[counciler]

I'm trying to create a mac partition for my external hard drive, which I also use for windows XP. I've already created a few partitions for use with my windows. I already have 4 partitions, 3 OS partitions, 1 windows files partition and the rest of it unpartitioned free space. I want to use OSX partitioner to create another one since Windows won't let me, apparently 4 is the max. However, OSX won't let me partition the unpartitioned space without partitioning the entire drive, how can I avoid this?

[Side.Step.Society]

As far as I know, if you're installing Snow Leopard, the drive HAS to be formatted with the GUID partition table. Your drive is likely formatted in MBR, so, again, as far as I know, a format will be required and there's no way around this.

[counciler]

I'm not installing anything, I already have Leapord 10.5.8 or whatever installed. All I want to do is to be able to use my external hard drive as storage space. It has some free space, but it won't let me access only that. I have other partitions that are formatted in NTFS that I don't want to touch.

[Side.Step.Society]

Ahh, gotchya. Disk Utility in Mac OS X won't let you add partitions to an MBR drive after the drive has already been formatted and created like you can with GUID. To keep it as MBR and add another partition, like you said, you'd have to completely wipe the drive, then, click the partition tab and set the number to 5, or however many you require. However, there may be other programs out there that have a solution to this.

At least, that's how it worked with my USB drive.

[JustAMacUser]

Parted Magic might be able to do what you need. But remember that re-partitioning with live volumes can be risky. I've done it a few times with both success and failure. You'll want to have a backup of your files.