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I'm installing Mtn Lion and I'm wondering what will happen if I format my disk as ExFat and install Mountain Lion on it that way.
Any major advantages or disadvantages to doing this?
bobobobo
Posted 2012-09-05T15:26:27.913
Reputation: 4 632
Can you install Mac OS X on an ExFat formatted disk?
Answers
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Nope, OS X can only boot from Mac OS Extended (aka HFS+) and its variants (journaled, encrypted, and/or case sensitive). I don't have anything to test with here, but I'd be amazed if the installer even let you try installing it on ExFAT.
BTW, this isn't just a matter of "Apple hasn't bothered to support it"; OS X depends strongly on the Posix file permissions model, and ExFAT doesn't support that (just ACL permissions). It would take a lot of work to make OS X work on a volume where you can't have setuid files.
Gordon Davisson
Posted 2012-09-05T15:26:27.913
Reputation: 28 538
Correct, It would take a lot of work to make OS X work on a file systems set do not support POSIX file permissions, resource forks and other proprietary file system features of HFS(+). – wp78de – 2017-08-02T06:47:51.603
If you are already doing a format just try it – Ramhound – 2012-09-05T17:43:05.953
1Well the install takes an hour, if this is a bad idea (down the road) I'd like to know! – bobobobo – 2012-09-05T18:00:19.400