So I tried solving my own problems and created a bigger one.
I used boot camp to install windows. Everything was fine and dandy. Then I realized that I did not give windows enough space and would need to make the windows partition bigger.
A note to anyone who wants to try to do this: don't.
-----SCROLL DOWN TO THE PROBLEM IF YOU DONT CARE ABOUT THE BACK STORY
------
So I used the new diskutil partitionresize command to resize my mac partition (making it smaller) so I could then combine the free space I created with my windows partition. Bad news bears.
I tried every tool I could think of and none of them would so much as initialize properly. They would take one look at the disk and take a huge crap. So I decided to just reinstall windows. Booting into the XP SP2 install CD, it correctly recognized the free space and my windows parition and everything.
I deleted the windows partition, combined with the free space, and everything seemed to be working. After the windows install formatted the drive, copied the install files over, and rebooted to begin the install I got that "Windows failed to boot properly last time" screen, which asked me if I would like to start windows in safe mode/normally/last known good settings/etc.
I chose normally, it started to go into the install program, and then spat out some error about a command not be handed to a service properly and then just sits there and does nothing.
-----THE PROBLEM-----
Okay, so now I say screw it, I'll just get rid of the whole windows parition and worry about boot camp another day.
So I boot into osx, which still has my windows drive mounted, correctly named, and at the original small size. All my files are still there too. This despite the windows CD doing a slow format of the partition (who knows what it was actually formatting!)
Fire up boot camp assistant to turn use the "back to one partition, please" command, but all boot camp sees is the free space that I created. It offers to reclaim it to the mac partition, but it doesn't work.
So my questions: how to reclaim the lost disk space/partition. I don't care about the windows drive.
I tried the disk utility off the install disk, which will resize the partitions at the cost of erasing all the data on the drive.
I do not have an external drive to perform a backup and restore operation, so I would like to keep that as my last option.
Any help appreciated thanks...
I used boot camp to install windows. Everything was fine and dandy. Then I realized that I did not give windows enough space and would need to make the windows partition bigger.
A note to anyone who wants to try to do this: don't.
-----SCROLL DOWN TO THE PROBLEM IF YOU DONT CARE ABOUT THE BACK STORY
------So I used the new diskutil partitionresize command to resize my mac partition (making it smaller) so I could then combine the free space I created with my windows partition. Bad news bears.
I tried every tool I could think of and none of them would so much as initialize properly. They would take one look at the disk and take a huge crap. So I decided to just reinstall windows. Booting into the XP SP2 install CD, it correctly recognized the free space and my windows parition and everything.
I deleted the windows partition, combined with the free space, and everything seemed to be working. After the windows install formatted the drive, copied the install files over, and rebooted to begin the install I got that "Windows failed to boot properly last time" screen, which asked me if I would like to start windows in safe mode/normally/last known good settings/etc.
I chose normally, it started to go into the install program, and then spat out some error about a command not be handed to a service properly and then just sits there and does nothing.
-----THE PROBLEM-----
Okay, so now I say screw it, I'll just get rid of the whole windows parition and worry about boot camp another day.
So I boot into osx, which still has my windows drive mounted, correctly named, and at the original small size. All my files are still there too. This despite the windows CD doing a slow format of the partition (who knows what it was actually formatting!)
Fire up boot camp assistant to turn use the "back to one partition, please" command, but all boot camp sees is the free space that I created. It offers to reclaim it to the mac partition, but it doesn't work.
So my questions: how to reclaim the lost disk space/partition. I don't care about the windows drive.
I tried the disk utility off the install disk, which will resize the partitions at the cost of erasing all the data on the drive.
I do not have an external drive to perform a backup and restore operation, so I would like to keep that as my last option.
Any help appreciated thanks...