Disk Utility won't resize a partition

Disk Utility won't resize (eliminate smaller partition from a 2-partitioned internal) Hard Drive. This is the message I get:
"Partition failed
Partition failed with the error:
Filesystem resize support required, such as HFS+ with Journaling enabled."
Help files offer no information on this error. I followed the Help instructions to do this operation, but the resize doesn't work. The older, smaller partition shows up in Disk Utility but is dimmed out. It will activate at highlight, but is not recognized on the desktop.
Any suggestions as to how to fix this problem?

Intel based Macs use a different partition scheme called GPL or GUID rather than what PowerPC used, APL.
You could try reformatting, or get a new system, and run BootCamp and Windows even.
Even if you've used Macs for years, there is always a place on my book shelf for this one, David Pogue's "Mac OS X: The Missing Manual (Leopard Edition)"
http://books.slashdot.org/books/08/02/27/1551206.shtml

Similar Messages

Disk Utility won't add new partition

I have an external 250GB hard drive connected via USB to my Mac Mini (Early 2009) computer. The drive has a GUID partition table that was created using Windows Vista SP 1. The first partition on the disk is a 128MB Microsoft Reserved partition. The second partition is a 120GB NTFS partition. When I try to use Disk Utility to partition the remaining 112GB of space as a Mac OS Extended Journaled partition I keep getting an error message stating "MediaKit reports no such partition". How do I get around this bug in Apple's Disk Utility application?

techguy378,
As they always do, Microsoft has undoubtedly created "their own" proprietary implementation of the GUID partition table. The effect, in this particular case, is that Disk Utility cannot see that unused space. That doesn't mean this is a Disk Utility "bug."
If one were to do the same thing with Disk Utility- create 2 partitions on a drive that do not fill the drive- that empty space would be included in the partition map. Simple. In your case, however, it appears that Vista has just excluded that empty space from the map entirely. Neat trick, huh?
I think your only solution will be to add a partition in Vista, if that is possible without destroying the current volumes. You can then reformat the new partition in Disk Utility.
Scott

Disk utility fails to resize portable drive partitions with error message "requested change in size is too small".

I am using a 1TB WD studio passport portable drive with my 2011 MacBook Pro. I have the portable drive partitioned into 4 volumes: 355 GB, 320 GB, 320 GB, & 4 GB. But Disk Utility won't allow me to split the third of those into 160 GB /160 GB. All volumes verify as seeming "to be okay". Seems if Disk Utility could create me a 4GB partition that 160 GB is plenty big enough, right? Something's not right; Can you help me with this please?

What is on those partitions and or the partition you want to split in two?
If you don't have any data on partitions or if you can save it someplace else for the time being then why not just Re-Partition the whole drive into the sizes you now want.

Disk Utility won't partition ext. drive

Hi everyone,
I would like to split my external MyBook Pro drive in two so I can keep Time machine B/ups separate, but Disk utility keeps informing me that there is not enough space! I only want approx 80gb of the remaining 105gb. Where am I going wrong. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Are you willing to erase the contents on the external hard drive? Disk utility won't subdivide existing space, you have to do the entire drive at once. However, there are utilities (I believe they are purchase/commercial only) that will sub partition an existing disk partition.

Disk Utility unable to resize drive

Hi,
I have been trying to resize my boot partition so that it fills the remaing space, however Disk Utility won't sucessfully complete the operation. I have tried the following:
Normal boot - in Disk Utility drag the botton right of the partition to fill remaining space and tap apply. Disk Utility reports that operation has completed, however the partition graphic bounces back to it's previous state.
Boot to Lion Recovery HD - Repeating the above steps, Disk Utility reports an error trying to unmount the drive.
Download Lion Recovery Tool and Boot from USB - Repeating the above steps, Disk Utility reports an error trying to unmount the drive.
I have also tried to use iPartition, but have bot been able to resize the drive. I have a Boot Camp partition which is working fine.
Has anyone had a similiar problem?
Mark

Hi,
No I haven't got a solution for this yet - I'm probably going to have to drop and rebuild the boot camp partition.
Mark

Disk Utility won't let me format external drive to FAT32

Maybe this cannot be done or the answer is simple and I am missing it. I have a 1.5tb Maxtor drive hooked up via fw800. I want to have 120gb of this as Mac OS extended journaled to back up my internal drive via Time Machine. I want the other 1.38tb to be in FAT32 so I can share files between my windows and mac machines. I keep all of my external storage except for the backup partition in FAT32. I have never had an issue until I upgrades to Leopard and now when I click on the larger partition I only have the option for the 4 mac formats-- FAT32 is not available. I can format the entire 1.5tb to FAT32 but once I try and partition it only mac formats are available. I forgot to mention I just did the upgrade to 10.5.1 and the issue is still present.
How do I format the smaller partition as mac os extended journaled and the larger as FAT32? Any help is appreciated.
Thanks so much,
Patrick
PS. I did a search but did not find anything.
Message was edited by: PatrickB

It may depend on the type of partition table scheme you are using (see bottom of page in disk utility for that says Apple Partition Map/APM, GUID Partition table/GPT or Master Boot Record/MBR partition map).
MS-Windows can read MBR scheme only (64 bit MS-Windows supports GPT, according to MS). If you have Apple Partition Map, your disk won't be usable on Windows. I suspect you have APM partition table and hence the disk utility is not giving the option for FAT32 format, since you can't use it under MS-Windows.
On the Mac side, all 3 schemes are readable (for bootability, you'll need APM on PPC Macs, GPT for Intel Macs). Time Machine doesn't need a bootable disk, but I'd suggest APM/GPT if you are using PPC/Intel macs respectively (but I'd think either will work for Time Machine, if you have a mix of Macs).
But here's the catch - Apple says Time Machine won't work with drives with MBR partition map (even though Macs are MBR-aware), so the issue for you is Time Machine's ability to use MBR drives. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306932
I suspect unless you are on an Intel Macs (OS X) and use only 64 bit MS-Windows (using GPT)/Itanium, using the same disk for TM and FAT32 sharing between Mac and Win worlds is not possible. Not the desirable answer.
If you do want to experiment, make a temporary setup and try it out on both Mac side and Windows side first (on all your machines), before making a "production" system. You can select the DISK (first line on Disk Utility for that disk, not second line) and click on Options at the left bottom (it might have to be erased first) and then select the type of partition scheme. Note formats like HFS+/FAT32 are a level lower in the hierarchy than partition map/table.
Let us know what you find out/decide?

Disk Utility: MediaKit reports no such partition

What is up with my disk?
On my brand new mac mini, I played around with resizing partitions in Disk Utility, it worked fine, and I eventually returned it to the original single-partition state.
Then, I ran boot camp, and told it to create a 10 GB partition.
Then, I installed Linux (64-bit Ubuntu) -- from the Linux installer I deleted the windows partition, and a zero-size partition before it, and put Linux swap and ext3 partitions in that space.
Now, from the mac side, if I try to shrink the boot partition again, I get the error "MediaKit reports no such partition".
Help? One potentially related anomaly is that Disk Utility shows my Linux ext3 partition format as "MS-DOS (FAT)" but the "fdisk" command correctly lists it as "Linux files*"
Another disturbing thing is that if I type "sudo pdisk" on the Macintosh command line, and give the 'L' command to list partitions on all disks, pdisk exits with the error "Floating point exception"
Here's the log from Disk Utility:
2007-11-04 00:09:19 -0400: Disk Utility started.
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Preparing to partition disk: “Hitachi HTS541612J9SA00 Media”
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Partition Scheme: GUID Partition Table
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: 3 volumes will be created
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400:
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Partition 1
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Name : “Macintosh HD”
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Size : 90.1 GB
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Do not erase contents
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400:
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Partition 2
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Name : “Linux Swap”
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Size : 488.3 MB
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Do not erase contents
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400:
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Partition 3
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Name : “DISK0S4”
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Size : 10.2 GB
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Filesystem : MS-DOS (FAT32)
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Do not erase contents
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400:
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Modifying partition map.
2007-11-04 00:09:40 -0400: Partition failed for disk Hitachi HTS541612J9SA00 Media MediaKit reports no such partition.
2007-11-04 00:09:41 -0400: Partition complete.
2007-11-04 00:09:41 -0400:
2007-11-04 00:09:41 -0400: Error with partition: MediaKit reports no such partition.

It doesn't sound like you've actually tried reformatting the entire drive, just resizing partitions. There is absolutely no reason why mountability should enter into the picture at all since you can't format a drive if any volumes are mounted.

Can I use the Leopard Disk Utility to repair a Tiger partition?

I have a multi-partition external disk, one partition has Tiger installed on it, while others have Leopard. (I used Leopard to partition the drive and then used SuperDuper! to copy my earlier Tiger backup from another disk to this disk.) Now I find I have errors on the partition with Tiger. Can I use the Disk Utility tool from my Leopard install to repair the Tiger partition? Earlier today I tried to boot from my Tiger install DVD and use the Disk Utility there to repair the partition, but it just hangs up and won't go forward.
thanks,
Chris Altwegg

You could use it, but if Tiger's Disk Utility couldn't fix it, it's doubtful Leopard's would fix it as well. You're better off using Disk Warrior from Alsoft.com.

Desktop or Disk Utility won't show External Hard Drives

The Desktop or Disk Utility won't show 2 of my old external hard drives and so they are currently unsusable. My computer however recognise other external drives.
320GB Western Digital MyBook Premium model number: WD3200D032-000
500 GB Western Digital MyBook Premium model number: WD5000E032
I have same issues both of these external drives.
The blue circle lights come on so power is getting to it.
Tried 2 USB cables, one I know for sure is working - Nothing.
I am using Lion 10.7.4 on a mid 2009 13" MacBook Pro
All efforts to help much appreciated

No they haven't worked on this computer before. I using them on my old MacBook Pro (a computer which is no longer working) which ran Snow Leopard.
The 500GB drive "stopped working" with that old MBP too
But the 320GB drive was always working with old MBP if I remember correctly.
Cheers

Disk utility can't repair a partition on external hard drive

I have a 1TB Western Digital external FW drive that's only a couple years old (2 or 3, probably). I have it split into partitions, one of which I'm using for Time Machine. The non-Time Machine partition checked out fine with DIsk Utility, but when I ran Disk Utility on the Time Machine partition, I received this message:
Disk Utility stopped reparing "Time Machine." Disk Utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
Does this mean the drive itself is failing? I erased the Time Machine partition and recreated it through Disk Utility, and then I verified it. Everything checked out okay, but I want to make sure, especially since I'm hosting my iTunes music in the other partition (it's backed up to a 2nd external drive, so if the drive does die, at least I don't lose everything).
Before this problem happened, both partitions dropped off the Finder and the light on the drive went off. I unplugged the drive and plugged it back in again a couple times, but nothing happened. Finally, the light went back on after plugging it back in for the 3rd or 4th time, but I'm wondering if the drive could be going bad, which would surprise me since it isn't very old.

Brad Cook wrote:
Disk Utility stopped reparing "Time Machine." Disk Utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
Does this mean the drive itself is failing?
Possibly, but not necessarily. The File System on the disk was so badly corrupted that Disk Utility couldn't fix it. That might indicate a problem with the drive. It's not unusual for consumer-quality (ie, inexpensive) drives to fail after 2-3 years, although many will run for several years. It's a bit of a crapshoot.
Before this problem happened, both partitions dropped off the Finder and the light on the drive went off.
Whatever caused that is another good possibility -- if a drive is improperly disconnected, OSX can't "close it out" properly, and that can cause damage to the file system. Sometimes Disk Utility can fix it, sometimes it can't. And sometimes heavy-duty 3rd-party disk repair apps like DiskWarrior can fix things Disk Utility can't.
A power dip or spike could have caused it, or an overheated electronic component, etc. If it has it's own power supply, be sure it's on a good (ie, not cheap) surge protector or U.P.S. system.
Otherwise, keep an eye on it. If you don't have "secondary" backups, this would be an excellent time to get another drive for that purpose. See #27 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for some suggestions.
Bottom line: personally, I'd not trust my only backups to that drive.
(But then, I'd never trust my backups to any single drive, no matter how new or high-quality.)

Disk Utility won't start up in 10.5.3

I have been unable to open up my Disk Utility at all. I was able to do so earlier, perhaps with 10.5.0 while I was mounting my external hard drive. Now, I cannot mount the hard drive, and therefore cannot use Time Machine all because DIsk Utility won't open. I've diagnosed my hardware with "Disk 1" and found no problem. And, I've reinstalled the operating system. Any ideas?

Chris:
I just had the same issue on my son's MacBook. As long as you have a wired keyboard, the following will work.
1. Shut down the computer if it is on.
2. Press the power button to start the computer.
3. Immediately press and hold the Command (Apple) key and the "s" key for single-user mode.
4. Type mount -uw / (then press the Return Key) wait for next line to appear with # root/
(there is a space between t and - and another space between w and /)
5. Then Type "passwd" (without quotation marks then press the Return Key)
6. Enter new password (this will be for the root user account) (watch your fingers when you type because it doesn't show what you are typing, then hit the Return Key after you type it.
It will prompt you to retype the new password again, so retype it again and then hit the Return Key) wait for next line to appear...
7. Then Type "reboot" (without the quotes and hit the Return Key)
after the computer restarts and comes up with the login window....
8. Login with any of your usernames just to get the desktop up.
9. After desktop comes up choose System Preferences, then choose accounts. Unlock if you have to and using the username: root ..... and the password you just setup in the single user mode You now should be able to make users including your existing user account an admin.
After you log back in under your real account, it is advisable to deactivate the root user account. To do this,
1. Click the Finder icon in the Dock.
2. From the Go menu, choose Utilities.
3. Open Directory Utility.
4. Click the lock in the Directory Utility window if you need to unlock the utility.
5. Enter an administrator account name and password, then click OK.
6. Choose Disable Root User from the Edit menu.
Hope this helps.
David

10.4.11 Installed -Safari Crashes, Disk Utility Won't Open

Installed 10.4.11 yesterday via software update on our 2.0GHz Core Duo Macbook Pro.
After installing Safari crashes seconds after opening (it freezes then crashes) and then I downloaded the 10.4.11 update from Apples website (using firefox) but Disk Utility won't open it. If I try and launch disk utility myself it just bounces in the dock once and closes. Please help!

Same here - two identical iBook G4's, both updated to 10.4.11 - one is fine and everything works, the other one has the following problems: safari crashes 100% of the time, USB devices are failing to be recognised (mouse, storage key etc).
Looking in /var/log/system there is an error message saying a previous version of a kernel module is already loaded (cant get to the original error message text sorry!).
Looking on other forums looked like a simple 'trash the cache' fix - which I did - and hey presto the usb devices started working - but not safari. Messing around trying to flush out a safari cache failed after a few attempt, as did fixing file perms, zapping PRAM, booting from open firmware, and all the other usual things mentioned in the forums.
As it happens the iBook has nothing precious on it - so though to reinstall from the original installation disk. iBook G4 specific OSX Tiger distribution disk 1 inserted, but iBook now refuses to boot from it - holding down the c key on reboot just pops up a blue screen with a folder icon on it and an alternating finder and question mark logo - as in 'error I can't find a system on this installation disk' - the iBook then boots from the internal disk - getting nowhere fast.
Out come the Leopard install disks, and iBook quite happily boots from there and is right now doing a clean install from them (like I said nothing precious on there and thats why I cant get to the original error message...).
I've seen lots of posts about folks struggling to boot from the original install disks recently - wondering if patch 11 did something to knock the OSX version number on the machine greater than the version on the shipped G4 install disks??
And there is something very odd about patch 11 that seems to have hit this iBook and not my other one - they both installed fine, they have identical software apps on them and they are both the same spec.
Can't help more than this - but given I've seen these issues raised in several places worth adding to the thread.

Disk utility won't let me resize Time Machine partition

My Time Machine is a 400GB partition of a 1 TB external HD. There is another 600GB partition that is empty. In Disk Utility I was expecting a dot/divider between the two partitions so that I could resize them. It is not there and and when I select the TimeMachine partition is says 'This Partition will not be modified'.
Can I re-size ( increase) the TimeMachine partition? or do I have to delete and recreate?
My Timemachine backs up a 500MB HD in my iMac (40% full) and a 500 MB external HD for iTunes (22% full) (including AppleTV content).
I was thinking of making the TimeMachine partition 1TB? does that make sense?
..Bob

bobwild wrote:
My Time Machine is a 400GB partition of a 1 TB external HD. There is another 600GB partition that is empty. In Disk Utility I was expecting a dot/divider between the two partitions so that I could resize them. It is not there
what do you mean? what's not there? the divider? that can't be. please explain exactly what you are seeing in disk utility. first, you can only increase the TM partition using DU if it's the upper partition when viewed in DU. if it's the lower one then you can not increase it with disk utility. secondly, the other partition should be deleted, not just empty. you can delete it using the minus sign in the partition tab in DU. then grab the lower right end of the TM partition and drag it all the way down to cover the free space left by the former 600GB partition. then click "apply".
and and when I select the TimeMachine partition is says 'This Partition will not be modified'.
Can I re-size ( increase) the TimeMachine partition? or do I have to delete and recreate?

Disk Utility won't partition my drive.

I have a LaCie external hard drive with a capacity of 298 GB and 247 GB used leaving 51 GB free. I am trying to create a 30 GB partition of just free space, but when I tell Disk Utility to start, it will start working for a while saying "Modifying partition map" and have the blue and white barber-shop pole for the loading bar. After a couple of minutes, Disk Utility will popup with and error saying there isn't enough room on the drive. Can someone explain this to me?

Kappy wrote:
There are no free utilities for defragmenting a drive. Only the cloning I described is free.
Here's what you should do:
To resize the drive do the following:
1. Open Disk Utility and select the drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list.
2. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. You should see the graphical sizing window showing the existing partitions. A portion may appear as a blue rectangle representing the used space on a partition.
3. In the lower right corner of the sizing rectangle for each partition is a resizing gadget. Select it with the mouse and move the bottom of the rectangle upwards until you have reduced the existing partition enough to create the desired new volume's size. The space below the resized partition will appear gray. Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed. +(Note: You can only make a partition smaller in order to create new free space.)+
4. Click on the [+] button below the sizing window to add a new partition in the gray space you freed up. Give the new volume a name, if you wish, then click on the Apply button. Wait until the process has completed.
You should now have a new volume on the drive.
That's what I did and it didn't work.

Disk Utility won't format/partition external HD

I was just using this HD earlier tonight because it had a VMware image on it that I use. (Drive previously formatted under Tiger's disk utility) Well, I decided I wanted to repartition it so I could have a LeopardInstallDVD partition and a partition for my VMware images. When I tried to repartition the HD in Disk Utility, it just kinda froze and I just got the spinning beach ball, so I had to Force Quit. I tried it again; same result. I tried to restart the computer, but it froze, so I had to hard boot it. Upon restart, I was greeted with a message that one of the disks was not recognized by the OS. Guess which one? Yep, not only did it no longer show up in Disk Utility, but now the other external drive I was using for my Time Machine backups was no longer showing either. I turned off that hard drive and turned it back on and luckily it mounted and all my backups seem to be intact. However, I still couldn't get the other one to show up. So, I unhooked it and attached it to a windows machine and it showed up as "uninitialized disk". I was able to initialize it and reformat it as NTFS. I then unhooked it, plugged it back into my Mac and it recognized it as a NTFS drive with one volume called "new volume." I again tried to partition it and all I get is the spinning beach ball and I have to force quit. I can't even do an "erase" on the drive; I just get the spinning beach ball. What is going on here? Did Leopard corrupt my drive somehow?
Edit: I just hooked up the drive to my windows machine AGAIN and formatted it as NTFS and I copied some files to it to make sure it works. Then I hooked it back to my Mac and it recognized the drive and one volume called "new volume" and it automatically mounted. I can see the files that I copied to the drive. The drive still works, but apparently only under Windows now. Why can't I partition the drive with disk utility?

Well, since it's an 80GB drive, XP wouldn't let me format it as anything other than NTFS, so I had to create smaller partitions in order to use Fat32. I created a 10GB fat32 and a 30GB fat32 and left the rest unallocated. I connected it back to my mac and it recognized both partitions in disk utility and it let me erase the 10 GB and format it as HFS+. However, I wanted to make it a GUID partition and I don't know how to do this besides repartitioning the disk. I clicked on the hard drive itself, clicked partition, created 1 partition to test (using the whole 76GB), and all I get is the spinning beach ball. I don't get it.

Disk Utility won't resize a partition

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