Hey does anyone know how to triple partition a non-bootable USB with (Mac OS Extended, Journaled), (NTFS), and (Ext4) file systems for Windows 7/8/8.1?
I’ve tried this myself, but I can’t get it working.
It’s really weird. I can get it working fine for internal drives, but for external such as USB, it’s a completely different story.
why not just put fat32 or exfat on it and call it a day? everything can read that.
Literally why?
I tried that too. Unfortunately, that didn’t work either.
Because I want to keep things organized?
You must be running legacy software then.
You can try it yourself if you want
It doesn’t work
Literally… Gparted (install all the filesystem tools/extensions you need for apple, windows and linux).
Create MBR partition table
Select first partition beginning sector and end or enter size… Create… format was you want… rinse and repeat for the next two.
This is very very trivial
Non-bootable means nothing. What makes a partition bootable is literally whether or not it has a bootloader on it with a boot flag
Here are gparted’s supported FS’
okay, 3 partitions, 1 ext4, 1 ntfs, 1 HFS+?
For 16GB drive
label: gpt
label-id: DA5144A0-74CA-4469-B58F-950E2C3AF3FD
device: /dev/loop0
unit: sectors
first-lba: 34
last-lba: 33554398
sector-size: 512
/dev/loop0p1 : start= 2048, size= 10485760, type=0FC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4, uuid=4E33E86B-3FBD-49D3-A77A-B86FFDD3F9A2, name="Linux filesystem"
/dev/loop0p2 : start= 10487808, size= 10485760, type=0FC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4, uuid=2DDAFB5E-0812-47F5-8B4B-EDC9BDDA4BB9, name="Linux filesystem"
/dev/loop0p3 : start= 20973568, size= 10485760, type=0FC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4, uuid=61A08919-B445-4FCB-BC0E-57E29CEE44A4, name="Linux filesystem"
save that to a file.
sudo sfdisk /dev/sdx < filename
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdx1
sudo mkfs.hfsplus /dev/sdx2
sudo mkfs.ntfs /dev/sdx3
Does it work for Windows 7/8/8.1?
I think you would have to create / format the external using Linux, because the others don’t really talk cross platform so well…
But Linux can create Mac and windows format partitions
The partition can be mounted in windows yes.
Can you prove it?
I don’t want to go through all that work if it doesn’t work for 7/8/8.1.
10 is a different story.
I went through the trouble to give you step by step and you’re asking me to prove it?
I don’t have a windows 7 or 8 install because I’m not addicted to obsolete software.
when given the solution they seek and ask for proof… just do it if it works yay if not boo… try again.
So you haven’t tested it for Windows 7, 8, or 8.1?
no he has not. and nor will he. its generic code that is system agnostic. if you dont want to use it dont. but he has provided a turn key solution for tripple formatting.
Based on the replies you’ve gotten so far, it’s clear the answer is: No. Nobody here knows how to do this.
The NTFS partition must be #1. Microsoft are bastards and Windows won’t read past the first partition on a removable device like USB.
Linux can not only read any partition you want, but it does a good job reading/writng NTFS, ExFat, etc. these days, so you may not need an Ext4 partition.
And there’s no reason it can’t be bootable. Recent versions of SysLinux & GRUB work fine on NTFS, and can boot Linux from it… Your Linux installer might not read from the NTFS partition as a source for installing the software after booting, but that depends on distro.
As an alternative way, consider using one UDF for all three OSes, using this script to make it fully compatible: