Deleting Bootcamp partition and reclaiming that space

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Deleting Bootcamp partition and reclaiming that space

I originally had Snow Leopard and a Bootcamp partition running XP on my internal hard drive. When Lion came out, I decided to install it on a new partition rather than installing it over Snow Leopard. So I used the dynamic partitioning process while in Snow Leopard to create a 3rd partition and installed Lion on the new partition. Now I can't book into XP. My understanding is that a Bootcamp partition will only work if there is only 1 other partition on the hard drive. So now I'd like to delete the Bootcamp partition.

I used Lion almost exclusively. If I go into Bootcamp Assistant while in Lion and delete the Bootcamp partition, will that space on my hard drive automatically be reformatted and will my Lion partition get that space? If not, what happens to that space on my hard drive?

Thanks in advance for any help with this.

Amy

MacBook Pro

Posted on Jan 30, 2012 6:08 PM

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Answer 1

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Jan 30, 2012 6:29 PM in response to Krissypaps

If you use Boot Camp to remove the partition your Mac hard drive will return to 1 partition, same size as it was before you partitioned it for Windows. 🙂

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Answer 2

Krissypaps Author

Level 1

1 points

Jan 31, 2012 4:02 AM in response to Csound1

So, would Bootcamp assistant eliminate the Lion partition also, which I added after the Bootcamp partition? Or the Snow Leopard partition, if I open Bootcamp assistant from Lion? Maybe the best way to do this is clone the Snow Leopard partition, delete it, then delete the Bootcamp partition (if it still doesn't work after deleting the Snow Leopard partition) and then use Bootcamp again if I want to reinstall Windows XP.

Thanks for responding.

Amy

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Answer 3

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Jan 31, 2012 5:30 AM in response to Krissypaps

How many partitions do you have

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Answer 4

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Jan 31, 2012 5:43 AM in response to Krissypaps

Those are not supported and assume you realized when you did so.

Clone what you need and want to save.

Some people installed Lion on an external drive: clone SL and apply Lion install/update, then cloned Lion back to where SL was. Lion Recovery will always be on the external drive, not the internal. Which helps maintain and keep XP and Vista and your setup as it was.

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Answer 5

Krissypaps Author

Level 1

1 points

Jan 31, 2012 6:24 AM in response to Csound1

Before installing Lion, I had a Snow Leoaprd partition and the Bootcamp partition. And XP worked fine. I then made the mistake (as far as Bootcamp is concerned) of partitioning the Snow Leopard partition to install Lion so that I could keep Snow Leopard functional on the internal drive in case I had problems with Lion. I know now that having more than 1 other partition is not supported with a Bootcamp partition.

So, if I use Bootcamp assistant to delete the Bootcamp partition, will I still have both my Lion and Snow Leopard partitions in good working order? Or do I need to first delete the Snow Leopard partition and then delete the Bootcamp partition and start over with Bootcamp if I want to install XP again?

I apologize if my question isn't clear here. My concern is that since Bootcamp does not support more than 1 other partition, deleting my Bootcamp partition may adversly affect my Lion partition, my SL partition or both. Is that a real risk? I have a bootable clone of my Lion drive and intend to clone my SL drive before I do anything.

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Answer 6

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Jan 31, 2012 6:41 AM in response to Krissypaps

Backup whatever you need to keep, erase and return the drive to standard then reinstall and restore your backup.

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Answer 7

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Jan 31, 2012 8:26 AM in response to Krissypaps

BCA is designed to work at removing the Windows partition.

You need Lion 10.7.1 or later as there were problems with 10.7.0.

Adding add'l partitions is always a risk.

Use Lion Recovery Mode and Disk Utility (Dev or Debug menu enabled to show hidden partitons) to check the health and structure.

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Answer 8

Krissypaps Author

Level 1

1 points

Feb 16, 2012 4:30 PM in response to The hatter

Well, I ended up making a bootable clone of my Snow Leopard partition. My intention was to delete that partition, then delete the Bootcamp partition, and then create a new Snow Leopard partition on which I would run XP via either Parallels or VMWare Fusion. After deleting the Snow Leopard partition, I decided to try to boot into XP just for the yucks. It worked! 🙂 So I now have a functional Bootcamp partition running XP along with Lion. I'll keep the bootable clone of my Snow Leopard partition just in case something happens to either Lion or the Bootcamp partition.

Thanks to everyone who responded.

Amy

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