I have an 1 TB external hard drive and I'm going to use it with OSX, Windows XP/7 and Ubuntu, mostly for backup. I'm thinking of creating a bigger FAT32 partition to exchange files between the OS's and also create a GUID to boot up the Mac from the external HD.
- Does the Mac absolutely need a GUID to boot up from the external hard drive?
- Let's say I want to try a new Linux distribution, I put it on the external hard drive, does it have to be on GUID partition in order to show up and boot up on the Mac?
- What type of partition does Time Machine need in order to work? Also, will it work if the external hard drive has more than one partition?
- How do you recommend I partition the hard drive so that everyone can use it and I can boot up from it (OSX/Windows/Linux distros) and I can also use it for Time Machine?
Please don't recommend any 3rd party drivers, I've had my share of those, 1 TB is enough to partition so that's everyone's happy.