- Resize Bootcamp Partitions
- Expand Bootcamp Partition Mac
- Access Mac Partition Bootcamp
- Partition Tool For Mac
- Bootcamp Adjust Partition Size
- Partition Tool For Mac Boot Camp
- Itool For Mac
A good friend of mine, Christopher Brown (), has successfully converted a Windows 7 virtual machine for Parallels on Mac OS X into a full-fledged Boot Camp partition on a Mac computer. How to resize your bootcamp partition without deleting Windows In this video I will show you how to resize your Windows partition (bootcamp partition) without having to delete or reinstall Windows.
Active5 days ago
Installed windows 10 via bootcamp on my MBP running macOS Sierra, but I'd like to expand the Windows partition and shrink the macOS partition, avoiding a reinstall if possible.
I did a search already, but the other questions I've found on this topic are 1) about windows 7 and 2) just suggest using WinClone or similar.
How would this be done manually without the use of paid utilities?
Edit: I've used gParted from an ubuntu live USB to resize the windows partition. The only issue now is that windows throws an error on boot. Online sources suggest using gdisk to somehow sync the GPT and MBR tables?
Windows phone recovery tool. (I have data backups and mac OS boots fine, so now it's just a matter of curiosity and avoiding a reinstall if possible)
dardeshna
dardeshnadardeshna
4 Answers
Ok, here's how I solved my problem in the end (resizing a windows 10 bootcamp partition):
Shrinking the macOS partition
- Boot into recovery mode and open terminal
- Run
diskutil cs list
to list core storage logical volumes, and copy the Logical Volume UUID - Resize the logical volume with
diskutil cs resizeStack LVUUID size
wheresize
is a parameter such as80g
(80 gb)
Expanding the Windows partition
- Create an ubuntu live USB using this tutorial
- Boot into the ubuntu live USB (hold option on boot up to select)
- Open GParted and use it to expand the windows partition into the free space created earlier
Fixing the MBR so Windows boots
This method seemed to work, I don't know if it is correct practice but Windows does boot now.
- Boot into mac OS and install gdisk (download the .pkg file and install)
- Open terminal and run
diskutil list
, make note of the startup disk identifier (/dev/disk0
,/dev/disk1
, etc) - Run
sudo gdisk disk_id
replacingdisk_id
with the identifier from the previous step - Type
x
to enter expert mode - Type
n
to create a new protective MBR - Type
w
to save the changes and confirm withy
- Reboot into Windows!
A final note of caution
I had backups of all of my important data in case something went terribly wrong and I was forced to re-install windows, macOS or both. Do not attempt this without backups of your data!
Be warned that I am no expert and put together this procedure with information from existing discussion board posts, so what worked for me may not work for you.
dardeshnadardeshna
Don’t ever touch the partitioning from Windows!
No Windows app can figure out how it is being ‘fooled’ into thinking it’s in charge.
No Windows app can figure out how it is being ‘fooled’ into thinking it’s in charge.
There are only 2 apps that won’t simply break Boot Camp completely, Paragon Hard Disk Manager & TwoCanoes WinClone. afaik, neither can yet handle APFS.
Carbon Copy Cloner can safely back up HFS & Boot Camp partitions, but cannot by itself recreate them, you must complete the underlying formatting first.
Apple’s own Disk Utility will not allow you to even attempt this. The Apple-recommend method is to completely remove Boot Camp & start over with a bigger partition size.
TetsujinTetsujin19.3k66 gold badges4444 silver badges7272 bronze badges
With a few clarifications and extra steps, the instructions here worked for me for a 2019 MacBook Pro 13-inch.
I was able to reallocate a 1TB HD from 100GB MacOS/900GB Windows to a more sane 750GB MacOS/250GB Windows. I did not need to reinstall either OS.
There are three main steps here: Resize the Windows BootCamp disk, Create a new partition from the unallocated space, Merge the new partition with your MacOS partition.
IMPORTANT - Be sure you have a backup of the Window partition (and, for safety, the MacOS partition also). I didn't end up needing them, but you might get unlucky and I don't want you to be sad.
Resize the Windows BootCamp disk
- Boot to Windows partition.
- Install MiniTool Partition Wizard (free).
- Beware - it will try to install AVG Free. It didn't seem to give an option to not install it, and I had to delete it later.
- Launch MiniTool and load the Partition Manager.
- Find the Bootcamp partition that is too large.
- Right-click, and choose 'Move/Resize'.
- Resize the partition down to the size you want.
- IMPORTANT - Be sure the empty space occurs at the beginning of the partition (drag the arrow on the left -- not the arrow on the right). If you place the new partition at the end, you won't be able to use the freed space to expand the MacOS partition later.
- Click Save to return to the main screen, the click Apply at the top left corner.
- A box will pop up telling you that you need to reboot to apply the changes. Reboot to apply the changes.
- IMPORTANT - Be sure to reboot into Windows again.
- MiniTool will apply the changes. It might reboot again - be sure to go back into Windows.
Create a new partition from the unallocated space
- Boot into Windows partition (if not already there).
- Open MiniTool once again and go to the Partition Manager.
- Your new unallocated space should appear before the BootCamp partition.
- Select the new unallocated space, right-click, and choose Create to create a new partition.
- I don't think it matters what kind of partition you create, so long as it is one that MacOS can reason about -- I chose FAT32.
- If you don't create a partition here, MacOS doesn't seem to be able to find the unallocated space.
- Save and Apply the changes again. A reboot shouldn't be required.
- Reboot into MacOS.
Merge the new partition with your MacOS partition (adapted from here)
- Boot into MacOS partition (if not already there).
- Open Disk Utility. You should see the new partition just after the container holding your main Macintosh HD (but still within your disk).
- Click the disk and choose 'Partition' (you may need to choose 'Partition' instead of 'Create ADFS').
- Select the new volume you just created (the one that should be merged into the existing MacOS volume).
- Click the '-' button below the pie chart.
- Apply/save.
- This will expand the MacOS partition to include the newly created partition.
Your MacOS disk should now be larger.
NOTE: I am not affiliated with MiniTool in any way -- the tool just ended up working for me. There may be others that will do the job as well.
olen_garnolen_garn
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You have to use a partition utility like GParted.
If you are using APFS as filesystem GParted cannot modify it. You'll have to find a tool able to do so, and do the resize in parts, first the physycal APFS partition and then the Windows NTFS. If there's no software which automatically does it it involves a VERY HIGH RISK of data loss. Keep this in mind and backup your data (or whole disk) before.
If you want to try the 'easy way' first follow this guide about resizing bootcamp using minitool partition wizard. It will only work properly if the NTFS partition of the Windows installation is a proper NTFS partition. Keep in mind that BEFORE doing this you'll have to shrink your mac partition using mac's Disk Utility. It will not allow you to make the bootcamp bigger, but it will make room for you to enlarge it with MiniTool (or any other tool capable of working NTFS under the partition layout your HDD has). The full procedure is explained here:
Now the long way around:
First of all, before doing anything MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR HARD DISK. For zero risks use dd (diskdupe) to backup every single bit of the harddisk into a disk image. You can check how to do so here. If you dont want to risk to reinstall everything from scratch make sure your backup contains the partition table and the partitions, or that you are totally able to restore that backup, even if you bought a new hard disk. This is a critical step if you're not confortable with partition modification (its recomended even if you are). Whenever you touch a partition you are risking your data, and even though most times there will be a way to recover your info even if you screw it up without a backup, there are chances you'll overwrite important data and loose it forever. The risk depends on the operation performed and resizing is a particularly risky operation!. If you are curious about what partitioning is about, you can check this beginner explanation to get some insights of what you are actually doing.
Then you have three chances:
- Install a partition edition software on your Mac. I'm not a mac user, so I can only give you one example, Disk Utility, which I believe it is included in mac distros. You can check this discussion to find more examples. All I could find on google was comercial software, but as I said, I'm not a mac expert, so there may be a GParted port around or something like that.
- Boot using a liveCD/USB like SystemRescueCD or GParted Live and use GParted which is installed in the live distribution. There are many CDs to do this, like Partition Wizard, Partition Manager, Partition Magic, etc. In order to use thid method you will check how to boot using a CD on mac, which is a different topic.
- Do it from your Windows OS instead from MAC following a Windows tutorial. There are plenty around, like this one.
Personally I allways use liveCDs to modify partitions, as they are much safer. Why is this? Because if you resize a partition you are using (from whithin the native OS) your system has to reboot and enter in some short of 'special boot envinronment' (its not that, but just to simplify) and resize the disks from there. Those aditional steps add many failure points to an operation which is enough risky by itself. If you can, allways resize OS partitions from liveCDs.
And remember, make backups! This is a critical step, and deserves to be repeated over and over my post. MAKE BACKUPS!
Also, a link about resizing APFS. I'm sure you can shrink (or increase) the virtual windows partition first and then the actual partition. I don't know if the guy who said it is impossible took all his knoweldge from youtube tutorials or he's an actual computer engineer, but as a compute engineer i'm telling you there's no such thing as impossible, specially if apple provides a tool to resize. However, take into consideration what he said and DO A BACKUP!
Resize Bootcamp Partitions
More questions about APFS resizing here
DGoikoDGoiko
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Thanks to the switch from PowerPC to Intel many years ago, a Mac is just another PC. Sure, Macs come with macOS, but you can easily install Windows alongside macOS using Apple’s built-in Boot Camp feature.
Boot Camp installs Windows in a dual-boot configuration, which means both operating systems will be installed separately. You can only use one at a time, but you get the computer’s full power in each.
Do You Actually Need to Use Boot Camp?
RELATED:5 Ways to Run Windows Software on a Mac
Before you install Windows, stop and think about whether or not Boot Camp is the best choice for your needs. There are a couple of drawbacks to consider.
When you use Boot Camp to install Windows on your Mac, you’ll need to re-partition your drive, which is going to take up quite a bit of your available drive space. Since storage on a Mac is fairly expensive, it’s something you should really think about. In addition, you’ll need to reboot every time you want to use Windows, and reboot again when you want to switch back to macOS. The benefit of Boot Camp, of course, is that you’re running Windows directly on the hardware, so it’ll be a lot faster than a virtual machine.
If all you need to do is run a few Windows applications on your Mac, and those applications don’t a lot of resources (like 3D games), you might consider using a virtual machine like Parallels (there’s a free trial), VMware Fusion, or VirtualBox to run that software instead. The vast majority of the time you don’t actually need to use Boot Camp, and you’d be better off using a virtual machine. If, however, you’re looking to play Windows games on your Mac, Boot Camp might be a good choice.
RELATED:How to Seamlessly Run Windows Programs on Your Mac with Parallels
For most people, though, Parallels makes running Windows on your Mac dead simple. It’s something we use at How-To Geek every single day for testing software and running Windows. The integration with macOS amazingly well done, and the speed blows away Virtualbox. In the long run, the price is well worth it. You can even use Parallels to load your Boot Camp partition as a virtual machine while you are in macOS, giving you the best of both worlds.
Expand Bootcamp Partition Mac
What Version of Windows Can I Run?
Which version of Windows you can run depends on your Mac: recent models support only Windows 10, while some older Macs only work with older versions of Windows. Here’s a quick outline, along with links to Apple’s official lists of supported models.
- Windows 10 is supported on most Macs made in 2012 and later.
- Windows 8.1 is supported on most Macs made between 2010 and 2016, with some exceptions.
- Windows 7 is supported, for the most part, only on Macs made in 2014 and earlier, and you’ll need an even older Mac to run Windows Vista or XP.
Note that Macs can only run 64-bit, non-Enterprise versions of Windows.
RELATED:Where to Download Windows 10, 8.1, and 7 ISOs Legally
To install Windows, you’ll need an ISO file of the installer. You can download Windows installation media for free if you already have a product key, though you don’t really need a product key to run Windows 10. If you’re installing Windows 7, you’ll also need a USB drive at least 16GB in size for the installer and drivers. Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 do not any external drive for installation.
How to Install Windows on Your Mac
Ready to install Windows? It’s probably a good idea to back up your Mac before getting started, just in case. Odds are nothing will go wrong, but any time you’re partitioning things there’s always a chance. Done? Let’s get started.
You’ll use the Boot Camp Assistant application that comes on your Mac. Open it by pressing Command+Space, typing Boot Camp, and pressing Enter.
The Boot Camp Assistant will walk you through partitioning, downloading drivers, and starting the installer for you. Click “Continue” and you’ll be asked which ISO file you’d like to use and how big you’d like your Windows partition to be.
RELATED:Beginner Geek: Hard Disk Partitions Explained
How you should allocate the space depends on how much space you want for your Windows system and how much space you want for your macOS system. If you want to resize your partitions after this process, you’ll need to use a third-party tool, so choose carefully now.
Note that, if you’re installing Windows 7, the order here is slightly different: Boot Camp will first guide you through setting up your installer USB disk, then ask you about partitioning.
When you’re ready, click “Install” and Boot Camp will start downloading drivers, which it calls “Windows support software.”
The installer will also partition your disk, copy the installer to that partition, and place the drivers so they’ll run after installation. You can keep using your Mac while all this is running, though things will slow down a lot during the partitioning phase.
Access Mac Partition Bootcamp
Eventually, your Mac will reboot and you’ll see the standard Windows installer.
Select the partition labeled BOOTCAMP if asked—do not install to any other partition, or you might end up removing macOS and losing all your data. (You did back up, right?) Windows will now finish installing normally. Postgres tool for mac.
The Windows on-boarding process might ask you to connect to the Internet, but you won’t be able to do this without drivers: just skip these steps until you get to your desktop, at which point the Boot Camp installer will appear.
Proceed with the installer to set up your drivers, and you should be all set!
How to Boot Into Windows On Your Mac
By default, your Mac will still boot to macOS. To access Windows, you need to turn off your Mac, then turn it on while holding the Option key. You’ll be asked which drive you’d like to boot from.
If you’d like to boot to Windows by default, you set this in recovery mode, or using the Boot Camp Control Panel in Windows. You’ll find this in your system tray after installing Windows, though you may have to click the Up arrow to find it.
This control panel allows you to choose the default operating system your Mac boots to, as well as tweak keyboard and trackpad settings.
While in Windows, the Mac’s Command key functions as the Windows key, while the Option key functions as the Alt key. If you have a Touch Bar, you’ll see a complete set of buttons, similar to the Extended Control Strip in macOS.
Partition Tool For Mac
To see the function keys (F1, F2, etc.) simply hold down the Fn key. There’s no way to make this the default in Windows.
How to Remove Windows From Your Mac
Bootcamp Adjust Partition Size
If you want to remove Windows from your Mac and free up space, reboot into macOS and open the Boot Camp Assistant again. You’ll see the Restore Disk to a Single Volume option.
Partition Tool For Mac Boot Camp
Boot Camp Assistant will automatically remove Windows and expand the macOS partition for you, reclaiming all of that space. Warning: This will delete all the files on your Windows partition, so be sure you have backup copies first!
Itool For Mac
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