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Can I resize the macOS High Sierra HDD partition without losing data or making dual boot unusable?

I have a dual-boot setup (macOS HS latest update and Windows 10 Enterprise latest update). The mac is a macmini 6,1, late 2012 model (MD387*/A, Dual-core Intel Core i5 3210M).

I installed macOS HS on the HDD drive (500GB) which has a couple of partitions (see diskutil report).

I installed Windows on the SSD drive, which has only one partition.


/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS HDD                     307.4 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot                         650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOT                    41.7 GB    disk0s4
   5:       Microsoft Basic Data DOX                     150.0 GB   disk0s5

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *240.1 GB   disk1
   1:               Windows_NTFS SSD                     239.2 GB   disk1s1
   2:                       0x27                         900.7 MB   disk1s2


The main HDD partition is called "HDD", it's 307.4GB in size and has macOS HS installed on it. There's also the EFI and Apple's Boot partition, which are invisible to the user.

The other two HDD partitions were used for saving documents, so that they are available even if the OS is reinstalled.


Currently, I'm mostly using Windows for work, so the macOS partition is rarely used (only for testing software). I'd like to reclaim 100GB from the macOS partition and format it to be able to use it on the Windows side to store more documents. At some point I am planning to replace this 500GB internal HDD with a faster 1TB HDD, but it might take a while until I make that move. So, for the moment, I'd like to resize the macOS partition by removing 100GB of disk space.


Can this be done by resizing the partition in Disk Utilities without risking any data loss? I know many people had issues after they resized their partitions, but in this case I keep both OSes on separate physical disks. Still, I'm not sure how either macOS or Windows could handle this if Bootcamp has specific settings which make it operate across two physical disks.


By the way, Bootcamp on Windows hasn't been able to update itself for some months already. The Apple Software Update window keeps popping from time to time, but after I launch the installation, it never succeeds in installing the update. Also, this has been happening ever since I haven't been able to see macOS drives on the Windows side. I used to be able to see files from the macOS (HFS+) side and be able to copy them. I can still see Windows drives from the macOS side, but not the reverse.

Mac mini, Windows 10, null

Posted on Sep 14, 2018 9:46 AM

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Can I resize the macOS High Sierra HDD partition without losing data or making dual boot unusable?

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