Expand Grow resize osx86 Partition

[freshfitz]

***WARNING THIS TUTORIAL DOES DELETE YOUR OSX86 PARTITION BACKUP IMPORTANT DATA FIRST***

 

I just ran into the same problem that alot of people seem to be getting trapped in, You install osx86 on a dual boot system on a small partition then once you start playing around you quickly run out of space. After you spent 4 days trying to get osx86 fine tuned to your machine you probably really don't feel like going though that again.

 

What you need

1. Your osx86 install disk

2. Gparted 0.4.5 worked for me Get Gparted here then burn it to a cd/dvd

3. A computer with winxp and osx86

4. Your windows install cd

 

Boot your osx86 install dvd, open disk utilitly and make a backup image of your operating system, I used an external 250gb USB drive to store the .dmg.

 

Once you have the .dmg backup image on an external drive reboot into Gparted.

1. In gparted resize (shrink) the NTFS partition freeing up space on the drive.

2. Now delete the HFS+ partition

3. Press Apply

4. Once Gparted rescans the disks right click the unallocated space and select NEW. ( You have to create a HFS+ Partition or you can not re-install your dmg image backup)

5. select HFS+ from the file system drop down

6. Press add

7. Press Apply

 

Now that your disk is all ready to restore the .dmg file reboot to osx86 install dvd.

From the top menu goto disk utility

click on the new HFS+ partition you created in Gparted and repair it then verify it

click on restore and click image and select the .dmg backup from your external usb drive

Drag the partition from the list on the left side to Destination then click restore

Grab a cup of coffee or play some tennis for about 40 min.

 

Reboot to your windows install cd press R for repair and get to the command line run

fixboot and

fixmbr

 

Everything should be back working now.

 

IF you lost your winxp boot menu you can try resetting the flags in terminal in your osx86 cd if you don't feel like messing with that

reboot the winxp cd go through the install but don't overrite your existing windows folder let the install create a new one. Click on the WINXP partition then select keep current file system in tact blah blah blah. you can stop the process when it says coping windows files, reboot you should have 2 entries in you xp boot menu now boot into windows and recreate the osx boot line c:\chain0 = "MAC OSX 86"