Mavericks is Great! Now Want to Remove Snow Leopard Partition.

[trevor2522]

I installed Mavericks as a partition on my 2011 Macbook Pro to see how it ran. So far so good and all original files under Snow Leopard have been saved to my external hard drive.

I now want to remove the original partition (start-up disk?) to free-up hard drive space for Mavericks. I will not use 10.6.8 again. Disk Utility does not permit removal of the 'start-up disk'. Is there any work-around to save me re-installing Mavericks from scratch? Thanks.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

You can only change a partition from the end, not the start, and as Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is probably on the first partition and OS X 10.9 Mavericks on the second partition, you can decrease the size of the Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard partition but not increase the size of the OS X 10.9 Mavericks partition (if there is no third partition, only two).
Thus you either format the first partition and clone OS X 10.9 Mavericks onto that first partition, if the storage capacity and usage does allow for that, and then delete the second partition (after having booted from the first partition containing OS X 10.9 Mavericks) and then increase the first partition to fill out the entire HDD/SSD.

Is that understandable?

PS: You can also use an external HDD for that.

 

[RV-ABZ]

Here's what you can envisage:

1. boot SL 10.6.8 and make an image of your Mavericks partition through Disk utility (on your SL desktop for instance).
2. once that is done, copy that Mav image to your Mavericks partition, in a place where you'll easily find it.
3. reboot into Mavericks and delete your SL partition through Disk Utility
4. create a new partition called XYZ (but different from your Mavericks partition's name) in the recovered disk space
5. restore your Mavericks image to the newly created partition
6. reboot into that restore Mavericks partition
7. verify that everything is Ok (apps, files, etc.)
8. open up Disk Utility and delete your initial Mavericks partition
9. extend (drag down) your single remaining partition to the entire disk space

Nice and easy. Little effort involved.

 

[cal6n]

1. Boot Mavericks
2. Take a Time Machine backup to an external drive.
3. Boot from recovery partition (cmd-R).
4. Using Disk Utility, erase the disk, so that you only have 1 partition.
5. Restore from your Time Machine backup.

If you haven't got a recovery partition, you can use internet recovery or you can make a Mavericks bootable USB. Instruction here.

 

[Weaselboy]

1. Boot Mavericks
2. Take a Time Machine backup to an external drive.
3. Boot from recovery partition (cmd-R).
4. Using Disk Utility, erase the disk, so that you only have 1 partition.
5. Restore from your Time Machine backup.

If you haven't got a recovery partition, you can use internet recovery or you can make a Mavericks bootable USB. Instruction here.

This is actually a good idea. But Time Machine will put a recovery partition on the Time Machine local drive, so you can option key boot to the Time Machine disk to get a recovery panel, then follow the rest of your procedure from there.

 

[cal6n]

... Time Machine will put a recovery partition on the Time Machine local drive, so you can option key boot to the Time Machine disk to get a recovery panel...

Didn't know that, thanks. If you restore to a bare drive from there, will you get a recovery partition on the new drive?

 

[Weaselboy]

Didn't know that, thanks. If you restore to a bare drive from there, will you get a recovery partition on the new drive?

Yep... since Lion 10.7.2 the recovery partition gets copied to the TM disk. Then a restore will put it back even on a new, blank drive. It is pretty spiffy.

 

[trevor2522]

Here's what you can envisage:

1. boot SL 10.6.8 and make an image of your Mavericks partition through Disk utility (on your SL desktop for instance).
2. once that is done, copy that Mav image to your Mavericks partition, in a place where you'll easily find it.
3. reboot into Mavericks and delete your SL partition through Disk Utility
4. create a new partition called XYZ (but different from your Mavericks partition's name) in the recovered disk space
5. restore your Mavericks image to the newly created partition
6. reboot into that restore Mavericks partition
7. verify that everything is Ok (apps, files, etc.)
8. open up Disk Utility and delete your initial Mavericks partition
9. extend (drag down) your single remaining partition to the entire disk space

Nice and easy. Little effort involved.

Thanks. I am trying this option first.

Unfortunately it stalled at #3: I got the message "Volume erase failed with the error. Couldn't unmount the disk." This was my originally-supplied Snow Leopard on 'Macintosh HD'.

Also, how does one 'Copy or Restore a .dmg image to a partition'? At #2 I had merely copied my Mavericks .dmg to my Mavericks desktop via the external hard drive. Is this why the Snow Leopard delete is stalling at #3?

Otherwise, cal6n suggested:

1) Boot Mavericks
2) Take a Time Machine backup to an external drive.
3) Boot from recovery partition (cmd-R).
4) Using Disk Utility, erase the disk, so that you only have 1 partition.
5) Restore from your Time Machine backup.

I am already running Time Machine on Mavericks and have a bootable 'Recovery-10.9.1' on my external hard drive -- is this the 'Time Machine backup' recommended? Could it solve the problem of being unable to delete Apple's original 'Macintosh HD' partition with Snow Leopard? Thanks to all.

Addendum #1: Changes made so far have rendered my Finder>Macintosh HD window completely empty, although it's visible under the Disk Utility partition. This means I can't even access my User Name tree.

Addendum #2: I am assuming, if all works correctly, that my browser and program settings, key remapper etc, will be preserved via the .dmg image. Hence all this trouble to preserve the new Mavericks partition. If not, might I just as well perform a clean install of Mavericks, as outlined below?

https://discussions.apple.com/message/23670947#23670947

 

[Weaselboy]

Otherwise, cal6n suggested:

1) Boot Mavericks
2) Take a Time Machine backup to an external drive.
3) Boot from recovery partition (cmd-R).
4) Using Disk Utility, erase the disk, so that you only have 1 partition.
5) Restore from your Time Machine backup.

I am already running Time Machine on Mavericks and have a bootable 'Recovery-10.9.1' on my external hard drive -- is this the 'Time Machine backup' recommended? Could it solve the problem of being unable to delete Apple's original 'Macintosh HD' partition with Snow Leopard? Thanks to all.

Yes, Cals' method will work and you will have all your data back just like you left it on the Mavs side of things (assuming that is where all your data is).

The only adjustment there is in #3, you want to boot from the copy of the recovery partition on the Time Machine drive to do this so you are not booted from the internal drive at all. To do that hold the option key when you boot then select the recovery portion of the TM disk. Make sure you do not select the Mavs recovery on the Internal drive. See the middle of this page in the section talking about booting while holding the option key.

Once you are running off the TM disk recovery partition use Disk Utility to get back to one partition formatted as Mac OS Extended, then quit Disk Util and click restore.

 

[Fishrrman]

Gee, there's a very easy way to do this.

You will need a backup external drive.
You'll also need CarbonCopyCloner.

What to do:
1. Use CCC to create a bootable clone of your Mavericks partition on an external drive
2. Boot from the external cloned drive (restart and hold down option key until the startup manager appears, then select clone backup and hit return)
3. Use Disk Utility to re-initialize your INTERNAL drive
4. Use CCC to "re-clone" the contents of your cloned backup BACK TO the internal drive
5. Do a test boot and look around to be sure everything is there.
6. If it is.... you're done!

 

[trevor2522]

As a satisfactory solution I used the new Mavericks' Time Machine backup on my external hard drive (cmd R) to overwrite my internal, factory-supplied 'Macintosh HD' (took 30 minutes).

Then deleted the 2nd (lower) new Mavericks partition and dragged the original partition down to full size. Pretty easy, once you've done it, and no thanks to Apple's database which doesn't want users messing around trialling Mavericks on a separate partition. Also repaired disk permissions which were out. The procedure added a few icons to the dock but otherwise preserved everything I'd set up in Mavericks. No third-party software needed.

 

[Weaselboy]

As a satisfactory solution I used the new Mavericks' Time Machine backup on my external hard drive (cmd R) to overwrite my internal, factory-supplied 'Macintosh HD' (took 30 minutes).

Then deleted the 2nd (lower) new Mavericks partition and dragged the original partition down to full size. Pretty easy, once you've done it, and no thanks to Apple's database which doesn't want users messing around trialling Mavericks on a separate partition. Also repaired disk permissions which were out. The procedure added a few icons to the dock but otherwise preserved everything I'd set up in Mavericks. No third-party software needed.

Glad you worked it out.