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Clearing the msftres flag set by gparted

If you have used the partition editor on the Ubuntu LiveCD to create a FAT32 partition, you may notice that this new partition will be flagged with msftres. This means it is MS Reserved and you will not be able to mount this partition easily or at all in OS X.

Here is a simple workaround to get rid of the msftres flag:

(These instructions assume that you have already created a FAT32 partition using gparted)

1. Using the Ubuntu LiveCD launch the partition editor and delete the FAT32 partition.
2. Create a resierFS partition in its place

Why do we do this?

• gparted sets no flags on reiserFS partitions it creates
• the Disk Utility (which we will need in the next step) in OS X can't edit ext2/3 partitions, neither can it erase a FAT16, FAT32 or NTFS partition that is flagged with MS Reserved (i.e. msftres)

Now we continue with the instructions:

1. Next launch OSX and open Disk Utility
2. Now click on the resierFS partition and select 'erase'
3. Erase the reiserFS partition and replace it with a FAT32 partition (choose the FAT from the drop down menu)
4. Disk Utility will create a FAT32 partition without any flags and this new partition will mount nicely in both OSX and Ubuntu