How do I increase the size of my live OS X partition to fill the free space on my hard drive?

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How do I increase the size of my live OS X partition to fill the free space on my hard drive?

Hi there;

I have a macbook pro 13" 9,2 from mid 2012 with a 500 GB hard drive. I used Boot Camp Assistant to make a partition for Windows 7, 100 GB in size. It worked fine. I then decided to install Fedora Linux as a third operating system on a third partition. This failed hopelessly, and also made Windows unbootable. So I used Disk Utility in OS X to delete the BOOTCAMP partition, and as many of the other partitions created through my Linux attempt. Now I have my Macintosh HD partition (running OS X) using 350 GB of space on my hard drive, a useless 4 GB partition called disk0s4 that I is not erasable via Disk Utility, and 150 GB of empty free space.

I want to restore my OSX partition to it's full size (500 GB), erase all other partitions, and try again with a different OS. However Disk Utility won't let me resize my Macintosh HD partition to be any bigger than it already is. Boot Camp Assistant won't help either, it gives me an error message. Here is my disk utility screen shot:

And here is the error message from Boot Camp Assistant:

Any help is appreciated. Thank you!

MacBook Pro, Windows 7

Posted on Jun 18, 2013 10:52 AM

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Answer 1

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Csound1

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Jun 18, 2013 11:03 AM in response to dav1dp0101

Disk Utility is the wrong tool to use, one of the consequences is facing you now, you can't reclaim the space that DU made (you should have removed with Boot Camp but it's too late now), so:

Backup your OSX installation, delete all partitions and create 1 new one for OSX, restore the backup.

What version of OSX is this? (You are going to have to reinstall OSX, so the version matters)

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Answer 2

dav1dp0101 Author

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Jun 18, 2013 12:44 PM in response to Csound1

Ok, and how do you suggest I do all that? Once done, will bootcamp work again?

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Answer 3

dav1dp0101 Author

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Jun 18, 2013 12:44 PM in response to Csound1

Oh, I have OS X version 10.8.4. It didn't come with an initial install disk.

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Answer 4

Csound1

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Jun 18, 2013 12:58 PM in response to dav1dp0101

Mountain Lion (10.8.4) has a builtin recovery partition, no disk required.

dav1dp0101 wrote:

will bootcamp work again?

If you mean after you reinstall it yes, until it breaks again.

What type and how recent is your backup (your entire hdd will be erased during this, a viable backup is a must)

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Answer 5

dav1dp0101 Author

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Jun 18, 2013 1:04 PM in response to Csound1

I don't have a backup yet. How should I make one? I don't have time machine. I guess I have to spend $50 for a 500 GB USB external drive to make my backup. Then I have to repartition the HDD to 1 partition of 500 GB (I still don't know how to do that) and then I have to restore my osx from the backup to the new big partition (I also still don't know how to do that).

Any additional help would be excellent, thank you!

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Answer 6

Csound1

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Jun 18, 2013 1:13 PM in response to dav1dp0101

Broadly you got it already, here's some detail.

Buy an external drive, don't waste your time with a 500, go for 1TB or more, prices are low, USB external.

Download a copy of Carbon Copy Cloner, it's $30 approx, you will use it to make a clone of your drive, and in future it will become your backup system.

Once a clone is made you will use the recovery options to (a) erase the drive (b) reinstall OSX and (c) restore the clone.

But first you need an external drive to do this on. The rest we can tackle as and when you're ready.

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Answer 7

dav1dp0101 Author

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Jun 18, 2013 5:22 PM in response to Csound1

Hmm, ok, well I see that other people recommend this course of action too, but since that will cost me a bunch of money, I am going to try one last thing first: Use my Live DVD Fedora 18 to boot up Fedora, and from there, use the fdisk command to delete the offending partition. Then boot back in to OSX and see if it's no longer listed in Disk Utility.

What do you think of that?

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Answer 8

Csound1

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59,973 points

Jun 18, 2013 5:25 PM in response to dav1dp0101

Worth a try, but I still don't think that you will be able to use the space.

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