Resize BootCamp Windows 7 Partition?

How to: Extend or Resize Boot Camp Partition

PNayo92 said:

Thanks for replying, but I've already read that article.

Does anyone have any input on my external hard drive or any experience with cloning bootcamp and resizing it?

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depending on what size ext hd got coult partition it as 2 format one partition on mac as hfs+ then reformat other while on windows to ntfs. it works for me on a 350gb ext hdd

PNayo92 said:

I was thinking about decreasing the size of my mac partition with Disk Utility and then increasing the size of my NTFS windows 7 partition using an iPartition demo that I have.

I'm not sure though if any data will be erased when I decrease the size of the mac partition. I'm sort of afraid to touch it...

Is there any way that I can go through this without having to reformat my entire disk?


*Edit: and I'm also running Lion on my macbook pro..

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There is no absolutely foolproof method when messing with partitions.

The way I've done this in the past is to backup the Windows partition with Winclone (do not allow it to use compression when creating the image) shrink the OSX partition and blow away the Windows partition. Create an empty Fat partition and restore the Winclone copy to the new larger fat partition (Winclone will blow it away and create the NTFS part with your restored data).

Winclone is discontinued and there have been instances where the restore process fails.

On Mac laptops with easy to change out drives I clone OSX (Superduper) and Winclone to an external drive and then restore to the space I've created on the new drive. This way the old drive is fully functional in case something goes wrong.

Hardly ever have a problem but I'm paranoid about data loss! Best of luck to you.

Cheers,

Here is How I Re-Sized Win7 Bootcamp - No reinstall of Win7 needed!

I've been using Bcamp many years and done this several ways... this was by far the easiest and worked fine for me.
-basically I used newest WinClone in MacOS to create a Backup Image of my Bootcamp Win7 partition
-this is NOT necessary, but of course recommended in case something goes wrong, also makes sense to have a good image backup
-Winclone took about 8hrs to make a image (400g) to my external WD passport usb drive with a Mac HPFS partition on it for the backup file

-then went to Mac OS and shrink the Mac part down about 50gig
-then go to Win7, get free app MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition v7.1
-with this simply increased the Win7 part to use the now unallocated space
-had to use this tool since the area was to left of Win7 part
-this needed to reboot and run, it took about 10-15 min to run
-now Win7 part is 50g bigger and Mac is 50g smaller all is running fine
-ran a chk disk on win to be sure - took about 10 min and all is ok...

feel free to email me with questions mike@espositos.net

**** Here are my more detailed notes on this ***
Mike_Notebook_DisasterRecovery.txt

***** 03/19/12 working on Mac2 made new backup of Win7 partition and resized to get more space *****
-when done BootCamp partition is now 420gig in size
-also now have backup of Win7 image on WD USB drive "Mac2Win7-WinClone031912.winclone"

1. installed / run new version of WinClone 3.0
-run Win7 Chk Disk
-restart Mac2 - hold Option key - boot to Mac OS
-downloaded from http://www.twocanoes.com 19.95
-I downloaded in Win7 and burned to a CD
-have to make sure installed as a Application - when first comes up with install screen have to drag the Winclone app icon
over to the Application icon in the application screen - kind of a visual install dialog box on screen
-now the app should be in the Finder - File finder - Applicaitons - listed here and started here
-don't want to run from a CD...
-I had tried to run from CD but it would refuse to work because of security errors and running from a write protected media
-so once I copied from CD to Desktop and ran the install dialog to applications it was OK, but has to be installed, not just copied
or run from desktop or CD - this is just the install program dialog box
-connected WD external Hdd Passport to USB port
-first had to use Mac Disk utitity to create a Mac HPFS partition on the usb drive, this is needed to save the image to
-Applications - Utilities - Disk Utility - selected the USB drive - used partition tool to resize and divide the drive to 375g Mac, 375g Win
-now can save the BootCamp Win7 image to the Mac HPFS partition with WinClone
-ran WinClone to make a clone backup of Win7 BootCamp partition
-was saved to WD USB drive "Mac2Win7-WinClone031912.winclone"
-this took about 10hrs to run (400gig+)

--- I tried to use CampTune X to resize partitions - it ran all night and just locked up, tried twice not work as needed

2. Shrink size of Mac partition from 100gig down to 50gig
-boot to Mac OS
-Applications - Utilities - Disk Utility
-Select the Mac Partition - Shrink - type in new size 50gig - apply
-did see warning about the Bootcamp partition but we NOT mess with this here at all
-Now Mac partition is smaller leaving empty "unallocated" space between the Mac and BootCamp Win7 partitions

3. Increase size of BootCamp Win7 partition to use "unallocated space"
-boot to Win7
-downloaded Free copy of MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition v7.1
-this version is free from http://www.PartitionWizard.com
-once installed - run Partition Wizard
-selected the BootCamp partition - Resize - drag slider to left to get ALL now Unallocated space
-then OK
-now go to upper right and click Apply
-it had to restart the Computer - and then did the resize on boot up ins it's own app running before win7 boot
-this took about 10 min to run
-now booted to Win7 and all is ok - Win7 partition is increased in size

4. Ran ChkDisk on partition to be sure all ok
-Control Panel - Admin tools - Computer Mgmt - Disk Mgmt - Rt clk Select partition - Properties - Tools - Error Chking Check Now
-it will schedule a chkdisk on reboot
-reboot system
-Chk Disk runs on boot - takes about 10 min - all was OK

Camptune x Fail, Hard Disk Manager Suite Success

I tried Paragon Camptune X and had no success.

However, another Paragon product, the Paragon Hard Disk Manager Suite, did solve my problem. Installed it on the Windows Boot Camp partition, opened the app, selected Partitioning/Resize Partition, and used the slider to reallocate hard drive space between Mac and Windows. The software runs, reboots the system to a BIOS-like screen while it reallocates the space. It takes a few minutes but it worked pretty flawlessly.

I'd suggest Parallels or VMWare. That way the Windows partition can grow to what you need up to your max free space.

FWIW

When using Paragon I lost both OS X and Windows...

Success with Winclone, every single time...

Follow instructions on Winclone website, no other software required.

vesposit said:

I've been using Bcamp many years and done this several ways...

Click to expand...

Thanks, this worked for me. My only change was skipping out on using WinClone to backup my Windows 7 partition.

Geez at this rate, I am considering deleting the entire win partition and installing from scratch. Sounds crazy risky the other ways.

Vesposit's method works!

I didnt do step 1: WinClone, as I dont care about backing up windows.

I did use TimeMachine to backup the mac side first. As an aside, I had to go and add a ton of "dont back this up, timemachine" because I had a bunch of useless 1-20GB files and directories.

The rest, I did like vesposit said. MiniTool Partition Wizard is now version 8.1.1 and supports win 8.

Only screwy thing, is that OS X 10.8.5 thinks that the BOOTCAMP partition is still 30GB, instead of the increased 60GB. Disk Utility and Recovery mode both show there still being unutilized partition space, and the old partition size.

i'm not overly fussed about my windows 8 partition but i'd rather not have the hassle of re-installing.

If i resize it in disk utility in OSX i will damage the MBR i reckon.

I read that i could boot to win 8 recovery tool and repair MBR. I would be grateful if someone could clarify if this is possible and will work and of course how to do it properly?

thanks