Resize partition?

stuckinasquare3

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Feb 8, 2008
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Hi all. I have several partitions on my Mac. I'd like to shrink one so that I can grow another. DiskUtility doesn't support this. Has anyone had luck using any utilities that can handle this?

Thanks
 

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
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Um... are the partitions full? Because Disk Utility totally supports it.

Are all the partitions HFS+, or is one of them Windows or something?
 

stuckinasquare3

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Feb 8, 2008
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Disk Utility only lets you grow/shrink "down" I believe. For example, if my partitions look like this:

[A][C]

I can make [C] larger or smaller, and I can make [A] and smaller, but I can't make [A] or larger.
 
Last edited:

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
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Sep 15, 2004
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Disk Utility only lets you grow/shrink "down" I believe. For example, if my partitions look like this:

[A][C]

I can make [C] larger or smaller, and I can make [A] and smaller, but I can't make [A] or larger.


Ok, this is extra kludgy, but maybe try this:

1: On partition C, erase free space, then try to create partition D (if you can split C in half or more at least)
2: Transfer C's contents to D.
3: Delete C
4: Backfill the free space.

Or, you can try Parted.
 

stuckinasquare3

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Feb 8, 2008
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I put parted-magic (which has gparted) onto a USB stick and successfully booted into it and resized my partitions. However, I think I screwed things up. Firstly, I deleted my recovery partitions because, who needs them, right? I don't think I was supposed to have done that. Once I booted back into my OS and tried verifying my disk partitions, I'm getting complaints about one of them not having enough trailing boot loader space. What is that? How do I give it more "trailing boot loader space"?
 

stuckinasquare3

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Feb 8, 2008
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Figured it out! Turns out DiskUtility couldn't resize the partitions during the repair process because they were active. Booting to a recovery USB stick did the trick.