1 Topic by Inferno986return (edited by gedakc 2016-05-04 21:58:23)

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Topic: [closed] HFS+ Support (Growing and labelling)

Hi all,

I love GParted and it's by far my favourite partition editor which I have used for both Linux and Windows partition management, along with formatting my memory sticks.

My next big adventure in computing will be Hackintoshing, but apparently GParted doesn't natively support Mac OS X's native file system HFS+.

So what can be done?

And why doesn't GParted fully support HFS+? I would understand because Apple likes to keep their technologies to themselves.

Thanks in Advance,

Inferno986return

GParted really is the best partition editor ever, I wish it could fully support HFS+ (growing and labelling) but that is Apple's fault!
OS's: Ubuntu Linux 11.10 64, BackTrack 5 RC1 GNOME 64, Windows 7 Home Premium/Ultimate 64, Mac OS X 10.6
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2 Reply by gedakc

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Re: [closed] HFS+ Support (Growing and labelling)

Thank you for your interest in GParted.

Unfortunately I an unaware of any free software tools which enable growing or labelling HFS+ file systems.  If you do learn of these, then please let us know so that we can consider enhancing GParted to use such HFS+ grow / label tools.

3 Reply by Inferno986return

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Re: [closed] HFS+ Support (Growing and labelling)

Thank you for replying Gedakc.

I am researching into this and see if it's possible for GParted to fully support HFS+. Here are my results:

Unfortunately, HFS+ is completely owned by Apple and after closely analysing the KDE Partition Manager it appears to only fully support the old HFS system which isn't helpful.

Proprietary software didn't help much either as Acronis seems to miss out HFS+ completely, although a group called Paragon Software seemed to have a partition manager that may support HFS+.

Annoyingly HFS+ is a pretty old technology dating back to 1998 when it replaced the original HFS, it's disappointing that I can't find anything other than Disk Utility which is an Apple made product that can do this.

What else can we do?

GParted really is the best partition editor ever, I wish it could fully support HFS+ (growing and labelling) but that is Apple's fault!
OS's: Ubuntu Linux 11.10 64, BackTrack 5 RC1 GNOME 64, Windows 7 Home Premium/Ultimate 64, Mac OS X 10.6
Feel free to add me PSN: Inferno986return

4 Reply by gedakc

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Re: [closed] HFS+ Support (Growing and labelling)

Inferno986return wrote:

Unfortunately, HFS+ is completely owned by Apple and after closely analysing the KDE Partition Manager it appears to only fully support the old HFS system which isn't helpful.

If I recall correctly, KDE Partition Manager does not support growing or labelling HFS volumes either.  If I am wrong, please do correct me.

Inferno986return wrote:

What else can we do?

If you are keen and want to dig into the internals of the HFS+ file system, then perhaps you might work with the htfsprogs developers to add this missing functionality.  wink

5 Reply by Inferno986return

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Re: [closed] HFS+ Support (Growing and labelling)

The vanilla version of the KDE Partition Manager (without plugins) does not support the original HFS or the reading of HFS+. The Ubuntu Software Centre did happily offer 2 plugins to make these actions possible but nothing that GParted couldn't do.

I assume "htfsprogs" was a typo because Google kept showing its Windows counterpart ntfsprogs, but I would be willing to work with hfsprogs to hopefully solve this issue. Though I do feel doubtful since not even powerful corporate partition managers like Acronis can work successfully in HFS+.

Can you give me a link?

GParted really is the best partition editor ever, I wish it could fully support HFS+ (growing and labelling) but that is Apple's fault!
OS's: Ubuntu Linux 11.10 64, BackTrack 5 RC1 GNOME 64, Windows 7 Home Premium/Ultimate 64, Mac OS X 10.6
Feel free to add me PSN: Inferno986return

6 Reply by gedakc

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Re: [closed] HFS+ Support (Growing and labelling)

Inferno986return wrote:

Can you give me a link?

hfsprogs is correct.  There is a link to the package on the GParted Features page.  Perhaps that might be a place to begin tracking down where the code originates.

7 Reply by Inferno986return

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Re: [closed] HFS+ Support (Growing and labelling)

Once again thanks Gedakc,

I will have a look at the hfsprogs package (which obviously is used in GParted) and see whether it's possible for it to be improved.

I followed the link and have had a look on the official open-source website for Apple. The files there are for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). I then had a deeper look at the Debian site and have found the maintainer of the hfsprogs package Rogério Brito.

I think it's my best bet if I contact him directly and ask him about this package. Clearly this package is responsible for all of the HFS+ functionality in GParted and if I have any chance of making this work out I best contact him.

Thanks again,

Inferno986return

GParted really is the best partition editor ever, I wish it could fully support HFS+ (growing and labelling) but that is Apple's fault!
OS's: Ubuntu Linux 11.10 64, BackTrack 5 RC1 GNOME 64, Windows 7 Home Premium/Ultimate 64, Mac OS X 10.6
Feel free to add me PSN: Inferno986return