undoing a partition on MAC HD?

I Partitioned my Mac Hard drive in a early attempt to run bootcamp but I can't seem to figure out how to undo the partition. Can you do it without reformatting or if formatting is needed at what point do I undo the partition?

mini, Mac OS X (10.5.7)

Posted on Jan 10, 2010 11:42 PM

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9 replies

Jan 12, 2010 10:00 AM in response to gfann18

Try this:

1) Make a back up of your important files (Just to be on the safe side)
2) Run Disk Utility (You may have to boot to your OS X DVD and run Disk Utility there, I can't quite recall)
3) Click on your HD in the list on the side.
4) Click the "Partition" tab.
5) Select the Windows partition in the Volume Scheme Diagram. (MAKE SURE you have selected the Windows partition and not your Mac partition.)
6) Click the minus button below the Volume Scheme Diagram.
7) If it doesn't resize automatically, click the bottom of your Mac partition in the Volume Scheme Diagram and drag it down so it fills up the Volume Scheme Diagram and shows you ONLY "Macintosh HD" (Or whatever you have it named as).

Let me know how/if that works out for you. Again, you should be able to do this without booting into your OS X DVD, but it's been awhile since I've done it, so I could be wrong.

Jan 11, 2010 7:09 AM in response to Barry Hemphill

If the partition was created with Bootcamp assistant, it is a simple task to remove it with Bootcamp assistant.If it was partitioned with Disc Utility, that changes things significantly.

Before changing your hard disc to a single partition, make sure you have a bootable clone of your hard drive, SuperDuper will do the job, as going back to a single partition will erase all data on hour hard drive.

Jan 11, 2010 2:44 PM in response to gfann18

Well I partitioned it awhile ago and I can t remember what I used, I do get a warning telling me that:
The Startup disk must be formatted as a single Mac OS Extended (J) volume or already partitioned by bootcamp assistant for installing widows.

So for that reason I'm guessing I didn't use Bootcamp. I though I had. I recently reformatted the Mac HD because it was acting funny and glitchy ever sense I installed snow leopard So I did it in hopes of tightening up the glitches. It seemed to work. But the point is that, formatting isn't an issue at the moment. I was expecting to undo the partition then but I didn't see an opportunity to do so. So I thought I'd come here to get a good idea of what to look for by asking one of you folks.

So what might that be?

Please and Thank you. G

Message was edited by: gfann18

Jan 20, 2010 5:15 PM in response to gfann18

I am wondering if by the grace of all that is good and holy if there is someone that can help me.

I own a G5 and pc w/ vista. My roommate also owns a G5 and he may have royally screwed me. My 1 Terabyte external harddrive was originally formatted for PC. In an attempt to transfer files to my external drive, he managed to format the entire drive (negating 600gigs of very important files: reports, design projects, irreplaceable video footage etc...). He thought he was only creating a 10gig partition to dump the MAC files onto it. He used the Disk Utility feature on his computer, and the rest...well you get the idea.

Is there ANY WAY AT ALL that those files can be recovered? I am desperate. Thanks so much.

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undoing a partition on MAC HD?

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