Hard Drive Partition Space Lost

I have a 17 inch MBP running Lion and Windows 7 with a boot camp partition. My mac side has 500GB of space, and my windows 7 partition has 250GB. Recently I shrunk my disk space on the windows 7 partition by going to Control Panel->searching "partition" and shrinking it, so now my boot camp partition has 132GB. However, I thought that space was going to be moved to my Mac OS X partition, but it didn't. Where is that memory space? It can't be flat out lost, can it? I also tried expanding it back but I can't click that option. It's greyed out. Help is greatly appreciated, I really do not want to lose those 118gigs. I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but I really need it. Thanks.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Apr 15, 2012 7:09 PM

28 replies

Apr 17, 2012 4:07 PM in response to Christopher Murphy

Disk: /dev/disk0

geometry: 91201/255/63 [1465149168 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 409639] <Unknown ID>

2: AF 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 409640 - 976562496] HFS+

3: AB 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 976972136 - 1269536] Darwin Boot

*4: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 978243584 - 486903808] HPFS/QNX/AUX

Apr 17, 2012 4:57 PM in response to WatchYourKILLCAM

OK so the MBR and GPT agree with each other, which is good news. You should just be able to resize again in Windows and tell it to use all of that partition's space, to revert back to what you had. The safest things to do, in order:

1. Do nothing. Live with the loss of a 118GB or whatever it is.

2. Resize the Windows volume from within Windows to recapture that 118GB for Windows.

3. Get something like iPartition. But I'd be very careful about handing it your drive in the current condition because it's not standard. I would see if iPartition supports dealing with your situation before using it. That situation is, the NTFS file system (the Windows volume) is smaller than the partition that defines it.

3. This might work, I haven't tried it. If you go to Disk Utility and reformat that Windows volume as FAT32 (MSDOS), it's possible Boot Camp will then let you recover the resulting unused space on the former Windows partition.

4. Start from scratch. Boot from a Lion DVD, repartition for 1 partition, reinstall Lion. Reinstall updates. Reinstall apps. Restore your backup. Boot Camp* to resize the Mac volume to what you really want. Reinstall Windows, reinstall its updates, reinstall it's apps, restore your data. Very tedious, will take a long time, but it's safer than what comes next.

5. Use command line tools: gdisk to remove the Windows partition, and diskutil mergepartitions to reclaim that free space for Mac OS.

* I would only use Boot Camp if you have some very specific requirement to natively boot Windows. Otherwise use a virtual machine to run Windows in. It's vastly more flexible and easier to recover from.

Apr 17, 2012 8:47 PM in response to Christopher Murphy

Thanks for all of your help. I have emailed iPartition to see if it supports my situation.

1) I think I would, but I need to have the flexibility of being able to add and remove partition space, so unfortunately I can't leave it the way it is.

2) How? I cannot simply extend the volume.

3) Are the two 3's supposed to work together or was that a mistake? Sorry I'm just trying to not mess anything up even more.

4) I don't have a Lion DVD, can I just use Disk Utility?

5) I would have no idea how to do this.

-If I do a completely clean install, as in restore it to factory settings, can that fix it? I know that I would lose all of my data on both partitions.

-I still have the warranty and AppleCare because it was only bought in December 2011, so if I took it into an Apple Store would they fix it?

Apr 17, 2012 9:04 PM in response to WatchYourKILLCAM

2.) Do what you did within Windows "Control Panel->searching "partition" and shrinking it" and do the opposite.

The 2nd 3 should have been a 4. And 4 should have been 5. And 5 should have been 6.

To reinstall everything no you need a Lion DVD downloaded and burned or use the Recovery option and have it download and restore the system from scratch, if you choose this option.

5 (should have been 6): Then don't do it.

For your last two questions: Clean install is what I meant in #4 'start from scratch'. That's what an Apple Store would almost certainly have you do.

Apr 17, 2012 9:53 PM in response to Christopher Murphy

2) That's the thing, it won't let me. The option to extend volume is not available. The only options I have when I right click it are: Open, Explore, Change Drive and Letter Paths, Shrink Volume..., Properties, Help.

If I do the clean install myself or from Apple will I have my complete 750GB then like when I first bought it? Or will I have a factory settings computer but with some 600GB (or whatever it is) hard drive?

Apr 17, 2012 10:22 PM in response to WatchYourKILLCAM

Maybe I don't have to extend the volume, just the capacity?

Apr 17, 2012 10:28 PM in response to WatchYourKILLCAM

also, I haven't mentioned that I do have Parallels 7.

Apr 18, 2012 11:41 AM in response to WatchYourKILLCAM

If you start "from scratch" by repartitioning the disk as 1 partition, and then proceeding as I've decribed - same as the instructions in the Boot Camp Setup & Install Guide, you will have use of the full amount of space on your hard drive.

Apr 18, 2012 11:43 AM in response to WatchYourKILLCAM

Why use Boot Camp instead of Parallels? That's way easier. Doesn't have nearly as many of these boot related, and disk size related problems. The performance is quite good - maybe 80-100% as fast as running Windows natively, depending on what you're doing. Games take a hit. But pretty much anything else will run about as fast as native.

Apr 18, 2012 4:57 PM in response to Christopher Murphy

alright thanks, I had put on boot camp before I bought Parallels, that's why. I'm going to try iPartition or CampTune first and if that doesn't work I will repartition the disk as 1 partition and then use Parallels to partition it.

*do I use Boot Camp Assistant to repartition it as one? I think someone on page 1 said that I couldn't use it anymore.

Apr 18, 2012 5:01 PM in response to WatchYourKILLCAM

You won't use Parallels to partition. You'll use a virtual disk image, which is a file on Mac OS, but acts as a disk for Windows inside of Parallels. No partitioning needed.

Boot Camp Assistant has a Remove Windows 7 option, and it will nuke that partition and remerge it with your Mac OS X volume, making it bigger once again.

Apr 18, 2012 10:36 PM in response to Christopher Murphy

okay, I will back up everything as soon as possible and hopefully it works. If not I'll have to repost again...

wyan001

Level 1

0 points

May 8, 2014 7:16 PM in response to WatchYourKILLCAM

This is a screenshot of my macintosh HD Partition. Is there a way i can remove the free space? THIS is how it happened.

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Hard Drive Partition Space Lost