Disk utility "partition" button greyed out on external hard drive

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Level 1

8 points

Disk utility "partition" button greyed out on external hard drive

Hi all,

I have a portable hard drive with 2 partitions (both ExFat), 1 of which is unused and empty. I am trying to delete that partition. However the partition button is greyed out in disk utility;

and yes, I am well aware that I can pull up terminal and run this diskutil erasedisk hfs+ External GPT /dev/disk2 HOWEVER, this would erase all my files and data in my VE partition wouldn't it? I have a lot of data in VE, it would be real hassle for me to back up everything elsewhere, this is already my backup drive.

Can someone please advise me on how I can delete the VE2 partition WITHOUT erasing my entire drive? Thanks.

Posted on Mar 6, 2018 7:20 PM

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Answer 1

dialabrain

Level 10

135,779 points

Mar 6, 2018 7:33 PM in response to VimEvan

Select the top level of the drive, click partition. Click on the partition you want to remove and click the minus sign. As long as it's not the first partition it will be removed and your other partition will grow to fill the space.

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