Partition a hard disk without losing data

May 01, '06 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

Have you ever wanted to partition your disk without re-formatting your hard drive? Now you can, with the help of the Boot Camp Assistant.

Download and install Boot Camp Assistant and run it. You do not have to burn the Macintosh Drivers CD since you are not installing XP. Follow the instructions until after the disk partitionning screen. Instead of installing XP, click Restart. Now you have an un-mounted XP partition.

Next, boot your Mac with the Tiger Installation CD and run Disk Utility. Click on the XP partition (it has a weird name with letters and numbers) and click Erase. Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the format and write a name for the partition. Then, click Security Options... and check Zero Out Data. After that, click Erase and wait for Disk Utility to finish. Now you can either install Mac OS on this partition or restart your computer. (You may have to mount the volume with Disk Utility.)

Note: If you get a message asking for your password, or saying that you don't have sufficient privileges when you try to access your newly-created partition after restarting your computer, Control-click the partition and select Get Info, expand the Ownership & Permissions section, and check Ignore ownership on this volume and select Read & Write permissions.

[kirkmc adds: Naturally, you should back up your data before doing this. (Which begs the question of whether it is worth doing in the first place; you can just back up your data and partition the main drive, then copy the backup back...) Also, there's a chance you may not be able to un-partition or re-partition the drive without Boot Camp.]

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