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Is it possible to resize a mac partition from windows?

Here's what's going on. I originally wanted to use Disk Utility to do this, which is clearly the easy way to do things, but my computer is so slow that Disk Utility immediately becomes unresponsive upon wanting to resize -any- partition. The windows side works fine though, it isn't slow as crap. Is there a way to resize the mac partition from windows (HFS+)? Any possible way? Even crazy ones? I'm open to suggestions.


Oh yeah, and in case you want to know...my Mac Mini just randomly started getting really, really slow, so slow in fact, that now my old iMac from 1999 is faster (it doesn't even have ANY RAM!). I tried resetting the PRAM/NVRAM, multiple times, booting into safe mode takes forever, but I left it for awhile and it finished. Almost worked, the finder showed up quicker than usual, but then it reverted back to it's slow self again once I opened Disk Utility. I tried booting into single user mode and typing /sbin/fsck -fy, and it's so slow, that it couldn't even do that! It got stuck at checking libraries or something, for hours, and i could type things in still, but it wouldn't recognize any commands (ie fsk - fy). I also cannot replace the RAM because it is an older mac mini and those things are hard as f*** to repair, trust me, i've tried. The weirdest part of all of this has to be that this is the computer that we DON'T download many apps onto, so it most likely isn't bloatware, adware, a virus or something else. We download most stuff to our MacBook, and go to the sketchy websites on it as well (it really should be the other way around, the mac mini would be around 3x less expensive to replace, it's just that it's the family computer). And that's always slow, but this surpassed it (btw, the laptop is a year or so older). I do not have the installation disk.


Can someone help? Mainly about the first thing...please. The second thing is hopeless, I will need to get a new computer pretty soon, and these macs don't last as long as they used to I guess, we'd most likely get a quality Windows PC to replace it, this has been a disappointment. I'm just trying to get a little more life out of it with Linux, maybe a year or two. That's what i've done with my old iMac. Runs GREAT. Especially for a 13 year old computer. The thing is, my folks don't want me to completely eliminate the mac partition even though it's virtually unusuable.

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Aug 16, 2012 5:09 PM

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Posted on Aug 16, 2012 6:23 PM

Don't even think about it, be patient, wait for Disk Utility to be ready. How much space is left in the Mac partition?

4 replies

Aug 17, 2012 9:19 PM in response to phillies9513

I'm not really understanding what the end goal was. But in case anyone else comes across the thread, neither the built-in Windows volume resizing utility nor any 3rd party Windows resizing utility should be used to resize either the Windows partition or the Mac OS partition. Invariably they all manipulate the NTFS volume in such a way that the secondary GPT is corrupt, the primary GPT is rendered invalid, and only correctly alter the MBR. It's a recipe for data loss.


Conversely, while Disk Utility can resize a Mac OS volume, it cannot resize an NTFS volume. With Lion and Mountain Lion, upon using Boot Camp Assistant there are already four partitions: EFI System, Mac OS, Recovery HD, and Windows. There is no more room for a fifth partition in the MBR partition scheme, and if you try to add one, Disk Utility will apparently let you and render Windows unbootable (because Disk Utility adds the fifth partition to the GPT, but can't add it to the MBR, and instead removes the hybrid MBR needed for Windows support and replaces it with a PMBR.)


So in effect this is not to be done except with 3rd party utilities.

Is it possible to resize a mac partition from windows?

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