How to resize disk partition without deleting anything

Question

How to resize disk partition without deleting anything

I have a 2010 iMac that has system 10.6.8 on one partition. I thought I had partitioned my hard drive into 2 equal parts, 250 gigs on each part. I used the second partition to install system Yosemite on a few months ago. I just noticed that the partition I have Yosemite on (partition 2) only has 100 gigs on it and partition 1 with system 10.6.8 has 398 gigs on it.

I called Apple and they said there was no way to do this except delete and start over but I'm wondering if there is some software like iPartition that way work. I read somewhere that iPartition doesn't work well with Yosemite but if I resize from partition 1 with 10.6.8 on it, would that work, would I be able to do that?

I would sure appreciate some help here, I don't want to have to delete anything from my hard drive.

I am not sure where to post this. I noticed Boot Camp but that was in the windows area and I don't have windows.

Thanks, Martha

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.4), Intel iMac, 12 gig memory

Posted on Aug 5, 2015 8:15 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Niel

Community+ 2026

Level 10

743,693 points

Aug 5, 2015 8:23 AM in response to marthafromlas cruces

Use the Disk Utility's Restore function or a product such as Carbon Copy Cloner to put the content of the Yosemite partition onto an external drive(you should be backing both partitions up in case the internal drive fails), delete the Yosemite partition, resize the Snow Leopard one to 250GB, create a new partition for Yosemite, and clone the data back.

(131289)

Reply

Answer 2

Aug 5, 2015 3:01 PM in response to Niel

Neil, I have both systems backed up to an external hard drives using Time machine, will that do?

And can all this that you suggested be done from the 10.6.8 size of partition 1 including restoring my backed up data from Yosemite?

Thanks!

Reply

Answer 3

Niel

Community+ 2026

Level 10

743,693 points

Aug 5, 2015 3:06 PM in response to marthafromlas cruces

1. Doing this with Time Machine is complicated. Create a clone as described above, or install Yosemite onto the nely-created partition and use the Setup Assistant to restore the backup.

2. The clone can be created and restored from Snow Leopard. Restoring the Time Machine backup from it probably shouldn't be attempted.

(131309)

Reply

Answer 4

Aug 5, 2015 3:48 PM in response to Niel

Niel, I don't have the slightest idea how to create a clone. All I have are backups on an external disk created by Time Machine backup. They look like clones to me.

So how to create the kind of clone you mean?

Reply