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acadiel
Press fire to begin
Premium Member
join:2002-06-22
Atlanta
Apple AirPort Express (2012)
Apple AirPort Extreme (2013)
ARRIS SB6183

acadiel

Premium Member

Best way to move around partitions in ML?

I have a strange system setup...

2010 MacBook Pro - internal 500GB HDD (stock), and 240GB Intel SSD in the DVD bay.

Before, I had my system set up like this:

Internal 500GB HDD (non boot drive), had 10.6.8 installed. Three partitions: 1) 280GB for "Stuff" and 10.6.8, 2) 166GB "Media", and 3) 53GB Windows 7 (Boot Camp).
80GB Intel SSD: Accounts and 10.8.2 system

Disk Utility reported the partitions for the "MacBook Pro HD" (500GB) as listed above (in that order).

So, I installed a 240GB SSD to replace the 80GB SSD 10.8 boot drive. I restored the 240GB from the 80GB Time Machine backup. All is well there.

My conundrum is here... I deleted the "Media" partition off the 500GB HDD (I was going to put some of this on the SSD). I was hoping to just expand the 10.6.8 partition to be 280 + 166GB and leave the Windows 7 partition alone. (You know how you can "drag" expand a partition in Disk Utility). However, when I removed the middle Media partition, I noticed in Disk Utility that the Windows 7 partition is now right below the "MacBook Pro HD" one. (See picture). I can't simply "expand" MacBook Pro HD like I want into the empty space that "Media" had right below where I thought it was going to be after I deleted "Media".

So, that leaves me in a pickle on how to image and restore the Windows 7 partition. I can definitely carbon copy clone the 10.6.8 partition somewhere and repartition the whole drive. I just don't want to lose the Boot Camp Drive and have to install all that crap again.

Thoughts?

Thanks!
Daemon
Premium Member
join:2003-06-29
Washington, DC

Daemon

Premium Member

That's annoying! CCC won't clone a bootcamp partition?

Are you booting from that system partition you want to resize? Is it possible you can't expand system partitions from Disk Utility? I also remember something about Windows/Boot Camp partitions having to be in a certain place in the partition table, so perhaps it was actually between the two OS X partitions the entire time but Disk Utility didn't show it that way?

If you don't want to delete the entire partition table and start over, you could make a new partition and then symbolically link it to a folder in another partition, making the existence of multiple partitions invisible, if still a bit untidy.

I think in disk utility, you can hit minus to remove a partition, then hit + to add one, and as long as you don't hit apply, it doesn't actually change anything. You could try removing that system partition and see if it will let you make a new one that uses all of the free space except the windows 7 volume.

acadiel
Press fire to begin
Premium Member
join:2002-06-22
Atlanta
Apple AirPort Express (2012)
Apple AirPort Extreme (2013)
ARRIS SB6183

acadiel

Premium Member

Here's what I wound up doing just in case anyone was following this....

1) Cloned the 40GB worth of 10.6.8 to an external folder with CCC (just in case)
2) Used Windows Backup to backup the Windows 7 system to an external drive
3) Told 10.6.8 Boot Camp wizard to delete the Boot Camp partition.
4) Recreated the Boot Camp partition with the wizard at 55GB. This made the Macintosh HD to ~ 440GB (which is what I wanted).
5) This is the funky part. I couldn't use my "Windows 7 rescue CD" to restore the hard drive because it wanted to wipe all the partitions. Solution: Use Acronis True Image 2013 (booted from its CD) and it recognizes Windows Backup .vhd files! Restored successfully to the 55GB partition.
6) Booted from the Windows 7 rescue CD to "repair" the Window 7 installation (which updated something relating to the boot of the OS)
7) Profit! (Well, not really, but it worked.)