How To Expand Your 6 GIG Deadmoo-based install (EASY)

[consumer]

Have you succesfully installed the "deadmoo" image, configured everything to work, applied patches, downloaded software, organzied bookmarks, installed silly widgets, developed a full blown case of Apple Lust just to eventually realize that you only have a 6 gig partition regardless of where you installed it? Tired of reading tons of posts on the net on how to expand it using 10,000 steps using Darwin and unix partition programs? Don't wanna start over with a DVD install as a solution? Want to just use OSX to do it? YOU CAN!

 

Here's how to expand that 6 gig install using only VMWare and deadmoo:

 

1. Have a stable and fast version of deadmoo running on VMWare 5 (remove ati, nvidia and tcpm extensions, etc.)

 

2. Create a Virtual Drive for VMWare and make it the size you want your final partition to be Call it "BACKUP". You don't need to bother pre-allocating the drive in VMWare, but you'll obviously need at least 6.2 gigs of space wherever you store it.

 

3. Create another Virtual Drive to VMWare that's mapped to your native OSX86 install.

 

4. Start up OSX86 in VMware.

 

5. You might get prompted to format the "BACKUP" virtual drive, maybe not.

 

6. Launch Disk Utility in Applications->Utilities

 

7. Select the "BACKUP" virtual drive and click Erase (format with a default partition) if need be.

 

8. Click on the Restore option. (Doesn't matter from which drive you select it)

 

9. Drag your mounted native OSX86 drive (from the Disk Utility menu, not the Desktop) to Source.

 

10. Drag your mounted "BACKUP" drive to Target. Check "Erase Desitination".

 

11. After copying, check out the info on your newly duplicated drive. Does it look how you want your real system to be? Cool...

 

12. Now restore the backup you just made back onto the real drive/partition.

 

13. All finished? Reboot and enjoy your new room.

 

 

When I finally got VMWare usable, this was all done in about 20 minutes. I now have an 80 gig native install based off of deadmoo. I didn't even have to mess with my bootloader (using XP's with the Chain0 file) and I now have a full system backup tucked away in VMWare.

 

Small Problem I Ran Into:

 

- A few times VMWare would boot off of my mounted native install. Make sure you boot off the vmware virtual drive otherwise it can't unmount the real drive when it goes to restore.

 

Here's a simple summary of the whole thing:

 

You mount a native install of osx86 as a drive in VMWare and run it so that you can make a copy of it to a virtual hard drive using Disk Utility. When you "Restore" the copy back to the previously underused partition, it formats the target and ends up using the maximum partition size, thereby "fixing" the 6gig limit that the original image imposed. That's all there is to it.

 

 

Disclaimer:

 

This worked on my machine using a dedicated HD for the native install. If anyone uses this method succesfully for a sub-partition install, post it up on this thread.

 

Don't bother PM'ing me on this - I'm headed out of town for four days and plan to spend no time online.

 

I'll repost with step-by-step screenshots for the impatient (afterall, its all point-and-click - no consoles or rebooting for this solution)

[Kevin Sherman]

Which version of VMWare do I need to run?? And I assume this is done from XP?

[consumer]

Which version of VMWare do I need to run?? And I assume this is done from XP?

 

VMWare 5 running on XP, although I'd imagine it works just the same in Linux.

[demon4354]

How do I prevent VMWare from booting off the native drive? Otherwise this is working perfectly.

[digiplaya2005]

How are you supposed to write to the BACKUP partition while you're in Windows, in which it has already mounted it? I can't seem to get Vmware to write to that part of my second HD.

 

It gives me an error, then the BACKUP partition just disappears from Disk Utility. Could there be another method to get my 6 gig install up to 20 gigs on my system?

[consumer]

How do I prevent VMWare from booting off the native drive? Otherwise this is working perfectly.

 

Change the "Startup Disk" option in the Control Panel.

 

This took several VMWare reboots until it got it right - perhaps someone else can explain in detail how to ensure the proper volume at the boot interrupt login?

 

At one point I recopied the original deadmoo vmware config files (but not the disk image) and started over to get it to not bootup off my native install.

 

How are you supposed to write to the BACKUP partition while you're in Windows, in which it has already mounted it? I can't seem to get Vmware to write to that part of my second HD.

 

It gives me an error, then the BACKUP partition just disappears from Disk Utility. Could there be another method to get my 6 gig install up to 20 gigs on my system?

 

You need to make a Virtual drive to backup to (accessbile only within VMware running osx86). The other drive you make is mapped to your real install drive/paritition.

 

Screen shot tutorial coming Monday.

[digiplaya2005]

You need to make a Virtual drive to backup to (accessbile only within VMware running osx86). The other drive you make is mapped to your real install drive/paritition.

 

Screen shot tutorial coming Monday.

 

So you're saying this "Virtual drive" should not be seen or directly accessed by Windows?

[digiplaya2005]

Oh yeah baby! Got it to increase my osx86 native partition to around 26 gigs total! Thanks for everyone's help!

[Dantez]

I can't get this working. Every time I follow the directions I end up with the same 6 gig drive.

[witzer]

12. Now restore the backup you just made back onto the real drive/partition.

 

i'm not sure about this step. is it like step 8, 9, 10 but with the source and destination reversed?

[George Elliott]

Nice one, got an old 40G drive totally given over to OSX86 now. I think that to get this working you really need to have two physical harddrives in your computer one for windows to run vmware on and another that you dedicate solely to vmware so that it can have access to the boot table to make the necessary changes. Not much use to anyone who wants to dual boot from a single drive.

@ Witzer: yes, just reverse the drives and do 8, 9, & 10 again.

@ Dantez: Probably too late for you now but have you made sure that you've checked 'erase destination' when you restore to your physical drive again? If not, all you are doing is copying the files back into the same partition again.

[witzer]

@ George Elliott

mine is a native install off the deadmoo 6gb image. then i followed the steps above. i've successfully restored the native install to virtual drive (NTFS). when i tried to boot from the virtual drive, i receive "b0 error". dunno what happen? how do i fix the boot problem?

[George Elliott]

@ George Elliott

mine is a native install off the deadmoo 6gb image. then i followed the steps above. i've successfully restored the native install to virtual drive (NTFS). when i tried to boot from the virtual drive, i receive "b0 error". dunno what happen? how do i fix the boot problem?

I spoke too soon, thought everything was working for me as I'd booted off the virtual drive and was restoring to the physical drive as I posted. Rebooting the computer (real one that is) and trying to boot off my new 40G install just sat at the post screen, no attempt to boot up. Booting back into windows and trying to boot from the virtual drive gave me the same b0 error you got. If I can find out what's going wrong I'll let you know.

[George Elliott]

Got a native 40G harddrive working now. Needed to download the darwin CD from Apple to do it though. There seems to be lots of different methods for doing it but this is the one I used.

 

Download Darwin 8 (x86) which cam down as a .iso.gz file

Delete the .gz from the file extension

In vmware create a new machine with the harddrive set up as a physical drive and the CD as the darwin iso file

boot the vm machine set to boot from CD

install darwin to the harddrive using the complete drive (you can mess about with partitions if you like but I was dedicating the whole drive to OSX86 anyway)

when complete exit vmware and reboot your computer to update the bootsector properly.

back to vmware and set up a machine with deadmoo as IDE 0:0 and your new darwin drive as IDE 0:1

restore the tiger-x86 to the harddrive volume but don't erase the drive info

repair the file permissions on the new drive (don't know if this is necessary but I did it anyhow)

delete any problematic extensions (all the ATI ones in my case)

exit vmware to clear any locks and temporary files vmware creates

start vmware again and remove the deadmoo drive from the virtual machine setup, then launch it to test your new installation

reboot your computer and set your new drive up as the boot drive and you should now have plenty of room to expand.

[witzer]

thanks george, it works for me now. i guess the most important part in the steps is don't check the "erase destination" thingy or you'll lose the boot loader already created by darwin. i now have a 30gb hdd (20gb for deadmoo, and 10 in NTFS to transfer files between win and mac). yippie kay yeeeeeee....!!!!!!!!

 

for those who don't have Darwin, it is possible to expand the 6gb to whatever your hdd size is. as long as you have vmware and deadmoo image for vmware, this can be done. it is the same process as george's steps but without installing the darwin part. i'll quote from osx86project wiki:

"This can be done without first installing Darwin. The only thing Darwin is doing for you here is setting the partition as active or bootable. You can simply use Disk Utility 'Restore' to copy to a fresh hfs+ partition and then set this new partition as 'active' or 'bootable' using fdisk: sudo fdisk -e /dev/rdisk1 - You must substitue the correct device name for the new disk. At the prompt type: print - You should see a table with one row for every partition. Figure out which is the partition you intend to make bootable, note the number, n, of the partition (likely 1), and type: flag n. Then type: write, then: exit. Now you should be able to boot from the disk with the new partition."

 

in my case, i set my vmware image to primary (rdisk0) and my 30gb hdd to secondary (rdisk1). so after the restore, i do the fdisk command to my 30gb hdd (rdisk1).

[bend]

Ok here's an easy way that's not techy, but it's not cheap either. It requires 3 hard disks (i used 2 sata drives and one ide) and a usb hard disk caddy. (i used an sata usb2 caddy).

 

1. load deadmoo on a small hard drive, as per the excellent instructions posted on: http://www.osx86.theplaceforitall.com/howto/

However be aware that there is an error located in the code. I can't recall exactly where (sorry) but all it entails is removing a space from the code provided. When I can remember i will post the exact code. If you follow the above guide word for word, watch out for the space issue (it simply won't get past the terminal bit if you don't fix that part) then you will have a 6 gig partioned functioning drive. Here's where my plan takes effect:

 

2. Now do the same thing again to another hard disk. Follow the prior guide, only this time do not mount the new drive.

 

3. Get yourself the final (3rd) hard disk that you want the full capacity os install to live on (most likely your biggest / fastest drive). Attach the 2 additional drives to your macbox. Boot into the already configured os x disk (see step 1) then use disk utility to transfer / back up the (step 2'd) second os disk to the final destination disk. (This only works on non active / running) os disks. Repair disk permissions on the 3'rd drive then power down the computer. Remove the other 2 disks, so that alll you have connected as your master disk. is the final - 'transfered to' hard disk.

 

4. Boot from your new drive to see that it has installed to the full hard disk. (You can partiion to any size above 6 gigis during step 3 if required.) Now follow the http://www.osx86.theplaceforitall.com/howto/ speed up tips on your new system.

 

Note: this method will erase all data on all drives used, but you will have 1 full capacity drive + a back up drive to restore from if you have issues with installing new software (like itunes / quicktime updates). You can also clone out as many 'backups' as required.

 

Hope this helps, it's been a few weeks since i did this, so my memory is a little vague.