Combining partitions ?

[jeremy.king]

I have searched for recommendations of a free non-destructive partitioning tool, and seems there aren't any out there or no real suggestions.

But heres my situation.

Added a second harddrive to my powermac. The first hard drive has two partitions (one for system, one for docs) and I have formatted the second partition after copying all files to the new second hard drive.

I was hoping to now combine the two partitions on my original drive into one, so each hard drive had only one partition. The key here is I don't want to reinstall Panther/Apps/etc.

_IF_ I,

(1) boot from CD
(2) copy all contents from drive 1 (partition 1) to drive 2 probably by creating a disk image of my hard disk.
(3) combine partitions on drive one using disk utility
(4) copy all files back from drive 2 to drive 1, again by restoring image made in step 2

Will I have any problems with Panther? Basically, are there "hidden" files or other unknowns that can't be resolved by a simple file copy or disk image?

Or better yet, I will ask like a few have in the past, is there a FREE partition tool that will COMBINE my two partitions making this quick and easy.

Can it be done with some UNIX command???

Your suggestions/comments/answers are appreciated.

 

[7on]

Search for Carbon Copy Cloner. But honestly it'd be easier to just reinstall. Don't know what you would have outside your Home Folder (everything I do goes into my homefolder so when I had to delete a partition I just copied over my home folder, I only had to resinstall apps that existed in the system folder [palm, driver, etc]).

 

[Calliander]

Re: Combining partitions ?

Originally posted by kingjr3
I have searched for recommendations of a free non-destructive partitioning tool, and seems there aren't any out there or no real suggestions.

But heres my situation.

Added a second harddrive to my powermac. The first hard drive has two partitions (one for system, one for docs) and I have formatted the second partition after copying all files to the new second hard drive.

I was hoping to now combine the two partitions on my original drive into one, so each hard drive had only one partition. The key here is I don't want to reinstall Panther/Apps/etc.

_IF_ I,

(1) boot from CD
(2) copy all contents from drive 1 (partition 1) to drive 2 probably by creating a disk image of my hard disk.
(3) combine partitions on drive one using disk utility
(4) copy all files back from drive 2 to drive 1, again by restoring image made in step 2

Will I have any problems with Panther? Basically, are there "hidden" files or other unknowns that can't be resolved by a simple file copy or disk image?

Or better yet, I will ask like a few have in the past, is there a FREE partition tool that will COMBINE my two partitions making this quick and easy.

Can it be done with some UNIX command???

Your suggestions/comments/answers are appreciated.

If you have one disk, you will lose all of your data if you repartition it back to one. If you have two disks, where one has the two partitions and the other has one or two or whatever, you can copy your stuff from the drive you are going to repartition to the other drive. Do NOT use CCC. It's a very nice program, and it's great for cloning drives, but you could unwitting erase the data you have on that second drive. I would just copy your home folder and try to remember if you've saved anything in any other place.

 

[fishburd]

It can be done non-destructively

Just use diskutil from the command line.

Here's instructions

 

[jeremy.king]

Just use diskutil from the command line.

Here's instructions

Thanks fishburd. I'm glad this is now possible almost 5 years later.