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Resize Windows Partition?

adamvk

adamvk

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 29, 2008
1,308
0
Phoenix, AZ
Well when I bought my Mac I said "O I bet I'll still use Windows a TON for various tasks." So I made a 100GB Partition for Windows. Now I'm realizing how dumb that was because I only boot into Windows once a month now, and I have only used about 10GB of that Windows Partition. So I have about 90GB free on that partition. Back on the OSX disk I only have 3GB free, and I need space. So, can I make the Windows partition smaller, or do I have to completely wipe it?

Thanks.
 
Ok, thanks for your help.

Have you ever used this application? How long would it take to backup 10-15 GB, and then restore?
 
This Forum is littered with threads and posts from people who have lost data with partition issues. Do yourself a huge favor and back up everything before you try anything. WinClone works great for the Windows partition and Carbon Copy Cloner works great for the OSX partition.

To try and repartition anything without an adequate backup is unwise.

Woof, Woof - Dawg
pawprint.gif
 
+1 for Winclone. I donated after the first use.

I've used it a few times over the last couple months with perfect results. Both to resize and to move the Boot Camp partition from one drive to another. All cases booted without trouble to Windows (XP, SP3).

To resize an image to a new, larger, partition, it requires the partition to be formatted NTFS.

For the OS-X partition, I recommend its Disk Utility Restore function. Again, no problems cloning a bootable transfer or backup of an OS-X partition.
 
So heres what I'll do?

1. Winclone to backup my Windows Partition.
2. In Mac OSX I delete the Windows Partition and remake a new one.
3. Boot into the new Windows and restore my partition via WinClone.


If I'm doing this should I still backup OSX or would it be fine? I haven't bought an external yet but I'm going to buy a Segate one soon.

Thanks.
 
adamvk said:
So heres what I'll do?

1. Winclone to backup my Windows Partition.
2. In Mac OSX I delete the Windows Partition and remake a new one.
3. Boot into the new Windows and restore my partition via WinClone.


If I'm doing this should I still backup OSX or would it be fine? I haven't bought an external yet but I'm going to buy a Segate one soon.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Not quite - Winclone is a Mac application.

In step 2, use Boot Camp Assistant only, to remove and re-create the Windows partition.

Step 3 - use Winclone in OS-X to restore to the Boot Camp partition. Make sure you select the correct partition to restore to, as it uses the disk identifier name (like "disk0s3).

As for backups - I would feel very uneasy playing with partition maps without a backup. I've never had a problem with Boot Camp Assistant, but if I did, it sure is nice just to Restore from a backup drive (I have both Time Machine and at least one bootable image). Newegg has a couple of 500GB USB drives for less than $80. If you're planning on getting an external soon, and you don't have an emergency need to resize the Windows partition, I would wait. That's just me, though. (I've been in the "must do now" position, so I can't say I would never do it without a backup...but, still...)
 
gr8tfly said:
Not quite - Winclone is a Mac application.

In step 2, use Boot Camp Assistant only, to remove and re-create the Windows partition.

Step 3 - use Winclone in OS-X to restore to the Boot Camp partition. Make sure you select the correct partition to restore to, as it uses the disk identifier name (like "disk0s3).

As for backups - I would feel very uneasy playing with partition maps without a backup. I've never had a problem with Boot Camp Assistant, but if I did, it sure is nice just to Restore from a backup drive (I have both Time Machine and at least one bootable image). Newegg has a couple of 500GB USB drives for less than $80. If you're planning on getting an external soon, and you don't have an emergency need to resize the Windows partition, I would wait. That's just me, though. (I've been in the "must do now" position, so I can's say I would never do it without a backup...but, still...)
Click to expand...

Ok, Thanks for the input
 
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