Partition

[bobbyroller]

I have 3 partitions on my mac
Bootcamp
Mac OSX
Backup Partition
I want to erase, and remove the backup partition and put it back in the Mac OSX partition

How do I do this without erasing my whole hardrive?

 

[rick3000]

I would recommend that you have a backup just in case, but iPartition is supposed to do what you describe.

 

[plinden]

Can you post a screen shot of Disk Utility (open Disk Utility, press Command-Shift-4 then Space and select the Disk Utility window)?

Depending on the position of the backup partition, you might not be able to regain the space into the OS X partition.

Edit: Let's see if it can be done with Disk Utility before making the OP purchase extra software.

Edit 2: And yes, make a backup.

 

[rick3000]

You cannot merge partitions Disk Utility, without erasing the drive. You have to use a 3rd party app.

 

[plinden]

Non-destructive repartitioning was added in Leopard. Depending on how the partitions are arranged, the OP may be able to remove the Backup partition and resize the OS X partition to fill the now empty space.

 

[rick3000]

I didn't know that. Thanks for the tip, I'll play around with it and see if I can get any useful info for the thread starter.

 

[Mal]

This works only in Leopard, and only with contiguous partitions (i.e., there can't be a partition in between them on the partition map):

In the Partition tab of Disk Utility, select the partition you no longer need, and click the "-" button at the bottom of the list. It will warn you that it will erase that partition, but no other partitions will be erased. After it completes that task, drag the lower right corner of the partition you want to enlarge down to fill the space previously occupied by the other partition, then click Apply. Again, it will give you a warning, but this time should say that no partitions will be erased.

Ta-da!

jW

 

[bobbyroller]

This works only in Leopard, and only with contiguous partitions (i.e., there can't be a partition in between them on the partition map):

In the Partition tab of Disk Utility, select the partition you no longer need, and click the "-" button at the bottom of the list. It will warn you that it will erase that partition, but no other partitions will be erased. After it completes that task, drag the lower right corner of the partition you want to enlarge down to fill the space previously occupied by the other partition, then click Apply. Again, it will give you a warning, but this time should say that no partitions will be erased.

Ta-da!

jW

Thank you this worked!

 

[plinden]

This works only in Leopard, and only with contiguous partitions (i.e., there can't be a partition in between them on the partition map):

Also, it'll only work if you're removing a partition later on the disk. For instance, if your disk is partitioned as:

------------
|    p1    |
------------
|    p2    |
------------
|    p3    |
------------

You can remove p3 and resize p2, and you can remove p2 and resize p1 but not p3.

I think in that case you could use the free gparted to move p3 (but not resize it) then use Disk Utility to resize it. Or buy iPartition. But I'm not going to try to see if I'm right about that.