Resolved How to convert my HFS+ to exFAT on my bootcamp HDD

[vizi0n]

Hi all!

I have recently ditched my Dell Studio for a 2012 15" Macbook Pro. I've upgraded to 16GB of RAM and swapped the optical drive for a 128GB OCZ Vertex 4 SSD. The speed difference is amazing, but now I want to install Windows 7 on my 500GB hard disk to play some games.

I've managed to do that successfully using Bootcamp but there is still one thing I need to do and I cant find out how to do it.

What I want to achieve is to convert the 400GB HFS+ to exFAT to have a Windows and OSX shared data partition for my downloads, music, etc.

I know that there are plugins/drivers like Paragon, MacDrive and others but I am not interested in buying/using these applications. I prefer a filesystem that is natively read/write by both OS'es.

Is there a partitioning tool that could allow me to do this? Even if I have to reinstall Windows I don't mind, I've done it 4 times already trying to achieve my goal

Current (working) setup:
- 128GB SSD in optibay
--- 128GB HFS+ partition with OSX 10.8.3
- 500gb in original location (Bootcamped)
--- 400GB HFS+ partition
--- 100GB NTFS partition with Windows 7 64bit

The closest I could get is to delete the HFS+ partition in Windows and create a new one with ExFAT to replace it but it won't appear under OSX. Even if I try to manually mount it it doesn't work.

Thanks in advance for your input

 

[vizi0n]

Achievement unlocked!

Since I've read everywhere that playing with the partition table would screw up my whole Windows install I wouldn't touch anything but tonight I've tried and anyway.

I've erased the HFS+ partition from my 500GB in Disk Utility and selected ExFAT as the new filesystem and voila! My Windows installation is not broken and they both share the same data partition!

If for some reason it breaks your install when you try it, here are all the exact steps I've done on this install. I dont feel like reinstalling from scratch and testing the direct change

1) bootcamp 400/100
2) formatted 100 as NTFS in Win installer
3) deleted the 400 HFS+ partition in Administrative tools under Win7
4) created a new 400 ExFAT partition in Administrative tools under Win7
5) rebooted to OSX and partition not showing.
6) repaired my 500gb in Disk Utility
7) rebooted to Win7 and partition showing as RAW with no information
8) rebooted to OSX, erased 400 HFS+ partition and selected ExFAT for the new filesystem
9) rebooted to Win7 and the partition shows and is writable!

Dont forget that this is all on a 2nd HDD, my OSX is alone on its SSD in the optibay.

If someone can try and post its results by just changing the partition right away to exFAT, it would help anyone looking for this information as I've been Googling this for a week now.

Frank

vizi0n:~$ mount
/dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
/dev/disk1s2 on /Volumes/Data (exfat, asynchronous, local, noowners)
/dev/disk1s3 on /Volumes/BOOTCAMP (ntfs, local, read-only, noowners)