Question about resizing partitions and Boot Camp

[tomdkat]

So, we recently got a Mac-mini with Mac OS X 10.5 and Windows XP both installed. Boot Camp is used to switch between the two OSes. The Mac-mini has a 60GB HDD in it, that is basically split in half. 30GB was reserved for Mac OS X and 30GB for Windows XP.

What I want to do is replace the 60GB HDD with a 120GB or 160GB HDD and make the Mac OS X partition larger, leaving the Windows XP Partition alone. I still want to use Boot Camp to boot between the two OSes.

My current plan is to:

• Get the larger HDD
• Connect the new HDD to the Mac-mini using an external USB HDD enclosure
• Clone the current partitions onto the new HDD
• Use a partition tool to resize the Mac OS X partition
• Install the new HDD in the Mac-mini and hope it still boots.

My questions:

1. Can partitions be resized in the manner I describe above and not adversely impact Boot Camp?
2. Can someone recommend a good partition tool that runs on Mac OS X?
3. Are there any glaring holes in my plan?

Thanks!

Peace...

[djackmac]

You can make and image of your bootcamp partition with Winclone and save the image to an external HD. After installing the new drive and restoring your OSX OS and data from your time machine backup, just use bootcamp setup assistant to size the bootcamp partition any size you want but still allowing more than enough room for OSX side, then just restore the image with Winclone and all your data and settings will be back exactly as they were.

[tomdkat]

Thanks for the info! I've never used Time Machine before but I do know it's a backup tool. You mention restoring data from the Time Machine backup. Would I configure Time Machine to backup to some external drive or something so after re-installing OS X, I could restore it? Unfortunately, I didn't get the OS X Leopard install DVD with the system so I would prefer not having to re-install OS X if at all possible. Or am I misunderstanding "restoring your OSX OS"?

Thanks!

Peace...

[djackmac]

Sorry to tell you but you are going to have a real hard time without an installer DVD. I guess for the OSX side you can download Carbon Copy Cloner to image the Mac side, but you will at least need another machine with enough HD capacity to copy the image of your drive onto. Or your other option is to use disk utility on another Mac to make a disk image of the OSX side of the Mini and to restore from.

[tomdkat]

Well, I've got the OS X and Windows partitions moved to the new drive but I haven't tried to fully boot from it yet.

I ended up doing this:

1. Connected 250GB HDD via external USB enclosure
2. I used Disk Utility to create two partitions on the 250GB drive, sized the way I want
3. I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the OS X partition on the internal HDD to the OS X partition on the external HDD
4. I used WinClone to make a backup of the Windows bootcamp partition to a Dmg file on the OS X partition on the external HDD
5. I used WinClone to restore the backup of the Windows bootcampp partition from the Dmg file to the Windows partition I created on the external HDD

After doing that, I was able to boot OS X from the external HDD and it booted fine. When the system was booted from the internal HDD, the OS X and Windows partitions on BOTH drives appear in the "Startup Disk" utility. When I boot the system and press the Alt key (I have a 101-key US USB keyboard) to access the Bootcamp boot menu (to boot OS X or Windows), I see the OS X and Windows partitions on the internal drive and the OS X partition on the external HDD but not the Windows partition on the external HDD.

Must I need to do something else to make the Windows bootcamp partition on the external HDD recognized as bootable?

Once I get the OS X and Windows bootcamp partitions recognized as bootable on the external HDD, I'll replace the current 60GB internal HDD with the 250GB external one and I should be done with this project.

Thanks!