Disk Utility has been Shrinking disk for several hours....

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Level 1

6 points

Disk Utility has been Shrinking disk for several hours....

I have an external HD (FW800/GUID) that has 2 partitions in it that I'm trying to reduce the size of one of the partitions to make room for a third without deleting anything on the drive. Disk Utility has been 'shrinking disk' for several hours and I'm debating if it's hanging. I see no activity on the drive, so I'm not sure what's going on.
How long should this typically take to finish?

the partition in question has about 1.3T of data on it and I'm trying to free up about 300G that's unused.

Should I be concerned? How long should I let this go before bailing the app?

Mac Pro Quad 2.66/ 4G/ Dual 500G, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Oct 14, 2010 1:47 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 14, 2010 2:11 PM in response to BrianMBM

It is very likely that the free space on the drive is so fragmented that it is causing the repartition to take so long. It sounds like it would be a good time to backup the data to another disk and repartition the disk during a reformat. The copy the data back again.

___________________

Allan

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Answer 2

BrianMBM Author

Level 1

6 points

Oct 14, 2010 2:21 PM in response to Allan Eckert

Thanks for the reply.

I'm just concerned by stopping the 'shrinking disk' while it's in the middle will cause something to corrupt on the drive. How long should I wait before I just force quit Disk Utility?

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Answer 3

Oct 14, 2010 3:09 PM in response to BrianMBM

Do you have a back up of the data?

If you do, stop it.

If not, I would let it go overnight and see where it is tomorrow.

___________________

Allan

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Answer 4

BrianMBM Author

Level 1

6 points

Oct 15, 2010 6:13 AM in response to Allan Eckert

After letting disk utility run overnight, it's still in the middle of 'shrinking disk'. No progress was made. What's the chance that the data will be corrupt if I force quit disk utility?

I didn't make a backup- don't have another drive large enough on hand

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Answer 5

thomas_r.

Level 7

32,031 points

Oct 15, 2010 6:30 AM in response to BrianMBM

What's the chance that the data will be corrupt if I force quit disk utility?

In the middle of repartitioning that has apparently hung? I would guess it would range somewhere from high to certain. You should immediately use Disk Utility to repair both partitions after force-quitting.

I didn't make a backup

I hope you're lucky, but I have the feeling you're about to learn your lesson about not having backups in a very severe way. If the drive cannot be repaired at this point, you may need a file recovery utility like [Data Rescue|http://www.prosofteng.com> or [File Salvage|http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main page=product_info&productsid=1].

In the future, you absolutely must have a minimum of two backups (three copies) of any data you can't afford to lose.

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