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How to increase Boot Camp partition without harming both Mac and Windows partition

horace528

horace528

macrumors regular
Original poster
Hello MacRumors Forums.
I have made a Boot Camp partition with my Mac partition, but the problem is that I am running out of space on my Windows partition. (Darn you, Steam Summer Sale! 😡)
Anyways, is there any way to increase the space on my Windows partition without harming both Mac and Windows partitions? I would prefer if I didn't need to delete the Windows Partition and do everything all over again, as I need to download and set up everything all over again. I also know that changing the Windows partition is a tricky and hard thing, and one step can harm my whole computer, but I think that it is worth the risk.
I really don't care how to do it, anything, from a bootable program, to anything. I just want to know how to do it.
So is there any way that I can increase the Windows partition of my Mac without harming both Mac and Windows partitions? Thanks.
 
horace528 said:
Hello MacRumors Forums.
I have made a Boot Camp partition with my Mac partition, but the problem is that I am running out of space on my Windows partition. (Darn you, Steam Summer Sale! 😡)
Anyways, is there any way to increase the space on my Windows partition without harming both Mac and Windows partitions? I would prefer if I didn't need to delete the Windows Partition and do everything all over again, as I need to download and set up everything all over again. I also know that changing the Windows partition is a tricky and hard thing, and one step can harm my whole computer, but I think that it is worth the risk.
I really don't care how to do it, anything, from a bootable program, to anything. I just want to know how to do it.
So is there any way that I can increase the Windows partition of my Mac without harming both Mac and Windows partitions? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Not possible. The only way to resize the BC partition is to completely destroy it.

There is a way, but it's quite fiddly.

Stuff needed:
1. WinClone Pro
2. External Thunderbolt drive (USB 3 drives won't work).

Steps:
1. Use WinClone Pro to clone your BC partition into the external TB drive.
2. Remove the internal BC partition and resize it to whatever you wish.
3. Use WinClone Pro to restore the BC partition in the TB drive back to the enlarged internal BC partition.
 
horace528 said:
Hello MacRumors Forums.
I have made a Boot Camp partition with my Mac partition, but the problem is that I am running out of space on my Windows partition. (Darn you, Steam Summer Sale! 😡)
Anyways, is there any way to increase the space on my Windows partition without harming both Mac and Windows partitions? I would prefer if I didn't need to delete the Windows Partition and do everything all over again, as I need to download and set up everything all over again. I also know that changing the Windows partition is a tricky and hard thing, and one step can harm my whole computer, but I think that it is worth the risk.
I really don't care how to do it, anything, from a bootable program, to anything. I just want to know how to do it.
So is there any way that I can increase the Windows partition of my Mac without harming both Mac and Windows partitions? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Had this same problem when I first got my Mac. Only way to change it is to start again and reinstall windows on a new partition sadly.
Spent forever looking for a solution and it's just not possible. Personally I allocate 150GB to OS X and 350GB to Windows (mainly for games).
 
horace528 said:
Hello MacRumors Forums.
I have made a Boot Camp partition with my Mac partition, but the problem is that I am running out of space on my Windows partition. (Darn you, Steam Summer Sale! 😡)
Anyways, is there any way to increase the space on my Windows partition without harming both Mac and Windows partitions? I would prefer if I didn't need to delete the Windows Partition and do everything all over again, as I need to download and set up everything all over again. I also know that changing the Windows partition is a tricky and hard thing, and one step can harm my whole computer, but I think that it is worth the risk.
I really don't care how to do it, anything, from a bootable program, to anything. I just want to know how to do it.
So is there any way that I can increase the Windows partition of my Mac without harming both Mac and Windows partitions? Thanks.
Click to expand...

External hard drive is probably the best solution.
 
SCOLANATOR said:
Had this same problem when I first got my Mac. Only way to change it is to start again and reinstall windows on a new partition sadly.
Spent forever looking for a solution and it's just not possible. Personally I allocate 150GB to OS X and 350GB to Windows (mainly for games).
Click to expand...

Going to have decide how to split up my 512GB partition soon...

I have about 100GBs of music and 250GBs of games...

Is there a performance difference on mac-compatible games? I install all my mac steam games on Mac OS, leaving more room on the windows partition...
 
Yoshi Yogurt said:
Going to have decide how to split up my 512GB partition soon...

I have about 100GBs of music and 250GBs of games...

Is there a performance difference on mac-compatible games? I install all my mac steam games on Mac OS, leaving more room on the windows partition...
Click to expand...

The difference is massive. The vast majority of games that are ported to Mac use an OpenGL wrapper which is nowhere near as efficient as native DirectX.
I wish more games were native OpenGL but that's just not the case. But this rMBP runs them extremely well under bootcamp.

Civ 5 for example ran OK under OS X. Installed it in bootcamp and I was able to up the resolution and graphics to max while also seeing a huge boost to FPS. I don't run any games under OS X. I use about 50GB on OS X for music and other things like Photoshop and I use around 200GB for Windows and games. Quite happy with the 150/350 split.
 
Yoshi Yogurt said:
Going to have decide how to split up my 512GB partition soon...

I have about 100GBs of music and 250GBs of games...

Is there a performance difference on mac-compatible games? I install all my mac steam games on Mac OS, leaving more room on the windows partition...
Click to expand...

Performance difference is massive. Games are usually written for Windows and then ported to OSX, so they run much better in Windows. Also, Windows generally has better driver support for gaming. Nvidia, for instance, puts out a new patch every couple months that optimizes graphics for the newest game releases. That just doesn't happen in OSX.

I split the SSD 50%/50% for OSX/Windows. All games/music/pictures go on a portable USB 3 external drive. I have another USB 2 drive that is used for backups.
 
yjchua95 said:
Stuff needed:
1. WinClone Pro
2. External Thunderbolt drive (USB 3 drives won't work).

Steps:
1. Use WinClone Pro to clone your BC partition into the external TB drive.
2. Remove the internal BC partition and resize it to whatever you wish.
3. Use WinClone Pro to restore the BC partition in the TB drive back to the enlarged internal BC partition.
Click to expand...
Why does USB 3 not work for WinClone 😕

I have to alter the size of my bootcamp partition and I was just going to bite the bullet and reload windows/apps.

Thanks to OneDrive, all my data is on the cloud so I just need to reinstall my apps. Sizing is now an issue for me, since I need to consider space for Lightroom and converting my Aperture images to that app - my space allocation for OS X and Windows has to change.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of winclone over reinstalling. The only question is why the comment about TB drives over USB3.
 
I got in deep trouble with a solution, and ended up borking my Windows 7 partition, and almost ruined my Mac partition. Just ended up accepting my fate and reinstalling Windows all together.
 
What happen?

based on my early research, yjchua95's steps are solid. I'm running chkdsk /b on my bootcamp partition now, and once done, I'll boot into OS X, buy winclone and start the rest of the steps.
 
maflynn said:
Why does USB 3 not work for WinClone 😕
Click to expand...

Windows will not boot off a drive that's detected as USB.

Personally I haven't tried using WinClone Pro over USB, but if someone out there can try it out and see whether it works, by all means, please do so, I'd love to know whether just cloning the BC partition to a USB drive works or not, as well as restoring it back to the internal BC partition from a USB drive.

I can confirm that it works flawlessly over a TB drive though.
 
Freyqq said:
Performance difference is massive. Games are usually written for Windows and then ported to OSX, so they run much better in Windows. Also, Windows generally has better driver support for gaming. Nvidia, for instance, puts out a new patch every couple months that optimizes graphics for the newest game releases. That just doesn't happen in OSX.

I split the SSD 50%/50% for OSX/Windows. All games/music/pictures go on a portable USB 3 external drive. I have another USB 2 drive that is used for backups.
Click to expand...

Thank you for clearing that up. I think I might do something like 300GB for Windows and 200GB for Mac. I am going to be on the go a lot with this macbook so no external drives for me. That's why I upped for the 512gb with the GPU.

No point in gaming at all on the mac side if there is even a slight FPS or performance drop, even with games like Team Fortress 2.
 
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