25–30GB), give Linux whatever remains plus a small swap (1–4GB depending on RAM). Leave some free space for updates and swap/pagefile growth.

For the separate 320GB data drive: consider exFAT for large media files — it handles >4GB files and is widely supported on modern Windows and OS X with minimal drivers, while Linux support is available through userspace drivers or kernel modules. If you need POSIX permissions, symlinks, or Time Machine compatibility, keep that data on a native Mac partition and share over the network from macOS (SMB) instead. Commercial drivers (Paragon, Tuxera) are a solid alternative if you want native NTFS/HFS+ access with better performance than some free FUSE drivers.

Hardware notes and cautions: use a proper Mac optical-bay caddy, confirm compatibility (some bays have lower SATA bandwidth or need a specific adapter), and keep the Mac firmware/Boot Camp drivers handy. If a boot entry disappears, re-sync GPT/MBR with rEFIt and repair with the OS X installer. Back up before you begin — that single step prevents most headaches.

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Member Avatar for seanooi

How are you planning to replace the optical drive with a hard disk?
Windows 7 will only install on NTFS, so your idea of all FAT32's won't work there.
I would just install OS X on a HFS+ and then use bootcamp from there.

Member Avatar for gtey

I will have an HFS+ partition for Mac OS X, NTFS for Windows 7, and an ext3 partition for Ubuntu. Is there any format I can make the data drive so that it can read and written to by all 3 OSs? Maybe Fat32? I do plan to put movies and large files on the drive though, so the format needs to support large files and I think FAT is only up to 4GB...
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Member Avatar for gdrori

NTFS should work with NTFS-3G. If you are on Snow Leopard you have to download a 64bit build of MacFUSE and then NTFS-3G.
NTFS-3G is also for Linux and Windows 7 supports NTFS out of the box.

Edited by gdrori because: n/a
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