Initially when setting up my bootcamp partition, I allowed 250GB. But now I rarely use bootcamp, and am only using 70GB. Is it possible to reallocate some of that space (about 150GB) back to my main partition? Is it safe/easy to do? Or will I have to reinstall my OS and everything?
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Decrease size of Bootcamp partition?
- Thread starter musiclvr
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You need something like Paragon Camptune. If you resize from within OS X you will find Windows will throw a wobbly next time you boot it up.
honestly, dont. if you need to reduce the size of the partition, back up anything in that partition (probably just steam games), then use bootcamp to delete the partition and then re add it and reinstall windows. any other solution will just bring tears.
I just tried resizing using Camptune and got the following error:
Any ideas what I am doing wrong?
I don't I'm afraid, I have never seen that error message before.
This thread http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/ru...sizing-os-x-boot-camp-windows-partitions.html suggests your partition might be too fragmented.
Try Ishayu's suggestion, if that doesn't work then contact Paragon support to see what they say. Whatever you find out post back here so the next person with a similar problem knows what to do.
Can you explain how to do this? I am logged into Windows but don't see any Partition manger.
Thanks for the video. I shrunk my Bootcamp volume but not sure how to reallocate that space back to my primary drive. I tried going to Disk Utility but it says the Bootcamp partition is still 250GB. Do I need to reallocate it while logged into Windows?
incidentally, just something i read on a forum before, if your windows installation is a hooky copy, DO NOT attempt anything to resize the partition. dont remember the technical details but remember reading about camptune and people saying it destroyed their bootcamp, and the answer from paragon was that it was down to the way hooky copies of windows have modified loaders (prob not the technical term).
What's a hooky copy?
I shrunk my Bootcamp Volume [C:] and you can see I have 88.38GB of unallocated space next to it. I want to add that unallocated space to [E:] which is where I have OS X installed. But I can't figure out how to extend E because the 'Extend Volume' option is grayed out when right clicking in Windows.
I shrunk my Bootcamp Volume [C:] and you can see I have 88.38GB of unallocated space next to it. I want to add that unallocated space to [E:] which is where I have OS X installed. But I can't figure out how to extend E because the 'Extend Volume' option is grayed out when right clicking in Windows.
What's a hooky copy?
I shrunk my Bootcamp Volume [C:] and you can see I have 88.38GB of unallocated space next to it. I want to add that unallocated space to [E:] which is where I have OS X installed. But I can't figure out how to extend E because the 'Extend Volume' option is grayed out when right clicking in Windows.
Hooky is slang for dodgy/pirated.
Try expanding it in OS X Disk Utility.
I believe you are playing with fire. I would have recommended as someone else did above doing what Apple indicates is necessary, delete the bootcamp partition using Bootcamp Assistant and redo it. They make these recommendations for a reason.
At this point, to reclaim the space, I would make sure your Mac install is fully backed up with Time Machine and then I would run Bootcamp Assistant to remove the Windows install which should reclaim the full 250 gigs. Then you can start over.
By the way, I cannot guarantee that even this will work. I expect that it should but failing that you will need to redo the entire disk, OS X and all to get back to where you started from. I hope not but that is the worst case scenario you should be aware of and thus backup accordingly.
I realize you may not like this idea but I am trying to spare you pain.
As post #12 says, Winclone will handle this for you. Shrink the Windows filesystem with Winclone, create an image of the Windows installation, delete the Bootcamp partition, and the extra one, expand your OS X partition, then make a new FAT32 partition that Winclone will then use to restore your Windows installation to. (Winclone will convert the partition back to NTFS when it restores.)
Have you done this personally or are you operating under the assumption that based on what you know about Winclone, it should work? I am just curious. What is he supposed to delete the two partitions with? Does Winclone offer partition management tools? Lastly, and I don't know about this but I presume the system boot loader is provided by OS X when it is installed and manages what is presented on boot when you hold down the option key. What is going to update that if bootcamp assistant isn't used to do the install?
I realize, I may just be misunderstanding how the boot loader works on a Mac system. I note it is aware of bootable external drives so is it able to recognize a Windows partition and hand off to the Windows boot loader on its own without explicitly being setup to do so? This is something I am guessing that bootcamp assistant handles but I do understand I could be wrong about that. Do you know how this works and are therefore certain what you propose will work absolutely and without fail?
I use Winclone to resize and deploy Bootcamp installs on a regular basis. I manage about 75 dual boot Macs as a significant part of my job.
It works exactly as described.
Once Winclone has made an image of the shrunken Windows filesystem, partition management is done via Disk Utility in OS X. The boot process works the same whether the partition is created via the Boot Camp Assistant or with Disk Utility, then restored from the Winclone image. Winclone does all of what's needed to make Windows boot properly.
Macworld has a review of Winclone 4 (it's now up to version 5) here: http://www.macworld.com/article/204...-a-must-have-utility-for-boot-camp-users.html
I have done this exact process several times with Windows 8.1 and WinClone and it worked perfectly each time. That is the only process I would trust to resize Windows ... I would never use any Windows based Utility which may be Mac-unaware and screw up my OS X installation.
I did it with mavericks just fine. I'd suggest defragmenting your windows partition first though from within windows.