I have a 2018 Macbook Pro running MacOS Ventura. The 500 GB SSD is having 300 gb as macos partition and 200 gb as windows bootcamp partition. I am running out of space in the windows partition and I need at least 100 gb more space in the same. Kindly let me know as to how I can safely increase the Windows Bootcamp partition to 300 GB and reduce the macos partition to 200 gb by using the disk utility in Mac OS and without deleting windows or losing any data in either partition.
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Increasing partition size in Bootcamp
- Thread starter Abdulhaq
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Sorry, you can't do it this way. Don't attempt doing it because you'll ruin one of your partitions (depending on weather you use Disk Utility or Disk Management / DISKPART). This is a tricky thing to accomplish and it required different means. The easy way is wiping Boot Camp and re-doing it from scratch.
Thanks for your advice. However if I make a backup of all my files in the Windows partition and then delete it and resize it to 300 GB then how do I restore Windows to its original form without having to re-install all the applications and all the drivers all over again. Is there a way in which I can make a disk image of the windows partition and copy this disk image back to the re-sized partition so that everything works like before.
Well generally I won't recommend it because of the partition scheme used in your system and general lack of information you provided in the question (machine, software versions, etc.). See you Mac may be using hybrid partition scheme that cannot be easily restored. First you can run DISKPART > LIST DISK in Windows and check if your disk uses MBR or GPT partition scheme. If it's GPR, you'll likely to succeed. If it's MBR, you'd better not touch it because fixing requires general understanding what you're doing (here's guide).
To make sure you won't loose any data you should do 3 copies of Windows partitions: one using disktil dd (from Recovery OS), one using Disk Utility (from Recovery OS) and one using Macrium Reflect (create separate bootable USB flash drive with it and do imaging when booted from it).
When you've got your disk images ready, first try wiping and restoring Boot Camp using Disk Utility, if you won't succeed use other means. But before wiping anything you should prepare production environment in Windows.
See there's an EFI partition that has Windows bootloader data including the offset of the block on the SSD, it's called BCD data (you can see it in Windows using BCDEDIT /enum /all command). When you remove and re-add a different or same-size partition for Boot Camp the offset specified in BCD changes. So when you restore your Boot Camp disk image to a new partition you won't get Boot Camp on Mac Boot Manager Screen (when you hold Option on start of your computer) because there will be BCD data mismatch. To update the BCD on EFI volume you have to use CLI interface of either WinPE or Windows install media. The command is BCDBOOT, to use it you boot into WinPE or start computer with Windows install media and when the Windows Setup dialog appears you press Shift+F10 (but your keyboard may not work because you need to include SSD, touchpad and keyboard drivers to you USB flash drive or SSD that contains WinPE or Windows Setup, i.e. as described here). The tricky part is IIRC you may find WinPE won't read drivers in $WinPEDriver$ folder in the root of your USB flash drive and thus your keyboard or SSD won't function in WinPE (to make it work correctly you have to inject drivers to WinPE boot.wim and install.wim image using DISM). Once you're in Command Prompt from WinPE or Windows Setup, you have to assign letter to EFI partition using DISKPART. Finally you will be able to execute BCDBOOT command.
Here's something like you'll need to do in Command Prompt when booted from WinPE, you can lookup my post history where I go into details for somebody:
Here's how you create bootable Windows PE (Windows 10, 11) media:
- Install ADK
- Install ADK WinPE Add-On
- Launch Deployment & Imaging Tools as Administrator
- copype amd64 C:\WinPE
- makewinpemedia /ISO C:\WinE C:\winpe.iso
- Apply ISO to your USB flash drive as for regular Windows install media (see additional paragraph)
- Inject you Mac's Boot Camp Support Software $WinPEDriver$ drivers (get them using brigadier) into boot.wim & install.wim of USB flash drive using DISM
Here's how you apply ISO to USB flash drive:
1) format USB flash drive using Command Prompt
2) mount Windows 10 ISO (typically D:\)
3) Command Prompt:
Even if you will accomplish this you may face Windows boot error that's related to partition scheme issue, it's discussed here how to fix it.
Ah, after restoring and booting to Windows you'll notice your primary volume disk space is not any larger, you'd have to open Disk Management and expand your Windows partition. This shouldn't affect macOS partition but just to make sure you'd better create macOS partition backup (image) before you do anything.
You can also use lousy gayOS software like Winclone to do the cloning/restoring work but it's inferior quality provides relatively poor result, i.e. for some reason it uses Windows Vista boot loader or something like that (at least if was several years ago when I used it for Windows 7). I don't recommend playing for it and you should not rely only on Winclone's disk image (do at least Macrium one as well) if you go this route. This software did the job last time I used it but it's definitely not a purist way.
My ultimate advise will be the following: just to get rid of macOS altogether if you can. It's inferior OS without any special software and you can just wipe if via Boot Cap and use the whole disk of you Mac. That's what I did with all 5 Macs in my family. If you'll need firmware update, just install macOS to external HDD and run once in 1000 years. But it's important to understand partitions order if you'll go this route: if macOS partition comes before Windows partition, you won't be able to expand Windows partition (just use it as separate partition, i.e. Local Disk D:\).
To get better step-by-step instructions and — probably — other options I suggest you asking this at Ask Different. Just make sure to provide all the data necessary to get the answer.
To make sure you won't loose any data you should do 3 copies of Windows partitions: one using disktil dd (from Recovery OS), one using Disk Utility (from Recovery OS) and one using Macrium Reflect (create separate bootable USB flash drive with it and do imaging when booted from it).
When you've got your disk images ready, first try wiping and restoring Boot Camp using Disk Utility, if you won't succeed use other means. But before wiping anything you should prepare production environment in Windows.
See there's an EFI partition that has Windows bootloader data including the offset of the block on the SSD, it's called BCD data (you can see it in Windows using BCDEDIT /enum /all command). When you remove and re-add a different or same-size partition for Boot Camp the offset specified in BCD changes. So when you restore your Boot Camp disk image to a new partition you won't get Boot Camp on Mac Boot Manager Screen (when you hold Option on start of your computer) because there will be BCD data mismatch. To update the BCD on EFI volume you have to use CLI interface of either WinPE or Windows install media. The command is BCDBOOT, to use it you boot into WinPE or start computer with Windows install media and when the Windows Setup dialog appears you press Shift+F10 (but your keyboard may not work because you need to include SSD, touchpad and keyboard drivers to you USB flash drive or SSD that contains WinPE or Windows Setup, i.e. as described here). The tricky part is IIRC you may find WinPE won't read drivers in $WinPEDriver$ folder in the root of your USB flash drive and thus your keyboard or SSD won't function in WinPE (to make it work correctly you have to inject drivers to WinPE boot.wim and install.wim image using DISM). Once you're in Command Prompt from WinPE or Windows Setup, you have to assign letter to EFI partition using DISKPART. Finally you will be able to execute BCDBOOT command.
Here's something like you'll need to do in Command Prompt when booted from WinPE, you can lookup my post history where I go into details for somebody:
Code:
DISKPART
- LIST DISK
Note external SSD disk number
- SELECT DISK 1
- LIST PARTITION
* Should be only Partiton 1 Reserved (MSR)
* It may be not deleted by using SELECT PARTITION 1 and DELETE PARTITION so leave it as is for now
- SELECT PARTITION #
* # is EFI partiton number
- ASSIGN LETTER Y:
- SELECT DISK 1
- CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
* PRIMARY should be the partition that contains Windows folder that you restored from Boot Camp disk image
- ASSIGN LETTER Z:
- EXIT
BCDBOOT Z:\Windows /S Y: /F ALL (for BIOS & UEFI)
or
BCDBOOT Z:\Windows /S Y: /F UEFI (for UEFI only)Here's how you create bootable Windows PE (Windows 10, 11) media:
Add and Remove Driver packages to an Offline Windows Image
Add and Remove Driver packages to an Offline Windows Image
docs.microsoft.com
- Install ADK WinPE Add-On
- Launch Deployment & Imaging Tools as Administrator
- copype amd64 C:\WinPE
- makewinpemedia /ISO C:\WinE C:\winpe.iso
- Apply ISO to your USB flash drive as for regular Windows install media (see additional paragraph)
- Inject you Mac's Boot Camp Support Software $WinPEDriver$ drivers (get them using brigadier) into boot.wim & install.wim of USB flash drive using DISM
Here's how you apply ISO to USB flash drive:
1) format USB flash drive using Command Prompt
Code:
diskpart
list disk
select disk #
* # is number of USB flash drive
clean
convert mbr
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs = exfat quick
assign
* typically assigned E:\
exit3) Command Prompt:
Code:
D:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt60 E:
xcopy D: E: /E /G /H /QEven if you will accomplish this you may face Windows boot error that's related to partition scheme issue, it's discussed here how to fix it.
Ah, after restoring and booting to Windows you'll notice your primary volume disk space is not any larger, you'd have to open Disk Management and expand your Windows partition. This shouldn't affect macOS partition but just to make sure you'd better create macOS partition backup (image) before you do anything.
You can also use lousy gayOS software like Winclone to do the cloning/restoring work but it's inferior quality provides relatively poor result, i.e. for some reason it uses Windows Vista boot loader or something like that (at least if was several years ago when I used it for Windows 7). I don't recommend playing for it and you should not rely only on Winclone's disk image (do at least Macrium one as well) if you go this route. This software did the job last time I used it but it's definitely not a purist way.
My ultimate advise will be the following: just to get rid of macOS altogether if you can. It's inferior OS without any special software and you can just wipe if via Boot Cap and use the whole disk of you Mac. That's what I did with all 5 Macs in my family. If you'll need firmware update, just install macOS to external HDD and run once in 1000 years. But it's important to understand partitions order if you'll go this route: if macOS partition comes before Windows partition, you won't be able to expand Windows partition (just use it as separate partition, i.e. Local Disk D:\).
To get better step-by-step instructions and — probably — other options I suggest you asking this at Ask Different. Just make sure to provide all the data necessary to get the answer.
Last edited:
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