So, after I had done this formatting in leopard, I plugged my external back into my desktop and reformatted the FAT32 partition to an NTFS partition. This was okay but I couldn't use FAT32 for my desktop since I had files larger than 4gb and I have heard FAT32 cannot handle those. A 320gb FAT32 partition and a 150gb HFS partition. So I looked into my options and decided to reformat in leopard to 2 partitions.

But when I tried time machine it wanted me to reformat. I had originally backed up everything from my desktop and had about 200gb remaining, which was more than enough space to backup my macbook. I have a regular macbook, a desktop running xp and a 500gb external hd. I found this thread through a google search while trying to do something similar. (using Windows XP and OS X Leopard (or could use Tiger if need be)) If anyone can help me out at all let me know! Thanks! But when a right click on that, go to New Partition, and go thru all the steps with that, when i'm finally ready to format it(and hit Format).it says 'The requested operation cannot be completed because the media is write-protected' (thats of course with my Pc) so i assume it is a matter of 'un-write-protecting' the drive? Now i just want to simply format that 160gb 'Unallocated' area NTFS. It reads that there is a formated drive in My Computer but when i go to Partition Magic or Disk manager it reads as the entire drive is 'Unallocated'ĪND FINALLY.the closest i've come to completing this task is.when i went to My Computer->Manager and all that jazz, It showed up as 160gb and 305gb, so that is a step further than before. I have also tried to format using DIsk Utility and then take it to my Pc. I have tried to format and partition it first on a Windows computer (using both Partition Magic and the Windows Disk Manager) and then take it to my Mac, but it doesnt say they are 2 different disks, rather just 2 volumes, therefore i cant format each one individually.

So my question is how do I format my Western Digital external hard drive for 305gb HFS+ (mac use) and 160 NTFS(or fat32) for my Windows computer? I have tried many many manyyyyy times to accomplish this on my own and everytime something just doenst work out!

I have searched high and low for the answer to this question.

Format as ntfs on mac