Hard Disk Re-Partitioning

[Thomas Baley]

My MacBook Pro has a 100 GB internal drive. When I first got it I partitioned it 60 GB for OS X and 40 GB for Boot Camp. I have been running Vista Ultimate with absolutely no problems in the 40 GB partition as a test bed. I now want to delete the partition and make the drive all one 100 GB partition for normal OS X usage, preferably keeping the contents of the 60 GB partition. I do not want to keep anything from the 40 GB Vista partition; I want to simply throw it away. I also would like to uninstall Boot Camp.

I use Super Duper to back up the the 60 GB partition and it works like a charm. I have repeatedly tested booting off the external backup drive and it works flawlessly, so I am not worried about losing anything.

My question is two-fold:
     1. If I simply use the disk utility to re-partition the drive by telling it I want one partition and enlarging the 60 GB drive, will it destroy what is already there or will it extend the partion from 60 GB to 100 GB?
     2. What do I need to do to get rid of Boot Camp?

Tom Baley
[email protected]

[Christina Wellman]

I used iPartition to do mine.  I have a linux partition, and I was easily able to view all the masterboots, swaps, and identify their format types.

Just remember you have to make the bootable cd so you can do the adjustments.

[Thomas Baley]

Christina,

Thanks for the info. I will investigate iPartition immediately.

I am not sure I fully understood what you said, though. Did you use iPartition to get rid of the partition or create a new one? I want to get rid of the second partition. If that is what you did, were you able to keep the partition you had left and just expand it without losing it or without it becoming inoperable?

Since I have a good SuperDuper backup, I am pretty confident that I could just wipe the whole disk and SuperDuper everything back, if necessary, but I would like to avoid that.

What do I need to make a CD for?

Tom

[Christina Wellman]

I love SuperDuper.  It works better than Carbon Copy Cloner.

The iPartion bootable CD is important because you can't alter partitions on the same disk your booting off of.
You must boot from the CD to leave your internal disk available for changes.

With iPartion you can move, resize, delete, or just about anything you wish...and any format scheme you like.

I was able to download and register online, didn't have to go anywhere.  http://www.c...artition.php

This FAQ is the same as the help menu.  http://www.c...tion-faq.php

[Chris Waldrip]

iPartition is a good program, but you don't need it for this. Simple re-run the BootCamp installer from Mac OS X and remove the BootCamp partition. You'll need to restart when it's done, but that'll be it.

I recommend making a backup of your home folder though, regardless of the method you use.

[Thomas Baley]

I waited until my SuperDuper backup completed, booted from the external drive just to make sure, re-booted from the internal drive, started Boot Camp, picked the third option to make the drive back into one partition, read the dire warnings about how everything in the second partition would be erased, re-booted, and everything is wonderful. My 100 GB drive (aka 92 GB) is all back and life is a bowl of cherries again. 

Thanks for your help.

Tom