Deleting Windows Partition with Disk Utility

[Nopstnz8]

Hey guys I am planning to upgrade my Windows 7 32 bit bootcamp partition to Windows 7 64 bit. I know I have to do a clean install to do this, so I am planning to wipe my Windows partition and start from scratch. I am trying to figure out how to remove my bootcamp partition though. If I use the bootcamp assistant, it seems like it will only give me 231gb of space back for Mac OSX. I have a 250gb HD, so where is the extra space going since my Windows partition is 42gb? Can I just delete it with Disk Utility to recover the space back? Could I possibly screw this up by using Disk Utility? Any help would be greatly appreciated ASAP. Thanks.

 

[balamw]

Hey guys I am planning to upgrade my Windows 7 32 bit bootcamp partition to Windows 7 64 bit. I know I have to do a clean install to do this, so I am planning to wipe my Windows partition and start from scratch. I am trying to figure out how to remove my bootcamp partition though. If I use the bootcamp assistant, it seems like it will only give me 231gb of space back for Mac OSX. I have a 250gb HD, so where is the extra space going since my Windows partition is 42gb? Can I just delete it with Disk Utility to recover the space back? Could I possibly screw this up by using Disk Utility? Any help would be greatly appreciated ASAP. Thanks.

IMHO it's easier to leave it be unless you need to resize the partition. Go ahead and reformat the partition (erase in Disk Utility or use the options in the Windows 7 64bit installer), and just go ahead with the install.

B

 

[MacDawg]

To redo your Bootcamp Partition, the best thing to do is to delete it with Bootcamp Assistant and create a new one IMO. Other methods seem to have mixed results.

Check out the Guide here at MR: Hard Drive Size Discrepancy

It probably holds the answer to your 250 GB HDD only having 231 GB available

Hard Drive Size Discrepancy

Why does my new 500 GB hard drive report it only has 465 GB? Have I been ripped off?

No, you haven't been ripped off. 500 GB = 465 GB, strange as it seems.

The reason is that computers count a "kilo" something as 1024 (binary 2^10) while the rest of the world count a "kilo" as 1000 (decimal 10^3). A 'mega' in computer binary system is 1024 x 1024 = 1,048,576 (rather than decimal 1,000,000), and a 'giga' is 1024 x 1024 x 1024 = 1,073,741,824 rather than decimal 1,000,000,000

This creates a discrepancy of approximately 7% between the number of GB the computer reports, and what is advertised as the drive's capacity in GB. It is important to note that there is no difference in the number of actual bytes of storage - it is only a difference in reporting when the binary 'giga' terminology is used.

A 500 GB hard drive has about 500,000,000,000 bytes (it is never exact, commonly a drive is designed to have more bytes, to allow for a certain number of defective sectors to be mapped out). When counted on the computer, 500 Gb (decimal) = 500 billion bytes = 465.66 GB (binary).

Some propose using a different term, gibibyte (GiB) for the binary figure, however that is unlikely to catch on in the marketplace.

 

[Nopstnz8]

To redo your Bootcamp Partition, the best thing to do is to delete it with Bootcamp Assistant and create a new one IMO. Other methods seem to have mixed results.

Check out the Guide here at MR: Hard Drive Size Discrepancy

It probably holds the answer to your 250 GB HDD only having 231 GB available

Thanks. That makes sense, and I was kinda assuming it had something to do with this since most hd's actually have a little less usable space compared to the capacity of the drive. I just find it funny how both programs give different info about the same thing, while they are both software of Apple. Lol.

 

[balamw]

Thanks. That makes sense, and I was kinda assuming it had something to do with this since most hd's actually have a little less usable space compared to the capacity of the drive. I just find it funny how both programs give different info about the same thing, while they are both software of Apple. Lol.

Apple should have stuck with the binary definitions (smaller numbers) throughout the OS and not introduced the HDD manufacturers definition in some places. Now, as you have seen, you can get different answers from different places.

B

 

[Nopstnz8]

Apple should have stuck with the binary definitions (smaller numbers) throughout the OS and not introduced the HDD manufacturers definition in some places. Now, as you have seen, you can get different answers from different places.

B

Yeah I agree. They should have stuck with those numbers to make the entire process less confusing. I went ahead an used Boot Camp utility to delete the partition and had no problem whatsoever. Then I installed Win 7 x64 on the new partition and everything worked out fine. Thanks again.