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Can't resize partition in Mountain Lion

K

Krupke

macrumors member
Original poster
May 5, 2012
57
0
Just about at wit's end with this one.... I have a 1tb drive partitioned in two (I was using the second half for backups). Now I'm almost out of space on the first 500gb partition, so I tried resizing it in Disk Utility....fuggedaboutit. Tried doing it when booted off the recovery boot disk ("option" key).... no worky. Tried Stellar Partition... wouldn't work, tried iPartition... couldn't even get it to create a boot disk without failing.

Am I forever consigned to having two partitions on my primary drive? Or is there a failsafe way to do this?
 
You can't change the size of the partition on which the OS is installed. You have to reboot and hold down the alt-key before OSX gets to start, then choose to launch Disk Utility instead.
 
I think that by resizing your backup partition first you should be able to then resize the boot partition into the now available space. Not sure if this is at all doable - just guessing. You can play around with Disk Utility and see if the method works.

If this is exactly what you've been doing then disregard this post.
 
DesertEagle said:
You can't change the size of the partition on which the OS is installed. You have to reboot and hold down the alt-key before OSX gets to start, then choose to launch Disk Utility instead.
Click to expand...

I know. That's why I wrote "Tried doing it when booted off the recovery boot disk ("option" key).... no worky.". Disk Utility would still not allow me to resize the primary partition even when booted off the recovery disk.

alan.nyholm: "I think that by resizing your backup partition first you should be able to then resize the boot partition into the now available space."

I deleted the backup partiion. Now I have one partition. Except that one partition is only half the drive. It won't resize to full. Then I recreated the backup partition. Tried resizing the primary partition. Won't allow me. (Nor can you resize the second partition to take over the first one).
 
"Am I forever consigned to having two partitions on my primary drive? Or is there a failsafe way to do this?"

There is a way to do this, but you have to have another external drive.

How to do it:
1. Copy the contents of your 500gb partition to the external drive using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper
2. Use Disk Utility to ERASE the first drive, creating either one partition or two partitions of the desired size
3. Use CCC to "copy back" the contents of the second internal drive to the first one (with the single partition or resized partitions).

This WILL work.
It WILL take some time.
And of course you need that "second drive".
 
I've only now solved the problem. Carbon Copy Cloner is great. But it is a massive undertaking to copy 500gb of files to a usb 2 external drive, format the source drive, then copy all the added Windows files manually and worry about whether BOOTCAMP will ever work again. (CCC won't copy Bootcamp partitions).

It is a MAJOR pain in the butt, when all you want to do is resize a simple partition! Well guess what? I had copied the 500gb of data, and was all set to erase my 1 terabyte source drive... when as a last ditch effort, i tried a partition program called "iPartition". For the second time, that is. I finally figured out that all you have to do is drag the colored circle wheel around and VOILA. This program does what Disk Utility won't: resize the partition without destroying anything. (Did take longer than expected though, about 20 minutes). Destry rides again, yeeha!
 
Krupke said:
. when as a last ditch effort, i tried a partition program called "iPartition". For the second time, that is. I finally figured out that all you have to do is drag the colored circle wheel around and VOILA. This program does what Disk Utility won't: resize the partition without destroying anything. (Did take longer than expected though, about 20 minutes). Destry rides again, yeeha!
Click to expand...

Hey - when you say you dragged the color circle - could you be more specific? I'm trying to use the app to to overcome the same problem you have, but have thus far been unsuccessful.
 
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