[SOLVED] Dual Boot Macbook (rEFIt) drive resize?

becatlibra · 2012-06-30 18:27:50

Wasn't sure where to post this. Installation seemed the most appropriate.

I currently have a Macbook setup to dual boot OSX / Arch using rEFIt. It has been running fine for many, many months however now I wish to resize the partitions to give OSX some more room (for my wife). I wanted to get a sanity check on my plan and any advice/tips that I can before proceeding.

Once I begin, I will not have web access if my planned method fails as my desktop is currently in pieces (waiting to rebuild with new RAID but need ECC RAM so it's still not finished). Therefore, I'd like to have a solid plan in place.

The partition layout is as follows

| OSX | SWAP | ARCH |

Overall, I'm thinking that I need to take the following steps:

1) use gparted live to shrink the ARCH partition (to the right) and then move swap to the right, leaving space between OSX and SWAP.

2) reboot into OSX install disk

3) use Disk Utility to grow the OSX partition

A few things that I am unsure of:

1) when I reboot after using gparted, I assume that grub will need to be reinstalled/fixed? when should this step be done?

2) will I simply be able to redetect/align partitions from the rEFIt menu on boot or will I need to do this some other way?

I'll admit, I could be missing major things. I'd honestly like more detailed instructions with contingency plans, however I'm just unsure of the process overall. It was a bit of a hassle getting it to work correctly in the first place. If someone could please review my 'process' and either make suggestions or outline the process in more detail (or outline a better process) I would be most appreciative.

Thanks

B

Last edited by becatlibra (2012-07-13 14:48:51)

litemotiv · 2012-06-30 19:20:05

All this trouble only to gain the space now occupied by swap?

If i were you, i think i would start using some form of network or free online storage to stash less needed data.

becatlibra · 2012-06-30 19:25:40

Actually the drive is a 750G. I don't just want to gain the space used by swap. I plan on moving around 150 gigs from the ARCH partition to the OSX partition. I do use online storage as well (300G via SpiderOak) however that is really irrelevant to the question.

Please if anyone can peer review my process and let me know if I missed any steps or details and answer the questions, I would appreciate it.

Thanks

B

Last edited by becatlibra (2012-06-30 19:28:21)

litemotiv · 2012-06-30 19:34:16

Then why not shrink Arch to the left and create an extra 150G partition for OSX?

becatlibra · 2012-06-30 22:05:41

I'm really not looking for entirely alternate solutions. The reason for not making an extra partition for OSX would be that I simply want everything on one mount point. I do not wish to have multiple mount points to contend with.

I really need someone to simply look through the instructions I provided, and help as I have asked. While I appreciate you taking the time to respond to a forum post, your answers are not really answers but rather questions about the validity of my questions.

-B

litemotiv · 2012-07-01 09:15:42

becatlibra wrote:

I really need someone to simply look through the instructions I provided, and help as I have asked.

You really need to start paying us more for that.

I wanted to get a sanity check on my plan

No you didn't.

If i didn't smell an overly complex solution for a potentially simple problem, i wouldn't have responded in the same way. But since you're not really a newbie you already know that ofcourse.

Good luck!

becatlibra · 2012-07-02 14:29:54

No, I am not a newbie. I've been using linux since my first install of RH7.2 back in the day.

Your responses in this thread have been the singly most unhelpful advice I have ever received on this forum. "...start paying us more for that." ... I cannot believe an arch user would post somethings so snarky and rude in a forum. You do realize for forums are places to give and receive help and not simply to post lulzy pics, and throw out a random opinion of how the help someone is seeking is silly or not the direction they should be going in? Your final response reminds me more of a Gentoo forum type response. If ever there has been someone I wish had never responded to a post, it is you sir.

-B

Inxsible · 2012-07-02 15:06:47

alright, before this gets out of hand.

becatlibra, feel free to ignore litemotiv's advice if you want, but you didn't mention in your 1st post that you weren't looking for alternative solutions and so they were offered. They might not be what you want but they could be solutions. Not everyone is going to agree with you.

litemotiv, please refrain from posting once it's clear that the op is not interested in any other solution except verification of his own.

becatlibra · 2012-07-13 14:48:28

This ended up not working out quite as easily as I had hoped. Once the space was freed up, OSX's 'Disk Utility' (DiskUtility.app) could do nothing with the free space. Once booted from the installation DVD, I loaded the Disk Utility and when trying to grow the HFS+ partition, I got the following error:

"MediaKit reports no such partition"

I imagine this has something to do with the wonky partitioning required to use both OSX and Arch (using rEFIt). Either way, I tried quite a few fixes including using the command line (found here: http://apple.stackexchange.com/question … partition) which resulted in an error about a wrapper partition.

Ultimately, I bought 'iPartition', created a boot DVD (their templates won't work on a CD even though the MB size is small enough) and resized that way. The circular representation of the partitions seemed silly (rather than linear) and I ended up having to wait for it to move a partition which it shouldn't have needed to but there was no way, with the interface they have, to avoid it - this took over 8 hours. In the end, things are good now though!

Arch Linux

#1 2012-06-30 18:27:50

[SOLVED] Dual Boot Macbook (rEFIt) drive resize?

#2 2012-06-30 19:20:05

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Macbook (rEFIt) drive resize?

#3 2012-06-30 19:25:40

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Macbook (rEFIt) drive resize?

#4 2012-06-30 19:34:16

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Macbook (rEFIt) drive resize?

#5 2012-06-30 22:05:41

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Macbook (rEFIt) drive resize?

#6 2012-07-01 09:15:42

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Macbook (rEFIt) drive resize?

#7 2012-07-02 14:29:54

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Macbook (rEFIt) drive resize?

#8 2012-07-02 15:06:47

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Macbook (rEFIt) drive resize?

#9 2012-07-13 14:48:28

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Macbook (rEFIt) drive resize?

Board footer