Partitioning an External Drive without Erasing

Leopard Disk Utility allows dynamic partition sizing, but I'm not sure if you can do that with existing partitions or just partitions created with Leopard..ie: you partitioned and formatted the disk with leopard.

Plug in the drive and open disk utility to see if the partitions are resizable. Nothing will happen until you hit the "accept" button, so don't worry.

Did you try making it 2 partitions or drag the current one to resize? If the former, it will want to erase and create 2 new ones.

Try grabbing the "bottom" of the current partition and slide it up to create some free space. It should be able to do this on-the-fly (no erasing). Then, you can create a new partition in the free space.

Important: you shouldn't do any modifications to partitions without a backup.

edit: you might be thinking of iPartition. It's not Leopard compatible, yet, but it sounds like it will be soon. It can resize, create/delete and move partitions on-the-fly.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the partitions I had made on my external HD with Tiger, were easily adjustable once I installed Leopard. Totally sweet to be able to resize partitions on the fly!

It should be noted that you can't resize external fat 32 partitions. I have my external 500gb partitioned as 1 big fat 32 so I can access it in windows. I wanted to half it up to hfs so I could store my hd movies (>4gb) but I couldn't.

change the size?

IS there a way to change the size of two partitions?

I have a 200MB partition for storage and a 300GB partition for TM. I would rather have the 200 for TM or LESS and the 300GB for storage or more?

In the disk utility, I can certainly grab the corner of the 300GB TM partition and shorten it, but then WHAT happens to the freed up space? Can I ADD it to the 200MB partition?

IS there a way to do this?

tivoboy said:

IS there a way to change the size of two partitions?

I have a 200MB partition for storage and a 300GB partition for TM. I would rather have the 200 for TM or LESS and the 300GB for storage or more?

In the disk utility, I can certainly grab the corner of the 300GB TM partition and shorten it, but then WHAT happens to the freed up space? Can I ADD it to the 200MB partition?

IS there a way to do this?

Click to expand...

i also would like to know this answer

I am getting ready to partition a drive that I cannot erase so I can limit the build-up of time machine on it.

Can someone explain to me how to use "resize image" to do this? I've never done it before.

The external drive is 320 GB, with 60 used. My Powerbook has 40 GB free. (So I can't just 'float' it.)

I know you can limit what time machine backs up file-wise, but I would like to limit its capacity so I do not get surprised when my external is suddenly full.

EDIT - Nevermind, it works if you just trust leopard and tell it to partition.

I also have a question that I think relates to this thread.

I have an external, 500 GB drive with data on it (but only using about 20 gb) from my old windows computer. The drive is formatted as FAT32, and has no partitions. I was wondering if I could get Leopard to create a partition with the mac format for time machine to use, but it seems from the above posts that I can't. I might just let time machine reformat the whole ext. drive, but can I first move the files (eg: word docs, photos, misc. junk) into my macbook's drive, and then later drag them back to the ext. drive? Or would that be unnecessary, since time machine will be backing up everything on my macbook's drive?

I'm a bit unclear if time machine creates a full drive image (I used to use acronis true image on my windows laptop to create backups)?

Partitioning and Keep FAT32

so i was wondering, i want to partition my external 500GB HD for TM through leopard but since its formated in FAT32 all it will do is erase the whole HD and then partition it. is there a way i can keep the FAT32 part and create an OSX part that i can use for TM?

sorry if this is an old post but i can answer it.
i was just wondering also these questions.


open disk utility
click on the main drive on the left side and go to partition
look at the rectangle in the middle of the page that shows your drive and how the space is allocated.

in the bottom right hand of that box there is a little ripple (do not know what you would call it) but you can move that up and down, once you do that click the plus button under it and a new partition will come up.

im not 100% sure this works
as im doing it right now.

but it does say, on the right of that box and in the dialog box when you click apply it says
drive å will not be erased
drive ß will be created.


well lets hope this works as i have a 70+ gb itunes library i would hate to loose.



EDIT: IT WORKS PERFECTLY

benlangdon said:

sorry if this is an old post but i can answer it.
i was just wondering also these questions.


open disk utility
click on the main drive on the left side and go to partition
look at the rectangle in the middle of the page that shows your drive and how the space is allocated.

in the bottom right hand of that box there is a little ripple (do not know what you would call it) but you can move that up and down, once you do that click the plus button under it and a new partition will come up.

im not 100% sure this works
as im doing it right now.

but it does say, on the right of that box and in the dialog box when you click apply it says
drive å will not be erased
drive ß will be created.


well lets hope this works as i have a 70+ gb itunes library i would hate to loose.



EDIT: IT WORKS PERFECTLY

Click to expand...

so here's another similar question...

I have a 1TB drive already partitioned into 2 partitions. One partition is about 600GB for TM and the other one is about 300GB for storage.

I would like to take some space away from the TM partition and give it to the storage partition. I see the dragging "grips" on the partitions graph, but I can only drag over free space to create a third partition... I can't seem to find a way to give space from one partition to another.

swwack91 said:

so here's another similar question...

I have a 1TB drive already partitioned into 2 partitions. One partition is about 600GB for TM and the other one is about 300GB for storage.

I would like to take some space away from the TM partition and give it to the storage partition. I see the dragging "grips" on the partitions graph, but I can only drag over free space to create a third partition... I can't seem to find a way to give space from one partition to another.

Click to expand...

actually i have no clue, now i want to find this out.
damm and i actually kinda need to do this, only 10gb left for time machine

I am trying to partition my external hard drive without erasing it. However, I don't see those ripples in the bottom left hand of the rectangle. Here is a screen shot:

See the Volume Scheme: "current" option? Select that and then "2 partitions" (or however many you want).

I will have to erase my Hard drive then. Right? I'm trying to partition my hard drive without removing all the data.

cgryniewicz said:

I am trying to partition my external hard drive without erasing it. However, I don't see those ripples in the bottom left hand of the rectangle. Here is a screen shot:

Click to expand...

I am also trying to do this, the wd is formatted as FAT32. Is there a way for me to take 200Gb of that, and format as hfs, and yet be sure, the other files are still intact? I also have a windows computer with which i use the hd

In case you still need an answer:
http://www.creativetechs.com/iq/leopard_disk_utility_can_resize_partitions.html

cgryniewicz said:

I will have to erase my Hard drive then. Right? I'm trying to partition my hard drive without removing all the data.

Click to expand...

Short version of the answer is no you cannot since your disk has a Master Boot Record partition scheme.

See the Partition Map Scheme (where it reads Master Boot Record) at the bottom of the screen?

That is why you cannot resize partitions in Disk Utility without erasing on this disk. MBR is the partition scheme for a hard drive prepared exclusively for Windows. To prepare a new drive for MacOS, the first step should be to go into the Partition tab- then you must change the "Format Scheme" at the top to 1 (or more) instead of "current" as it will read by default. Changing that will cause the "Options" button at the bottom to become black, hence selectable.

Click on the Options tab, and select from either the Apple Partition Map (for PowerPC based Macs or GUID Partition Table (for Intel based Macs), not Master Boot Record for Windows.

Once that is selected, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for the "Format" at the top of the screen, give the drive a name and click either "Partition" or "Apply" (whichever appears at the bottom right of the screen). Wait a few seconds and you will have a disk that is capable of having partitions resized, added and subtracted without data loss.

Disk Utility is simply not capable of anything but basic erasing (formatting) on a disk with a partition type of Master Boot Record.