Two Partitions, both OSX 10.6, How do I delete one?

[Red-nekgamr]

Title says it all. Disk Utility tells me I cannot delete either of the partitions.

But I'll explain why this happened.

I had Lion on this mac, but something about the OS caused the computer to have issues shutting down/restarting. I decided to revert to Snow Leopard, as I don't own Lion...I bought the computer off Ebay...I created a new partition, and installed Snow Leopard on it, then deleted the Lion partition, and attempted to make my 10.6 partition fill my HD space...To no avail. I couldn't find any way to do so on Disk Utility. So I had the (I thought) epiphany that I must have installed OS 10.6 on a secondary HD, and needed to install it on the same Partition that Lion was on. Ah, so now I have two partitions, both with Snow Leopard, and I can't delete the "secondary" partition using Disk Utility. Is there any way I can delete one of the partitions and cause the other to fill the free space?

Thank you.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

You can only do this with the FIRST partition on the disk (whichever one is higher in Disk Utility). You might have to boot from the Snow Leopard disc/USB key, though. For some odd reason you cannot expand a partition upward, only downward.

 

[Fishrrman]

"...so now I have two partitions, both with Snow Leopard, and I can't delete the "secondary" partition using Disk Utility. Is there any way I can delete one of the partitions and cause the other to fill the free space?"

If NOTHING else works, you can do this:

1. Clone the contents of the partition you wish to _save_ to an external drive, using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper. IMPORTANT! The clone MUST be bootable, to do what you are going to do next.

2. Boot from the cloned (external) drive. To do this, reboot with the cloned external drive connected and running. As soon as you hear the startup sound, hold down the option key and KEEP HOLDING IT DOWN. The startup manager will appear. Select your external with the mouse pointer and then hit the return/enter key.

3. The Mac will boot from the external. Once booted, MAKE SURE YOU ARE BOOTED FROM THE EXTERNAL (you can check this under the Apple menu with "About this Mac". Also, before proceeding further, take a moment to check the external to BE SURE that it is a copy of the partition that you wished to retain, and that everything is there that you want to be there.

4. Now open Disk Utility (must be opened from the Utilities folder on the external drive)

5. Select your INTERNAL drive, and choose to re-partition it into one partition. I'm going to guess that you will be presented with a warning that you are about to lose all data on that drive. YES, you DO want to do this. Remember, you have created a "clone" of the contents of the partition you want to keep on the external drive.

6. Once re-partitioned, you can quit Disk Utility and go back to CarbonCopyCloner.

7. This time, you want to "re-clone" the contents of the external drive _back to_ the internal drive (now with only one partition).

8. Once CCC has done its thing, you can reboot from the internal, and again, check it to be sure that things are where you want them to be.

It would be a good idea to retain the CCC backup that you have created on the external drive. You can use CCC to do "incremental" backups so that it always is a close approximation of your internal drive. And you can boot from the external to do maintenance on the internal, if necessary.

It's AWAYS a good idea to have a bootable, second drive around. You never know when you might need it.