I have outgrown my Windows partition!

As I understand it you'll have to remove the partition with Boot Camp, create a new partition (if it will let you, otherwise its probably a reinstall of OS X too), then reinstall Windows. So yes, you'll have to reinstall all your games.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

You are going to need more that 5gb. Remember ALL operating systems require a decent ammount of hard drive space for virtual memory and keeping things flowing. Allocate more than you need, rather than the bare minimum.

Your gonna have to reinstall or add an external HD to the equation and install programmes on the external HD in future....

How much memory in your computer do you have. I have 2gb and windows uses 3 - 4gb of hd space for virtual memory.

You could try and copy your contents into a new partition but I dont think it will work.

Copy your existing files onto an ipod or somthing using clonehd or similar. Just copy and pasting wont work i'm afraid. When you delete the existing partition in bootcamp, it also deletes a smaller boot efi partiton too.

This is created by bootcamp when you create a new partition.
Once you've repaired you macintosh GD and deleted windows, you must go back into bootcamp and create a larger partition.

Follow instructions till it boot into windows start up, choose partition and format as Fat32 with XP. Before install continues, hard reset the computer and boot into OS X.

You need to do it this way to get bootcamp to create the startup/boot efi partition...

You can now put your previously cloned hd back onto your new Fat32 partition. Reboot and hold alt and pray that windows now appears in the drive select.......



It might just be quicker at the end of the day to reinstall from scratch...

Kingsly said:

so there is no way to just grab my windows drive and copy it into a new partition?
Why, exactly, do I need to do a complete reinstall? Also, that 5GB was factoring 600MB for VM.

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I don't know how BootCamp works, but if you can mount the Windows partition in Mac OS X, then you can make an image of it with Disk Utility. Repartition and then reload the image and you should be set.

If you can't image the drive, though, then you're stuck. If you just copy a bunch of files over I suspect that something would go wrong. You'd miss an invisible file or permissions would get corrupted going back and forth between two file systems, etc.

savar said:

I don't know how BootCamp works, but if you can mount the Windows partition in Mac OS X, then you can make an image of it with Disk Utility. Repartition and then reload the image and you should be set.

If you can't image the drive, though, then you're stuck. If you just copy a bunch of files over I suspect that something would go wrong. You'd miss an invisible file or permissions would get corrupted going back and forth between two file systems, etc.

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Depends if you've formated as NTFS which XP prefers by the way, then your screwed in OSX. You may be able to make an image using disk utility if its FAT32, give it a try.

Yep copying doesnt work as hidden files and protected files dont copy and your screwed too.

Just do it. What have you got to lose, only a bit of time to re-install if it doesnt work. Time that your already wasting worrying about doing it

I know its a pain to have to re-install but it's not the end of the world and your not doing anything to damage your mac installation so what the heck


1 question I have though. When I used bootcamp, created my partition and started up windows. It wouldnt let me format the drive in anything other than NTFS. I wonder why that was?

MacRumorUser said:

1 question I have though. When I used bootcamp, created my partition and started up windows. It wouldnt let me format the drive in anything other than NTFS. I wonder why that was?

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In the Windows installer? It could be because your partition was too large; FAT32 has a 32GB limit in XP.

32gb! Yeah that's stupid. Though I've used PC's with XP with larger disk sizes than 32gb and they were formated with Fat32. The one in the office is 80gb HD and that's Fat32? Is it just a bootcamp limitation I wonder?

Doesn't matter really, all I want XP for is Black & White 2, The Movies & Rollercoaster Tycoon 3

MacRumorUser said:

32gb! Yeah that's stupid. Though I've used PC's with XP with larger disk sizes than 32gb and they were formated with Fat32. The one in the office is 80gb HD and that's Fat32? Is it just a bootcamp limitation I wonder?

Doesn't matter really, all I want XP for is Black & White 2, The Movies & Rollercoaster Tycoon 3

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2000/XP won't allow you to make a FAT32 partition larger than 32 gig, it's Microsoft's way of forcing users on to using NTFS. Now before anyone gets all cranky and pissy at Microsoft, remember that Apple is also guilty of setting artificial limitations to force users into certain avenues.

Kingsly said:

Okay, I have outgrown my 10GB windows partition (all games! its like going from the corner castle video to netflix. I've gone crazy on games! arrgh!)

I just need 5 more GB (Half Life 2) and I will be satisfied. Unfortunatly, I will have to repartition. Can I just drag the contents of Windows HD to a folder on Mac HD, repartition, and drag it back ? Or do I have to actually reinstall everything ?

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Why not un-install some of the games you've got on there to make space for HL2?
Surely you're not playing all the games at once?

One option you might have is to purchase an external HD and install/run the games off of that.

SilentPanda said:

One option you might have is to purchase an external HD and install/run the games off of that.

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That's what I would do. Just make a fat32 partition on a secondary drive.

Unless you have a huge harddrive, I'd say 1/3 Windows if you really want good room for gaming, etc.

HL2 and CS/CS:S are massive and they only get bigger with every update.

Yep remember that games take 3-5 GB. You'll soon fill up.

MacRumorUser said:

32gb! Yeah that's stupid. Though I've used PC's with XP with larger disk sizes than 32gb and they were formated with Fat32. The one in the office is 80gb HD and that's Fat32? Is it just a bootcamp limitation I wonder?

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No, this has nothing to do with Boot Camp. It's a self-imposed limitation placed by Microsoft.

Also, XP and 2000 can access/mount FAT32 volumes larger than 32GB, they just can not format them. So I've no doubt that you've used PC's with volumes larger than 32GB w/ 2000/XP. The Windows installer will give you a "Logical Disk Manager: Volume size too big" error if you try to format from the installer.

This "cannot Format more than 32GB" behavior is by design, as Microsoft recommends using the NTFS file system for partitions greater than 32GB. One reason for this is: as a FAT32 partition goes beyond 32GB, the cluster size that is used jumps from 16K to 32K, thus "wasting" far more drive space when small files are stored.

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Personally, I'd recommend NTFS unless you have a very compelling need for FAT32; cluster sizes will waste lots of space and the allocation tables in FAT32 aren't as robust in NTFS. The only benefit of using FAT32 with Boot Camp is the ability to write to the FAT32 partition from OS X; you can read from formats (FAT32 & NTFS).

Don M. said:

Personally, I'd recommend NTFS unless you have a very compelling need for FAT32; cluster sizes will waste lots of space and the allocation tables in FAT32 aren't as robust in NTFS. The only benefit of using FAT32 with Boot Camp is the ability to write to the FAT32 partition from OS X; you can read from formats (FAT32 & NTFS).

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Plus, if you really need to share files between the two OSes, you can always get MacDrive from Mediafour. It's pretty good software that allows Windows to work with (read and write) HFS formatted drives. It's $50, but if you're going to be doing a lot of switching, then it's well worth it.

Kingsly said:

If only you knew...

Really, i have three games: Brothers in arms:EAB, Splinter Cell:Chaos theory and, coming soon, HL:2
Im not going to install CS:S, I never play online anyway.

Will a FW drive have enough bandwidth to run modern games? Can I partition a drive (say 80GB HFS and 20 NTFS)?

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Yes, running games from a FireWire drive isnt a problem.

I was stupid, I think I gave windows too much.57 GB!!! 1 GB more and Iwould be selling my sould to the devil-Windows.

Yeah that last hing i could probably take out because id get banned ;D