HOW to create a FAT32 partition for file sharing between OSes?

I looked through archives, but I'm a newbie starting from scratch and couldn't figure out old posts.

I have a box that has Windows XP on one hard drive and SuSE Linux 8.1 on the other. I want to share files. Can someone tell me:

1. How to create the FAT32 partition
2. Do I do it while in Windows XP or Linux?
3. What else is involved so I can write files from either OS and read/write the files in the other OS (and vice versa)?

BTW, While using linux I do a "df" and see
/dev/hdb2
/windows/C on /dev/dha1
and shmfs on /dev/shm
I can cd to /windows/C and move around into My Documents but I can not create new files or directories because it is a read-only file system and I can not chmod it either. While using Windows, I have no way to see or cd to the linux hard drive.



cheers
scott

You can use many programs out there, like partition magic, fdisk to setup the partition.. etc.

Are you trying to set this up on a partition already setup or will you be needing to split an existing.. splitting an existing I would recommend getting a software utility like partition magic or similiar.

I used partion magic to switch Win2k over to fat32 from NTFS and it worked fine.

Just be aware that Linux takes a performance hit with a FAT32 file system.

Well, yeah, if you actually try to run Linux on a FAT32 filesystem. What the topic is, though, is setting up a FAT32 filesystem for shared data files.

You can use windows fdisk to set up a partition to reallocate unallocated space, or a current Windoze partition, to FAT32 and then a Windoze format tool to establish the filesystem. If you have no empty space/partition, then use a partitioning tool to shrink your NTFS partition and reallocate that free space to FAT32.

Quick Info:

You can use
mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/hdxx to create FAT32 partition from Linux.

Iit will erase existing data in that partition.

Regards,
Valluvan.