Yosemite, Boot Camp, Windows 8.1 - Resizing Partition Guide

Hey everyone, I had some success with this so I thought I would share:
What you Need:
0) familiarity with the command line, HD partitioning, linux, and lots of nerve.
1) Yosemite
2) A successful installation of Windows via Boot Camp (I was using 8.1 and I did the installation after I upgraded to Yosemite, i.e., I did not have a Boot Camp partition before upgrading to Yosemite) <-- Any other type of config may not work with this guide!!
3) A Linux live usb/cd with gparted (I assume you're familiar with linux and gparted and things like that, I'm not going to go into too many details on how to use that OS or its tools)
4) patience and luck
Disclaimer: This can really screw up your system if you fail to follow the directions or you have made the storage gods angry... use at your own risk!
So initially I created a boot camp partition to install Windows 8.1 and after the installation realized I should have allocated more space for Windows. On the OS X side, I opened the graphical diskutil and discovered I could not resize or change either of the partitions - the only thing I could do was delete the boot camp partition which was not a handy option considering the time I put into installing Windows and its subsequent updates.
After some careful googling I found this:
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/134498/unable-to-resize-partitions
Which led me to the solution. From a terminal run: 'diskutil corestorage list' (without the quotes) to get a list of the logical volumes, groups, and physical disks that OS X created after using boot camp. The information you will need is the UUID of the logical volume (not the logical volume group or family). You are then going to use the undocumented command 'diskutil corestorage resizeStack' with the UUID of the logical volume in order to change the size of the volumes and physical disk. In my case, I wanted to shrink my remaining OS X partition by 40GB and give that to Windows. Again from the terminal run:
'diskutil corestorage resizeStack UUID XXXg' where UUID is the 32 digit identifier of the logical volume and XXX is the desired new size of the disk (e.g., 350g for 350 GB).
After a few moments, it will finish and in diskutil you should see an amount of unallocated space. You still can't do anything with it here, but at least it's visible. Reboot into OS X again just to feel confident that you haven't screwed anything up, yet. It did seem to take slightly longer to reboot into OS X this one time, but everything turned out ok
Now using a linux live usb drive, boot into your favorite brand of linux and run gparted. You should see your unallocated space sandwiched between your OS X partition (which gparted may or may not formally 'see') and the NTFS Windows partition. Simply move the Windows partition over to occupy the unallocated space and extend it to the end of drive and you're done. My version of gparted warned me that Windows may not boot after I do this, but for me, it worked fine and booted into Windows properly the first time. If Windows doesn't boot, you'll need a Windows install on a usb stick (you should have one from your boot camp installation right?) and then you'll need to repair the disk (there are many helpful guides that go through this very thing - just google it).
It worked for me flawlessly, good luck!

ashtastic wrote:
Now using a linux live usb drive, boot into your favorite brand of linux and run gparted. You should see your unallocated space sandwiched between your OS X partition (which gparted may or may not formally 'see') and the NTFS Windows partition. Simply move the Windows partition over to occupy the unallocated space and extend it to the end of drive and you're done.
Everything has worked so far, I have freed up about 75GB that is in between OSX and my 8.1 Bootcamp Partition, however I can't for the life of me seem to make a working Linux USB. How can you make a BOOTABLE (from this retina macbook pro) Live CD with Gparted. What tools/ISO did you use?

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I am a little confused by the back up and restore part. I use SuperDuper to clone OS X. Is it that to be used somehow? I would like instructions on the backup and restore process. Thanks.

So you never tried or tested your SuperDuper backup clones are bootable, and worked when restored?
That really all there is to it in a nutshell.
You can also do other things like use Apple Restore tab in Disk Utility or from TimeMachine. But I prefer SuperDuper.
Your drive doesn't have enough unfragmented contiguous free space and may also have some files at the end of the drive. Installers and such updates tend to fragment and scatter where files are.
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Yes. Windows supports external USB drives.

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I am just beginning to explore the idea of installing Boot Camp & Windows on a new Intel Mac I will be buying. I've been reading a lot of references to the Windows partition...
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Hi Mike,
since only the Mac Pro can have more than one internal HD, I assume you are talking about getting one of them
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On a side note: Windows does not support to be booted from external HDs (neither FireWire nor USB).
Reasonable size depends on what you want to do with it.
Windows XP itself takes up to 3.5GB of HD space after installation, Vista takes up to 10GB.
Add to that the HD space you need for the programs and data you use/produce.
And when keeping in mind the hassle it takes to enlarge the Windows partition if needed, my personal suggestions are:
Windows XP at least 30GB, Vista at least 50GB.
Have you already had a look here http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/ especially at the Installation Guide ?
Regards
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Is Paragon's "HFS+ for Windows" safe to use in Boot Camp Windows &/or Parallel 8 Windows?

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Drivers that came with Apple Boot Camp (or maybe Parallels [8]) enable "read-only" access to HFS+ formatted drives from Boot Camped Windows, but I want to be able to write to the drives, too. I'm worrying about whether something in those Apple (or Parallels) drivers for Windows that makes that possible might also conflict with other software like "HFS+ for Windows," maybe even make a risk of corrupting the HFS+ disk (either external or even the OS X boot partition) so badly that everything on it becomes lost.
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Thanks.

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Hello,
I just recently Boot Camped my Late 2013 Macbook Pro 15 inch so I could play Windows-based games. Everything runs fine, but the only thing that bugs me is the quality of the games, or basically any window. The resolution is fine, everything is proportioned correctly. The taskbar and the blue "frame" that surround the windows are in a crisp, HD quality. But the content inside the windows is soft, and moderately pixelated. For example, when I go the the Google homepage, on Mac, the Google logo is very crisp and looks HD. When I go to the Google homepage on my Boot Camped Windows, the logo is pixelated. Same thing goes for games. Is there any way that I can fix this? To make the games and windows look "better" in a higher quality? Thank you in advance.

The deep search finally finished:
And here's the text version:
MS Data                338695552 651468152 312772601
   MS Data                340391264 653163864 312772601
   MS Data                490233848 803006448 312772601
   MS Data                490233855 803006455 312772601
   Mac HFS                490234708 491504243    1269536
And after continue:
And text:
Disk /dev/rdisk0 - 251 GB / 233 GiB - 490234752 sectors (RO)
     Partition               Start        End    Size in sectors
>D EFI System                    40     409639     409600 [EFI]
D EFI System                    46     409645     409600 [EFI]
D MS Data                 12844161 247217280 234373120
D MS Data                 25922952 338695552 312772601
D MS Data                 27618664 340391264 312772601
D Mac HFS                 97104348 235516637 138412290
D Mac HFS                 97154892 235567181 138412290
D Mac HFS                174921356 176190891    1269536
D Mac HFS                174921727 176191262    1269536
D Mac HFS                174921894 176191429    1269536
D Mac HFS                174922198 176191733    1269536
D Mac HFS                174922470 176192005    1269536
Structure: Ok. Use Up/Down Arrow keys to select partition.
Use Left/Right Arrow keys to CHANGE partition characteristics:

Please help with my Boot Camp/Windows problems

I need to install windows on to my iMac to continue a course I’m taking at uni. Sadly it’s been a nightmare so far.
I backed up all of my data and opened Boot Camp Assistant and tired to partition a section of my hard drive for windows. However it gave me an error each time I tired. After asking around I was told to buy idefrag and that should fix the problem - it didn’t. I was then told to format the hard disk and reinstall OSX. I did that and Boot Camp was now happy to partition my hard drive.
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Windows installation menus open after a quick restart but quickly tells me it cant see any partitions/drives to install on.
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Windows now saw the drive and went through the installation process. After it has gone through its automated routine it restarts the Mac and takes me to a "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD..."
I press Enter and it takes me back to the very first installation menu and restarts the whole thing until it has once again gone through its automated routine and restarted the Mac and told me to press any key.
This happened ever time. During the install I am presented with the options of "Installing Windows" or "repairing windows". When I tried the automatic repair it told me it could find no fault.
So I started again by deleting the partition from within OSX and making a new one and installing windows and restarting but this time remove the windows 7 disk.
All this did was boot the Mac up in OSX. I then restarted the Mac and held down the options key. This presented me with the choice of booting from the Mac HDD or the windows partition. I chose the windows partition and it takes me to a black screen with a flashing line/prompt and does nothing else.
I assumed Windows 7 might not like my Mac for some strange reason so brought a copy of Vista business with SP2 (x86).
I deleting the partition from within OSX and made a new one. I began installing Vista. It told me it could only install on NTFS formatted partitions/drives.
Once again I used NTFS-3G to formatted the partition to NTFS and relaunced vista.
It installed fine and restarted itself. Once again it took me back to the first installation screen just as windows 7 did. I tried restarting without the disk (hold options again) and it took me back to the black screen with the flashing line and sat there forever.
I restarted the Mac with the OSX 10.6.1 install disk in the drive and it booted up ignoring the disk. I launched the disk from desk top and looked through the install options hoping to find some drivers or extra installs for boot camp/windows. I couldn’t see anything.
I don’t know what else to try.
I have a 21.5' iMac:
Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac10,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 3.06 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: IM101.00CC.B00
SMC Version (system): 1.52f9

Re-read in the PDF guide in Boot Camp Assist where it tells you to format the "BOOTCAMP" FAT volume when in Windows.
http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp
But I have really only one question:
Was this an electronic school download edition? they offer students Windows 7 Pro. If this was an electronic version from school, fine, but it has to be burned at *reduced 2x speed* or it won't work, and can have various (and different for everyone) problems, BUT: it is pretty well known and semi "documented."
You do NOT need NTFS driver. That is totally wrong.
Sorry you bought Vista, I used it but once Windows 7 went Beta and then RC I've used 7 and never looked back (what Vista should/could have been but was not, even with SP2).

Boot Camp Won't Let Me Partition

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None that I know of. If you have access to an external hard drive, go ahead with the backup. This way, you have a fallback no matter what happens.
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You could also experiment with creating a smaller Boot Camp volume. What the Assistant is looking for is an unbroken string of free space blocks--something between 5 GB and whatever your chosen partition size might be. Strange as it might sound, depending on your habits as a user, you might not have that unbroken string even when you have something like 100 GB free.
Hopefully, I've pointed you in a good direction here, though you may disagree with the solutions offered. They are simply the only known methods for dealing with this issue.
Nate

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Hey HairLikeSnow and welcome to the forum -
I have never setup BootCamp on my machine but I've set it up for others a couple times and each time I had the [*Boot Camp Installation & Setup Guide*|http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/bootcampinstall-setup.pdf] handy. I can't believe I just got lucky. Perhaps you should take a look by clicking the link I provided and see if there's a flaw in your procedure.
I hope this helps -GDF

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Running diskutil on /dev/disk0 reports the following:
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUIDpartitionscheme *465.8 Gi disk0
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2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 404.9 Gi disk0s2
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Short of reinstalling OS X, is there anything else I can do to remove this partially-created partition and claim back my disc space?
Message was edited by: m0thr4

Fixed it by backing everything up in Time Machine, booting off the installation DVD, erasing my main HDD (which brought its capacity back to 465GB) and then performing a restore from the last full backup.

Urgent, HELP! Boot Camp Windows 7 installation?

Hey Forum.
I am using snow leopard on Macbook, and I wanted to install windows 7 using boot camp, and when I finish partitioning, I plug in my ext. hdd with windows 7 in it and then i clicked start installation, but then they say that can only use install dvd. So forum, is there anyway i can install windows 7 using it's install dvd in ext.hdd?
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There's an entire forum area devoted to Boot Camp:
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=237

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your router, your Windows firewall, you are using something other than Windows Defender (8) or Essentials (7), something else on the cable.
you had a storm and the modem is on life support and your ISP can login and see what errors the modem is showing, you don't have network surge protection (APC tend to interfere, Cyberpower tend to work).
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Besides Apple and Windows, some drivers are or often still needed - manually.

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Hello,
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dmk.sys
HdAudio.sys
ksthunk.sys
portcls.sys
SysFxUI.dll
WMALFXGFXDSP.dll
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Is the volume Muted? The Mac has an Audio database of devices and volumes in NVRAM, so an SMC Reset or PRAM reset might help. Please see this link for appropriate keys Startup key combinations for Intel-based Macs - Apple Support.

Yosemite, Boot Camp, Windows 8.1 - Resizing Partition Guide

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