straight_up
Registered
OK, this is a complicated problem, but could possibly have an easy fix.
(Note, I have always been a Windows user until this June but have adapted fairly quickly. Also, I'm no dummy.)
Background:
So this is what I did:
Then I tried this plan:
So essentially I'm in a pickle.
Any ideas how to repartition my drive without losing data?
help is MUCH appreciated!
(Note, I have always been a Windows user until this June but have adapted fairly quickly. Also, I'm no dummy.)
Background:
- I have an external 250GB USB HD, partitioned so:
- ~130GB FAT32 for files from an older PC; lots of room still available
- ~25 GB NTFS, unused
- ~25GB FAT32, FAT32, used to back up things, but available to use.
- I Boot Camped my 80GB MacBook Pro (Fat32)
- I decided to put all my important files on the FAT partition, so they would be accessible to both OSes w/o any extra software required.. This also worked nicely because I was able to get Firefox *and* iTunes to reference the SAME DATA from both OSes, meaning my bookmarks, cookies, music, and ratings were the same in Win and in Mac
- This was working great, but my ~19GB partition was filling up fast. I wanted to increase the size of the Windows/Fat partition (and obviously shrink the mac partition).
So this is what I did:
- Copied the Windows partition to the external hard drive (the third partition, but subsequently moved onto the large partition)
- Used Boot Camp to make get rid of the Win partition
- Attempted to repartition the harddrive using Boot Camp, but got errors saying something like:
- Some files could not be moved
- (when trying again) Errors; please fix by booting from mac install cd
- (after doing just that) Some files could not be moved
Then I tried this plan:
- I got the idea I could backup my Mac partition, too, as an image. I would then use Disk Utility to repartition the internal hard disk, and restore from the image for the Mac partition. Then I'd restore the files on the Fat partition.
- As a test, I made images of by external hard drive partitions and saved them to my Mac partition. However, I was never able to restore from these. Scanning them resulted in an error, and when I went to Restore, the second field was never an option -- it was grayed out. ??
- I also could not "Erase" any external partitions to make them HSF+ partitions
So essentially I'm in a pickle.
Any ideas how to repartition my drive without losing data?
help is MUCH appreciated!