Dynamic resize of FAT32 partition with disk utility?

Hi there.
I have a 1TB external FAT32 drive with 300GB of data on it.
I want to convert it to HFS+, but I know there's no easy way to do that.
What I want to know is can I resize my FAT32 partition to 500MB and keep all the data?
Then I'll move it to the new HFS+ 500MB partition, delete the original partition and resize the HFS+ partition.
Or do I have no hope of that?
Thanks
Greg

Greg,
You're probably out of luck on this one. If the drive was partitioned and formatted by a PC (every drive has a partition map, whether there are multiple partitions or only one), it almost certainly has an "MBR" partition map. This would preclude a dynamic resizing by Disk Utility. It will need to be partitioned using either GUID (Intel) or APM (PPC).
Scott

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hy everybody,
i successfully bought a mac (that was easy , installed windows 7 with bootcamp (quite easy) and now i 'd like to add linux also (considering ubuntu).
before i try to do it with bootcamp i'd like to know what the impact could be...
so i wonder; what does boot camp do and why shouldn't i do it manually with disk utility?
all inputs are welcome
cheers

Why not start by filling out hardware in your profile .sig as it makes a difference.

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Hi,
I have an external 750GB hard drive that I previously formatted as FAT 32 because I wanted to be able to plug it into Windows computers as well. I was not very thoughtful at the beginning and I just created one big 750GB partition. I currently have 450GB used and about 300GB free.
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That would likely be because the drive is partitioned MBR and not GUID. You cannot repartition an MBR partitioned drive on the fly. What you need is a drive that is partitioned using GUID (GPT) with on partition formatted for the Mac and the other formatted FAT32. But to do that you must start the drive from scratch:
Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
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6. Repeat Step 5 using MSDOS as the format type.
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Partitioned with Disk Utility, during XP inst. desired partition N/A

Basic computer info: Macbook Pro 3,1 Leopard 1.5.1
I partitioned my computer into 4 separate partitions:
MacSys - 25gb, journaled, extended
LinSys - 12gb, journaled, extended
WINSYS - 14.86gb, fat32
HdaSys - 59.35gb, journaled, extended
So, 1 partition per OS, and a commonly accessible partition.
I used Disk Utility to do all this.
The problem is that with my XP Home SP2 disk, the WINSYS drive does not show up. Instead, it shows 1 large conglomerate partition, I believe as unpartitioned space (Don't write that last bit in stone, this is from retrospect)
What have I done wrong? I need some insight.
Thanks in advance.

lilwing wrote:
Ahh thanks, now I understand.
However, how can I have another partition for file storage/archiving which can be mountable from all other partitions? The njHdaSys would have problems, I would assume.
Due to the GUID/MBR Hybrid issues, you need to change your GPT disk setup/cration to this:
1: MacSys - 25gb, journaled, extended
2: HdaSys - 59.35gb, FAT32
3: WINSYS - 14.86gb, FAT32
4: LinSys - 12gb, FAT32
Then after using a tool that creates a hybrid MBR on your GPT disk (such as gptsync included with rEFIt or maybe some version of OSX's Disk Utility), your hybrid MBR (what Windows ONLY sees) will be:
1: EFI Protected
2: MacSys - 25gb, journaled, extended
3: HdaSys - 59.35gb, FAT32
4: WINSYS - 14.86gb, FAT32
(with LinSys not accessible (to Windows) and showing up as 'unallocated space', which you can't ever touch under Windows or you'll trash it.)
Now, with this setup:
1) your OSX HFS+ system partition has an MBR entry, so you'll be able to see and read it under Windows with the BootCamp 3.0 HFS+ file-system drivers.
2) your HdaSys storage partition has an MBR entry, so you'll be able to see and read it under Windows
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Then, you can install Windows into WINSYS, reformating to NTFS during install.
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Hi everyone,
I installed Windows 8 with BOOTCAMP, creating a large 871 GB partition with a smaller 127 GB partition for Windows. After installing Windows, I then went back to Disk Utility to shrink the Mac partition and add two new partitions, one for storage and another blank, hoping to use it to install Linux into one day.
I did that, and now Windows doesn't boot. A Windows blue screen tells me I need to use the Windows DVD to repair it.
I tried to use Disk Utility to delete the two new partitions I made and grow the Mac partition back to the max size of 871 GB. But it doesn't let me do this. The Disk Utility log doesn't report an error and thinks it worked but the partition stays the same size. However if I make the partition a little smaller, like 870 GB then it works. I'm wondering if the Recovery partition is hiding there and preventing me from fully expanding the Mac partition.
What can I do?
Here's what I get if I type in sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0:
Code:
gpt show: disk0: mediasize=1000204886016; sectorsize=512; blocks=1953525168 gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0 gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1 gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 1953525167 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 1701278816      2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC 1701688456     1269536      3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC 1702957992     1846360 1704804352   248002560      4 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7 1952806912      718223 1953525135          32         Sec GPT table 1953525167           1         Sec GPT header
Here's what I get if I type sudo fdisk /dev/rdisk0:
Code:
Disk: /dev/rdisk0     geometry: 121601/255/63 [1953525168 sectors] Signature: 0xAA55 Starting       Ending #: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [     start -       size] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [         1 -     409639] <Unknown ID> 2: AF 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [    409640 - 1701278816] HFS+ 3: AB 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [1701688456 -    1269536] Darwin Boot *4: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [1704804352 - 248002560] HPFS/QNX/AUX
Here's what I get with gdisk:
Code:
Disk /dev/rdisk0: 1953525168 sectors, 931.5 GiB Logical sector size: 512 bytes Disk identifier (GUID): 6075110F-7CEF-4604-85EE-6231B850E2AE Partition table holds up to 128 entries First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1953525134 Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries Total free space is 2564589 sectors (1.2 GiB) Number Start (sector)    End (sector) Size       Code Name 1              40          409639   200.0 MiB   EF00 EFI System Partition 2          409640      1701688455   811.2 GiB   AF00 1 TB APPLE HDD HTS54101 3      1701688456      1702957991   619.9 MiB   AB00 Recovery HD 4      1704804352      1952806911   118.3 GiB   0700 BOOTCAMP

Okay, the code I typed didn't display properly in the forum. Let me try again.
Here's what I get when I type
sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0:
gpt show: disk0: mediasize=1000204886016; sectorsize=512; blocks=1953525168
gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 1953525167
       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 1701278816      2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
1701688456     1269536      3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
1702957992     1846360
1704804352   248002560      4 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
1952806912      718223
1953525135          32         Sec GPT table
1953525167           1         Sec GPT header
And when I type fdisk /dev/rdisk0 I get:
Disk: /dev/rdisk0          geometry: 121601/255/63 [1953525168 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [     start -       size]
1: EE 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [         1 -     409639] <Unknown ID>
2: AF 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [    409640 - 1701278816] HFS+
3: AB 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [1701688456 -    1269536] Darwin Boot
*4: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [1704804352 - 248002560] HPFS/QNX/AUX
Kappy,
I can boot into OS X just fine so if possible, I'd like to avoid reformatting everything. If you know of a way I can add more than 2 partitions with OS X and Boot Camp, please let me know. As far as I know, rEFInd can recognize more than two partitions, but I don't think it can edit partitions on a GPT / hybrid MBR system. Or am I wrong?

Format External Drive for HFS+ volume and FAT32 volume with Disk Utility

I just bought a Seagate 1tb external drive from OWC and I want to partition it into a HFS+ (journaled I assume) volume and a NTFS volume. Objective: To manually backup critical folders from my wife’s Dell (running XP) to the NTFS volume and critical Mac folders from my PowerBookG4 to the HFS volume.
My plan was to have my Mac (10.4.11) do the partitioning into a 350gb FAT32 volume for Windows and a 650gb HFS+ volume for Mac – then take the external drive to the Dell and have the Dell reformat the 350gb FAT drive to NTFS.
First question – Is this possible overall?
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Thank you Limnos for all your help. Last night I tried again and it worked! I’ not totally sure on what I did right but:
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• It worked! Not sure why but my Mac recognized both volumes one as HFS, the other as FAT32. Maybe someone will find this useful some day!!
• Then, I hooked up the drive to my work Dell, the Dell found only the FAT32 drive (as expected), and I executed a short simple easy command I found on ehow.com (search for ‘convert FAT32 to NTFS’) to make that volume NTFS.
Thanks again Limnos and everyone else!

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Hi,
Bought a used 4 TB Seagate drive, formatted it , checked the speed 150 MB/s read/write and made a partition. Apparently it worked perfect.
However after this first partition the drive is behaving erratically. I can not modify partitions anymore nor delete them. Repair disk is not finding any problem either from the system or from the recovery partition.
I am starting to believe the disk is damaged. Beside the partition problem the disk is behaving fine. Anyone please?

Thanks. I already did. The disk whose partitions I can not modify is blank. It is the 3rd disk in the Mac pro. I formatted and created 2 partitions. But then I can not create more partitions nor delete them. I tried from the Recovery volume with the same result. Partition options remain greyed out.
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For the first time that I know of a file appeared after I partitioned a new external hard drive.
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decryptedFile.dmg
Flash Player
It says it is located on the boot drive at:
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(Note: Tried to post a screen shot here but I failed that task.)
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I don't recall ever working on Flash Player but I'll take your word.
Thanks for the help. I'll delete and forget.
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Thanks,

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Dynamic resize of FAT32 partition with disk utility?

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