Booting an existing partition in virtualbox

Im not sure if here is the right place to this question but,
I have a win7 64bit in a partition of my hd (actually win7 have 2 partitions that belongs to it, one of 100mb and the bigger one).
On another partition i have arch x64.
Im using mbr and both of the operating systems are configured for dual booting as well. Using syslinux.
Well, i want to run this windows in virtualbox and keeping the option to do the separeted boot.
I've found a couple of tutorials around the web, but none of them was for arch and they didnt work for me.
Is there a guide to do that with arch linux?

<off-topic>
Speaking of windows and its finicky nature on various hardware, I have something (kind of) related that I was curious about. My machine came with and oem copy of w7 home prem. Of course, an oem copy is just a copy that is extra restricted and tied to a particular machine for life. So when I needed windows for something a couple months back, I decided to try to install it in virtualbox, since it would just be easy. I figured I only really needed windows for a couple days, so if it wasn't accepted through their registration process I would be done before the trial period ended. But to my surprise, it seemed to somehow find that it was on the correct machine and my activation key was accepted.
So is there a way in which virtualbox is able to pass along information from the underlying hardware to the virtual machine? Can anybody shed any light on why that seemed to work, when I have read report after report of people having to argue with microsoft about the vailidity of their installation?
I'm not looking for a discussion here... as I don't want to derail this thread. But I was just perplexed by this.
<off-topic>

Similar Messages

Booting from a partitioned drive

I have 1,5 TB drive and want to create 2 partitions. One for cloning using Super Duper and second back up by data files. Is this possible? Because I read that Apple doesn't officially support booting from Apple partition map on Intel Macs and doesn't allow to install the OS X.
Thanks,

Well, after using disc utility, I had a bad luck... kernel panic during the partition. And the computer panics anytime the drive is plugged in. Firewire and USB. I tried my other computer .... the same thing. That means the drive is dead!
Oh Well...
Here is the error:
Wed May 13 09:40:58 2009
panic(cpu 2 caller 0x001F9445): "jnl: mod block start: bufsize 512 not a multiple of block size 4096\n"@/SourceCache/xnu/xnu-1228.9.59/bsd/vfs/vfs_journal.c:2282
Backtrace (CPU 2), Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)
0x8d8af2a8 : 0x12b4f3 (0x45b13c 0x8d8af2dc 0x1335e4 0x0)
0x8d8af2f8 : 0x1f9445 (0x46c6e4 0x200 0x1000 0x0)
0x8d8af348 : 0x332a34 (0x9e55d10 0x7ccc7a80 0x0 0x200)
0x8d8af3e8 : 0x33be77 (0xc140004 0x1 0x0 0x8d8af778)
0x8d8af7a8 : 0x33443e (0xc140004 0xa151804 0x0 0x0)
0x8d8af8b8 : 0x335ea6 (0x0 0xb6b0364 0x0 0x0)
0x8d8af9a8 : 0x1f5d9f (0xa97a258 0x1049d8c0 0xbffffdc4 0x0)
0x8d8af9f8 : 0x1df47f (0xa97a258 0x1049d8c0 0xbffffdc4 0x0)
0x8d8aff28 : 0x1dfb40 (0xadb7ba4 0x8d8aff48 0xb6b02a4 0x1)
0x8d8aff78 : 0x3df460 (0xadb7ba4 0xb6b0260 0xb6b02a4 0x0)
0x8d8affc8 : 0x1a0887 (0xb3d97a0 0x0 0x1a30b5 0xa25e640)
No mapping exists for frame pointer
Backtrace terminated-invalid frame pointer 0xbffffe18
BSD process name corresponding to current thread: mount_hfs
Mac OS version:
9G55
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 9.6.0: Mon Nov 24 17:37:00 PST 2008; root:xnu-1228.9.59~1/RELEASE_I386
System model name: MacPro3,1 (Mac-F42C88C8)
Message was edited by: Girshon Rutstein

If I erase and install will it remove my Boot Camp XP partition to?

Hi I got a new iMac at Xmas, 1st one ever, Im loving it!
Ive been messing about installing stuff, settings etc, I have set up my Boot Camp partition with X on and its working great. I havent run Time Machine yet as I knew I was going to be "testing" OS X out.
So what I really think I should do is wipe it all clean, get the OS X updates (v10.5.2 etc) and then do a backup and start afresh.But what will happen to my Boot Camp partition? will this get erased as well?
If so there is a free app called WinCLone that I could back it up with 1st I suppose, but am unsure if this works well?
So can someone help please? the only thing I need to backup ff OS X 1st is my iTunes music, as I finally have beenorganising it all with art, tags etc. this will just go onto a USB external HDD i have
cheers

I saw you said 32GB for your Boot Camp partition, I presume you formatted in FAT32. If this is the case, Winclone _will not_ work. It only works with NTFS partitions. I have used it before to resize my boot camp partition.
On a side note for anyone whom is trying to resize or change their file system on their BootCamp partition, your FAT32 partition can be converted to NTFS directly from Windows. This will allow the usage of Winclone (http://www.twocanoes.com/winclone/).
+1. Click Start, point to *All Programs*, point to Accessories, and then click *Command Prompt*.+
+2. At the command prompt, type the following, where drive letter is the drive that you want to convert:+
+*convert drive letter: /fs:ntfs*+
+For example, type the following command to convert drive E to NTFS:+
+*convert e: /fs:ntfs*+
+Note If the operating system is on the drive that you are converting, you will be prompted to schedule the task when you restart the computer because the conversion cannot be completed while the operating system is running. When you are prompted, click YES+
You can now use Winclone to make an image of the existing partition. Then use BootCamp to delete the existing partition and create a new larger partition.

Windows Won't Boot after resizing partition

I am having problems with Windows not rebooting after I resized partition to reduce Mac side and increase Windows side. I do not see the BootCamp partition labelled as such while running disk utility. Upon startup, the Windows partition shows up when I boot up while pressing the ALT key. However, when I try to run Windows, it says " error loading operatig system".
I also followed instruction and went through to run gdisk successfully. Results towards the end.
What can be done? Windows still does not boot and It shows ? Suspicious MBR at sector 0.
Below is information based on typical questions asked here.....
diskutil list
/dev/disk0   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE        IDENTIFIER
   0:              GUID_partition_scheme                        *120.0 GB     disk0
   1:                                           EFI                         209.7 MB     disk0s1
   2:                         Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            78.5 GB     disk0s2
   3:                       Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB     disk0s3
   4:                   Microsoft Basic Data                         31.7 GB      disk0s4
sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0
gpt show: disk0: mediasize=120034123776; sectorsize=512; blocks=234441648
gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 234441647
      start       size            index       contents
          0          1                             MBR
          1          1                             Pri GPT header
          2         32                            Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600           1            GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640 153240016      2            GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
153649656    1269544     3            GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
154919200   17628896
172548096   61892608    4            GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
234440704        911
234441615         32                       Sec GPT table
234441647          1                        Sec GPT header
sudo fdisk /dev/disk0
Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 14593/255/63 [234441648 sectors]Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [     start -       size]
1: EE    0   0   2 - 1023 254 63 [         1 - 172548095] <Unknown ID>
*2: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 172548096 -   61892608] HPFS/QNX/AUX
3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
sudo gdisk /dev/disk0
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.7
Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Partition table scan:
MBR: hybrid
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present
Found valid GPT with hybrid MBR; using GPT.
Command (? for help): r
Recovery/transformation command (? for help): h
WARNING! Hybrid MBRs are flaky and dangerous! If you decide not to use one,
just hit the Enter key at the below prompt and your MBR partition table will
be untouched.
Type from one to three GPT partition numbers, separated by spaces, to be
added to the hybrid MBR, in sequence: 4
Place EFI GPT (0xEE) partition first in MBR (good for GRUB)? (Y/N): y
Creating entry for GPT partition #4 (MBR partition #2)
Enter an MBR hex code (default 07):
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): y
Unused partition space(s) found. Use one to protect more partitions? (Y/N): n
Recovery/transformation command (? for help): o
Disk size is 234441648 sectors (111.8 GiB)
MBR disk identifier: "DELETED INFO"
MBR partitions:
Number Boot Start Sector   End Sector   Status      Code
   1                               1    172548095   primary     0xEE
   2           *     172548096    234440703   primary     0x07
Recovery/transformation command (? for help): w
Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING
PARTITIONS!!
Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): y
OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to /dev/disk2.
Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Warning: The kernel may continue to use old or deleted partitions.
You should reboot or remove the drive.
The operation has completed successfully.

So here's what I think happened. Upon resizing the OS X volume, a 5th partition was created. When that happens, diskutil removes the hybrid MBR that's needed to activate the EFI firmware CSM (BIOS emulator) which is still presently used for booting Windows on Apple hardware. Upon removing the hybrid MBR, Windows is no longer bootable. So what you probably did was used Disk Utility to reverse what you did by deleting the extra partition. When you do this, diskutil recreates the hybrid MBR but with the wrong partition type code. It sets it to 0x0C, and therefore thinks it's FAT32, whereas it should be 0x07 for NTFS. Disk Utility will then let you run a disk check on what it erroneously thinks is a FAT32 volume, but is in fact NTFS. If any writes are done, which it appears is the case, it corrupts the NTFS file system.
So this is just yet another Bootcamp data loss story, without any warning in either documentation or Disk Utility whatsoever.
What version of OS X is this?
The easiest, but most tedious thing to do is to totally start over with everything: obliterate the entire drive with Disk Utility making 1 partition only, reinstalling OS X and files from backups, use Bootcamp Assistant to resize the OS X volume the way you really want it, reinstall Windows and restore from its backup. All of that can be done in the GUI.
You might still use the Windows install disk to run Windows startup repair. It might fix the Bootcamp volume. The remaining problem in that case is what to do with the large pile of free space, but I'll make those suggestions later once you get to that point.
If Windows startup repair can't fix the Bootcamp volume, and you don't have a backup, then you'll need to download and install testdisk, and read how to use it to try and find your data. It's an iterative process. Once that's done, while it probably won't fix it and make it bootable again, you'll have a basic backup of files. The remaining thing to do is use gdisk remove the broken Windows partition, make a new one that also includes free space you presumably wanted Windows to have, and make a new hybrid MBR adding partitions 2 3 4. Then reinstall Windows, your apps, and restore your data from backups.
So that's the gist. Ask if you have more questions.

[SOLVED] UEFI system booting from MBR partition table and GRUB legacy

I'm trying to understand once and for all the process by which Arch can be booted from a system with UEFI firmware and an MBR partition table. Some of the information on the wiki seems conflictual / non-nonsensical at times. Apologies in advance if this has been answered time and time again, but I did search around and all I found was fixes to get Arch to boot rather than comprehensive explanations of the boot process.
Now, the way I would imagine it works is that it's just completely identical to the way it would work with a BIOS firmware. The UEFI firmware detects an MBR partitioning scheme (or is configured to know it's an MBR partitioning scheme), activates some "legacy" mode and executes the MBR boot code, just like a BIOS firmware would.
The wiki however, says different. From the Macbook article: "Do not install GRUB onto /dev/sda !!! Doing so is likely to lead to an unstable post-environment."?
So what is there in the MBR boot sector? Nothing?
How does the firmware know what to boot if there's no 0xEF BIOS boot partition and no Grub stage 1 in the MBR boot sector?
Also, how does installing Grub stage 1 to a partition work? Does it have to be at the beginning of the partition? Wouldn't that overwrite some existing data?
I'm especially puzzled since many guides to installing Vista on a macbook recommend simply formatting as MBR, and installing as normal, which I suppose entails having the Windows installation process write its boot code to the MBR, ie the equivalent of installing grub stage 1 to /dev/sda rather than to the /boot partition, as the Macbook article suggests.
Any input is appreciated.
P.S. I realize it's probably simpler, if I just want to dual boot Windows and Arch, to install Windows 7 in UEFI-GPT mode, let it create the EFI System Partition, and then install GRUB 2 to that partition, but I'm still curious about the UEFI-MBR boot process.
Last edited by padavoine (2012-06-06 09:35:10)

padavoine wrote:
CSM in UEFI firmwares do the exact same job as normal BIOS firmware.
So it's something specific to the Mac that it's able to boot from a partition's VBR while ignoring the MBR?
The reason that warning is given is because grub-legacy modifies more than just the MBR boot code region. It can overwrite some parts of GPT header.
Not true, the instruction is given in the context of an MBR format, not in the context of a GPT format, so there's nothing to overwrite and Stage 1.5 should be safely embeddable in the post-MBR gap.
In BIOS boot (normal case in non-UEFI firmwares or CSM in UEFI firmwares) does not read the partitition table (atleast it is supposed to be dumb in this regard), it simply launches whatever boot code exists in the 1st 440-byte of the MBR region.
So again, you're saying it's specific to the Mac UEFI that it lets you choose a partition whose VBR to load, regardless of what's in the MBR?
I haven't used Macs so I can't comment on Mac firmware behaviour. But normal BIOS firmwares (legacy and CSM) launch only the MBR boot code and not the partition boot code. We need some chainload capable boot manager in the MBR to launch the partition VBR.
grub-legacy does not know anything about GPT. So when you install grub-legacy to /dev/sda, it install the MBR boot code (stage1) and stage 1.5 code to the (supposed) post MBR gap. Since there is no actual post MBR gap in GPT (which has been taken over by the header and partition table), grub-legacy does not check for GPT and it assumes the post MBR gap actually exists which is invalid in case of GPT. grub-legacy embeds the stage 1.5 code in GPT header and table region (which grub assumes to be unused post MBR gap) and thus corrupts it.
0xEF is the MBR type code for UEFISYS partition. grub stage 1 (used in grub-legacy, not in grub2) is the 440-byte boot code stored in MBR for use in BIOS boot.
That's precisely my point: with neither proper executable code in the MBR (since grub was installed to a partition, not to the MBR) nor a UEFI system partition, what does the firmware default to, and how does it know what partition to boot from?
In that case it might fallback to UEFI Shell (if it exists) or give an error similar to the case where BIOS does not find any bootable code in 440-byte MBR region.
So even with bootcamp/CSM, the disk also needs to be MBR partitioned. So Macs use something called "Hybrid GPT/MBR" ( http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html ) where the MBR table is synced to match the first 3 partitions in the GPT table.
I know what Bootcamp does, and that's not what I was referring to. I was referring to standalone Vista installs. I wasn't puzzled at the fact that they were using MBR, I was puzzled at the fact that contrary to the recommendations for the standalone Arch install on the wiki (with MBR partitioning, not GPT), they didn't do anything to try and prevent Windows from writing to the MBR.
You can't prevent Windows from overwriting the MBR region. You have to re-install the bootloader (grub2/syslinux etc.) after installing Windows. That is the reason why it is recommended to install Windows first and linux later.
Thats not true. I actually find it is much easier to install Windows UEFI-GPT using USB rather than a DVD.
I haven't done it since the only UEFI system I own has no DVD drive, but I was under the impression that it was simply a matter of choosing DVD UEFI boot in the firmware's boot menu.
format the USB as FAT32 and extract the iso to it. That it.
No, thats not it, precisely, it doesn't work out of the box with a standard Windows install USB, you need to fiddle around:
2.3 Extract bootmgfw.efi from [WINDOWS_x86_64_ISO]/sources/install.wim => [INSTALL.WIM]/1/Windows/Boot/EFI/bootmgfw.efi (using 7-zip aka p7zip for both the files), or copy it from C:\Windows\Boot\EFI\bootmgfw.efi from a working Windows x86_64 installation.
2.4 Copy the extracted bootmgfw.efi file to [MOUNTPOINT]/efi/microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi .
Most of the Windows isos already have /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI file, so no need to extract the bootmgfw.efi file.
There is no difference between in BIOS booting in UEFI firmwares and BIOS booting with legacy firmware.
There has to be a difference, at least in the Mac firmware (sorry, I keep switching), since legacy firmware, AFAIK, cannot chainload a bootloader in a partition's VBR without there being some sort of "stage1" code in the MBR.
No idea about Mac EFI. Apple made a spagetti out of UEFI Spec. To actually understand how Mac firmwares work, read the blog posts by Matthew Garrett of Redhat, about his efforts in getting Fedora to boot in Macs.

Boot into existing OS for rescuing it for example

Hi there,
I have a USB stick imaged with ARCH_201108 and I was hoping I can use the kernel on that to boot my existing Arch installation.
/dev/sda1: LABEL="xt" UUID="28a853a7-c93e-41d3-884a-e927c193f362" TYPE="ext4"
However when I try this it doesn't work. http://flic.kr/p/aygmtN
So how do I prepare some sort of rescue disk using Arch?
Many thanks,

I have a USB drive that I carry with me witha 4GB NTFS partition and a full installation of Arch. You need to fire up a working linux system, plug the USB drive in and mount it edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and add the "usb" tag to the HOOKS section, bind mount /sys, /dev, and /proc to its own sys, dev, and proc directories, chroot into it, and run mkinitcpio -p linux. On the console, the session would look something like this:
mount /dec/sdb1 /media/usb
vim /media/usb/etc/mkinitcpio.conf
... add "usb" to the HOOKS section ...
for a in sys dev proc; do mount --bind /$a /media/usb/$a; done
chroot /media/usb
mkinitcpio -p linux
... verify everything went okay ...
exit
for a in sys dev proc ""; do umount /media/usb/$a; done
This will make the Arch vmlinuz usb-aware when it's looking for a root device.
Last edited by synthead (2011-10-25 14:45:06)

How to load Existing partitons with VirtualBox

Howdy to all you Archers,
Does anyone how my existing windows partition in virtualbox ? as VMplayer is out of date in the AUR's
It is just cause on this laptop has pre-loaded XP (legit) and I need to use lastest itunes for my Iphone and photoshop so I can bring my work home.
Cheers

Kewl,
Really apprectiace the you post.
My sda permission is
ls -al /dev/sda
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 0 2009-07-01 00:08 /dev/sda
and my /etc/group file is
root::0:root
bin::1:root,bin,daemon
daemon::2:root,bin,daemon
sys::3:root,bin
adm::4:root,daemon
tty::5:
disk::6:root,myusername
lp::7:daemon,myusername
mem::8:
kmem::9:
wheel::10:root,myusername
ftp::11:
mail::12:
uucp::14:
log::19:root
locate::21:
smmsp::25:
http::33:
games::50:
network:x:90:
video:x:91:myusername
audio::92:myusername
optical::93:hal,myusername
floppy:x:94:hal
storage:x:95:hal,myusername
scanner:x:96:
power:x:98:myusername
nobody::99:
users::100:myusername
dbus:x:81:
policykit:x:102:
hal:x:82:
vboxusers:x:108:myusername
avahi:x:84:
camera:x:97:
gdm:x:109:
myusername:x:1000:
So I think that I have that stuff cover. Is it a commend issue how to tell Virtual Box to read /dev/sda1 not the whole paritition ?
Macy

How do you resize existing partitions on an external hard-drive without deleting their contents?

Hi, I've got an external hard drive (1 GB Western digital) Which I bought with a view to both storage and time-machine functions.
Initially, I partitioned the hard drive such that I had 750 GB for the time-machine segment, and 250 GB for the storage segment.
Now that my storage is approaching the 250 GB limit, and my time machine is only taking up 80 of the alloted 750 GB, I want to transfer some of that space across so that I'll have more room for storage.
When attempting this on disk utility, I can reduce the size of the time machine partition, but I am unable to increase the size of the storage partition.
Can someone please advise what I should do to sort this out without deleting the contents of each partition.
Regards,
Josh

Well, this is not easily answered. You can shrink existing partitions in order to add additional ones. But in order to add space from one partition to another that can only be done by first removing the lower partition first. If that partition has data, then it will be lost. Unfortunately, Disk Utility cannot manipulate partitions in place. You need a third-party utility for that, iPartition 3.4.1.
Now with that said I'll pass on a bit of advice. Do not us your Time Machine backup drive for extra storage. External storage and backups should be kept on separate drives. I suggest you get a separate drive for your storage or Time Machine backups.
If you use Disk Utility you can shrink your Time Machine partition, but the only way to put that space in another partition is to first delete the storage partition, then recreate it with a larger capacity.

How to separately backup the Boot Camp drivers partition from Leopard DVD?

I used Disk Utility and my only (and expensive) DVD+R DL disc to make a backup copy of my Leopard DVD, and it worked perfectly to install Leopard on my MacBook Pro.
However, that was before I learned that the Boot Camp drivers was now on a separate, PC-only partition on the DVD. So while my backup copy works great to install Leopard, I have no backup of the Boot Camp driver CD.
I tried several tricks, including booting into Windows Vista and using PowerISO to attempt to make an ISO image of the Boot Camp driver partition (shows up as 400 MB or so). However, the ISO image generated is a whopping 7.6 GB, same size as the full Leopard DVD. I then tried to take that back into the Mac OS side, but it was "unmountable". Toast 8 was able to make an image of the full DVD that (I'd presume, as did previous versions of Toast) would contain both partitions of an ISO-9660 volume, but when I mounted that disk image with Toast 8, I didn't get the two-mounted-volume like I'd normally expect to see.
I'd really like to know how to backup this volume - I demo this system regularly on my MacBook for clients, and I don't want to have to keep using my nice, pristine Leopard DVD when I have to do my weekly re-install. Any thoughts on how to get a simple extraction of the actual volume used for the Boot Camp drivers?
Thanks much for the time,
MBJ

Hi Stefan,
Thanks for taking the time to reply to my question! Although I think your steps will "work", per se (and I will try them out as soon as I can), I'm something of a purist in regards to my backups and so this method seems a little hackish as opposed to a process that actually images the volume in question (I'm also curious from a technical perspective, as the Boot Camp Assistant Beta used to allow for a dedicated MacintoshDrivers disc to be burned from it—I liked that method better, to be honest).
Thanks again! I'll keep checking back here for other comments, and will let you know how the method you suggested works out.
Best wishes,
MBJ

Repartition a Boot Camp Windows partition

I am trying to restore an Acronis 10 image backup on a Boot Camp Win partition. Acronis does not see the Win partition. I tried Partition Manager 8 to repartition inside the Win partition but PM says it cannot see the drive letters, though its small tools software seem to be ok with that. Has anyone tried to restore an image of another drive on a Boot Camp Win partition ?
Thanks !
Andrei

You may want to post your question in the Boot Camp forums:
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=237

Why can't you encrypt an existing partition?

I've looked around for a tool like ccrypt for partitions but to no avail. In fact I came across a thread on this forum that simply stated it wasn't possible. Why can't you encrypt existing partitions? Or is there a way to do it?

You should look at TrueCrypt. You can use encrypted containers where are essentially encrypted partitions that can also be hidden. TrueCrypt supports on-the-fly disk encryption, this may be what you are looking for.

Howto Reinstall Win XP in an existing partition?

Hi everybody,
I want to reinstall Win xp but I have different partitions in the HD,because I have another OS installed, but the recovery cd will format the entire disk erasing my data.
I know that there's the possibility to reinstall Win in an existing partition with the "expert mode installation" but I don't know how can I do.
Someone can help me please?
thanks
Rick

Hi Rick
On this forum you can use Advanced search option to find some solutions if someone wrote about it before.
Anyway check this please http://forums.computers.toshiba-europe.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2513&tstart=125
Using expert mode you can choose on which partition the Operating system should be installed.

Increasing size of existing partition

My curent Windows XP bootcamp partition is 35 Gigs using FAT. I would like to increase the size to 90 Gigs. I underdstand this requires the NTFS format. Can I increase the existing partition size without starting over? I don't want to reinstall Windows and all the Applications.
Thanks for any help you can provide.

Hi and welcome to Discussions,
to my knowledge the resizing can only be done with NTFS Windows partitions not with FAT32 partitions.
CampTune http://www.paragon-software.com/home/camptune/ would be my choice for the resizing.
You can convert your FAT32 partition to NTFS before doing the resize using these instructions http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B307881&x=3&y=15
For safety reasons you might backup your valuable files from your current Windows before resizing.
Regards
Stefan

Adding subpartitions to existing partition

Can anyone provide me the script to Add subpartitions to existing partition.
Thanks.

use this link
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/itss/docs/oracle/10g/server.101/b10739/partiti.htm

Can't boot from Ubuntu partition after upgrading to Yosemite

When i go to Disk Utility the Ubuntu partition appears as it always have, i had installed since Mavericks refind to boot from any partition. Now refind doesn't work and the alt/option key doesn't work either. Does anyone know a way to fix this?

A extensive report already written is in the Ubuntu stacks as
Dual boot Linux and Yosemite
Basically you need to follow http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/yosemite.html
wherein it explains that Yosemite is using a new LVM bootup from within the Recovery Partitions 10.10.
This messes up REFIT/REFIND tools which have previously installed Partition 1.S
See my current Table below , wherein << are my comments
Current GPT partition table:
#      Start LBA      End LBA Type
1             40       409639 EFI System (FAT)    << old preferred site for REFIT/REFIND tools
2         409640    154061023 Mac OS X HFS+ << main Mac partition
3      154061024    155330559 Mac OS X Boot << Recovery 10.10 , installed by Yosemite update, used to start MAC boot. BUT is not shown by Disk Utility, to prevent its naive deletion which would kill the MAC boot.
4      155330560    156598271 Mac OS X HFS+ << old Recovery 10.9, simply retained
5      157869786    228772129 Unknown << My Ubuntu partition
6      228772130    236765969 Linux Swap << which was shortened by 200 MB to make room for 7)
7      236765970    236974814 Mac OS X HFS+ << installation site of REFIND. Though 4) could have been used, there is a possibility that Apple might have future plans for this small 4) partition.
With 7) created (see detail below), my REFIND install command under MAC, within Downloads/refind-bin-0.8.3/ was:
sudo ./install.sh --alldrivers --ownhfs /dev/disk0s7
There was still required the edit if refind.conf.sample specified in Yosemite.html, which I named refind.conf.edit1
This was copied with:
sudo cp refind.conf.edit1 /Volumes/macefi/System/Library/CoreServices/refind.conf
macefi is my name for the MAC /dev/disk0s7 mount point, equivalent to /dev/sda7 under Linux
CAREFULLY do read Yosemite.html, as the instructions here are too terse by themselves!!!!
There are 2 routes to boot Ubuntu, and then creat 7) with GPARTED
a) If you can access the GRUB shell under an old REFIT/REFIND installation, partitions will be shown by:
grub> ls
Presence of a Linux file system can be confirmed by a command like:
grub> ls (hd0,gpt5)/
Output of
grub > ls (hd0,gpt5)/boot/grub/
should include a grub.cfg file. Then you can boot as usual with
grub > configfile (hd0,gpt5)/boot/grub/grub.cfg
After boot up, start GPARTED
b) Alternatively boot with the Ubuntu install disk, and choose the Demo option
Open a text console, and get admin proviledge with:
$ sudo su
# gparted
Using GPARTED, unmount if necessary any terminal SWAP partition, such as my 6) above
Then shrink the SWAP partition end by a trivial 200 MB,
Create a HFS+ partition in like my 7) for a coming REFIND installation
Note, that a file /etc/fstab contains a SWAP partition specification, which should be edited for automated SWAP start.
# sudo blkid /dev/sda7
will report the SWAP space specs LONG uuid code. This can be copied into memory by dragging the mouse over the uuid
Then SHIFT-CONTROL-C will copy it into memory.   Start an edit with:
$ sudo nano /etc/fstab
delete the old swap uuid, and paste in the replacement with
SHIFT-CONTROl-V
and swap should mount upon reboot, or with:
$ sudo swapon -a
Check with:
$ free
which should report none-zero swap space.

Booting an existing partition in virtualbox

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for