Resize a fat32 partition using linux 3.0

So I have an external hdd that I use as a backup/archive, and it is formatted using fat32. It is 315GB listed, and 293gb actual. It has about 183gb of data on it, and 110 free. I want to keep some of the data, but also switch the whole thing to ext4. My plan was to shrink the partition, use the free space to copy over the stuff I want, reformat the rest over to ext4, then merge the partitions.
Apparently as of parted 0.9.0 you can no longer resize fat32 partitions. Is there another utility that I can use to make this happen? Specifically, one that will work with the linux 3.0 kernel? I don't have another drive big enough to get everything onto it, so I need to find a way to keep everything on the drive as I flipflop everything around.
Thanks!

ozar wrote:Yes, I just took a look at the latest gparted on the PartedMagic LiveCD and it still offers the option to resize FAT32 partitions.
Quite possibly PartedMagic links gparted against an old libparted.
ozar wrote:edit: oops, looks like I was typing out a response when B pressed ENTER!
Heh, PartedMagic != GParted LiveCD

Similar Messages

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

After resizing a disc partition using disk utilities, I can no longer boot windows. HELP! what is the best thing that I can do to fix this

Bare with me as Im no computer genius but ... This afternoon I wanted to create more disc space on my Windows partition as I am using CAD software and wanted to free up as much space as possible. So, I went into disk utility and reduced the size of the Mac partition, then clicked apply.
When I came to reboot the computer to use windows the windows OS, the option to use windows was no longer there.
After looking at some online forums, I've found that most people suggest reformatting the hard drive and re-installing mac OS and also windows from back up data.
Is there no easier way for which I will not lose any data? Please help! I really need to use Windows ASAP!

The only apps I know of that can backup a Windows partition and or resize a windows parttition on a Mac so you don't have to go through the wipeing out, resizing and reinstall is WinClone for backing it up and WinTune (I think that is the name) for resizing a Windows partition on a Mac.
Once you create a Windows partition, install Windows in that partition, you can't fool around with any partition on your drive with either Windows Disk Management or OS X Disk Utility and expect Windows to boot.
The only thing you can try is to run Boot Camp Assistant.app again and remove the Windows partition and then run it again to create a larger partition and then reinstall Windows. Once you remove the windows partition put all the space back into the OS X partition and start fresh.

Computer shut off while resizing my Windows partition

So, I was resizing my windows partition using gparted, like I often do, however, I stupidly decided to do it without plugging in my power supply for my macbook, and the computer ran out of battery while the resizing process was happening. Now, gparted states that dev/sda4, my windows partition, has an unknown filesystem, and my windows partition also doesn't show up in Mac OS X finder or the option-key menu at boot anymore, which leads me to believe that either the file system information or the boot information was lost when my computer shut down. Also, I was resizing my windows partition from 115 to 135gb, and gparted states that dev/sda4 is 135gb, so my computer probably shut off after the size-increasy part. I have two ideas of how to fix it at the moment. I have a Windows 8 installation disk that I can use as a repair disk, and I was also going to try using ntfsprogs in a Ubuntu live CD to see if that fixes it. However, since I'm too scared of losing my data before I accidentally overwrite anything, I decided to try and back up my important files, so I dried to mount it in Ubuntu. Strangely enough, when I ran fdisk in ubuntu, it stated that dev/sda4 was actually fat32 system instead of ntfs, and I have no idea why. I tried to mount dev/sda4 as both a fat32 system and a ntfs system, however, in both cases, terminal stated that dev/sda4 did not exist, even though it showed up in fdisk.
Anyone else accidentally shut off their system during partion resizing? There's probably different levels of severity based on where the process was, but I hope none of my personal files were deleted. I really don't mind if I have to erase my partition and reinstall Windows, (although I'd rather not) but I do want to find some way to mount the drive to back up my important files?

If it has been an hour it is stuck. Disconnect it, reboot your computer, and follow the directions here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1808

Found spotlight-v100 hidden folder in FAT32 partition

On my macbook, I have created a FAT32 partition using bootcamp and found .spotlight-v100 hidden folder and other files with it. I cannot remove them and they stopped me from formatting the partition to NTFS. Please help~~~!!!. I am new to mac and please provide me walkthrough step by step. Really don't understand how they can get into the newly created blank FAT32 partition in the first place.
Regards,
macbie

My drive that I wanted to format was the 3rd partition which was named as Drive E by bootcamp (C installed XP and D is default DVD ROM drive). The Drive E was formatted as FAT32 with cluster size 512k. I did some research on internet and was recommended to convert it to NTFS with cluster size 4096k. I did the conversion and it ended up with NTFS but size still remains at 512k. I tried to reformat it using different methods with no success. Each time I started to format it, the process proceeded with no problem until at the end, an warning message popped out : 'This drive cannot be formatted'. I have no clue why it happened like that since the drive has nothing in it except with 2 different folders created by window: Recycler and system volume information.
I want to change cluster size because FAT32 format does not support file size larger than 4G. So, how can I change the cluster size? Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated!!!
Macbie

Resized Boot Camp partition; now I have "disk0s4"

OK so i was following this tutorial on how to increase your boot camp partition from this website.
Following this blog post:
http://blog.craigharvey.me/2012/09/02/resize-boot-camp-partition-for-free-window s-8/
I resized my Boot Camp partition to give Windows 7 more space. In Disk Utility on OS X ML, I reduced the size of my OS X partition. So then i clicked apply and now that partition says disk0s4. I tried to verfiy and repair it through disk utitlity but It wont let me as there are problems. I have reiszed my parition before and never had this problem before. What did I do wrong and will I be able to fix it?

As you have found out, those instructions do not work, so.
If you can you still boot to OSX, you can Use Boot Camp to remove the Windows partition and return the Mac to normal, then start agin.
Next time you need to resize an NTFS partition use Paragon Camp Tune, which can do it without borking things.
Do Not Ever use Disk Utility to do anything to a Windows partition, it will make the problem worse.

Resize partition using terminal - error:

I am trying to resize my osx partition so i can implement a triple boot. I have an 80gb drive in my macbook - osx uses 43.57GB out of 60GB and xp 20GB GB. I attempted to use this code in terminal:
diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 56G "Linux" "Linux" 14G
then it says:
verifying
Resizing encountered error The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972) on disk0s2 Macintosh HD
how should i attempt this? is my code correct?

i took a look, and i believe that the program behind diskutil is hdiutil.
please correct me if im wrong.
in the terminal i typed
man hdiutil
and found resize as a command there:
*resize size_spec image*
Given a read/write partitioned UDIF, if the last partition is
Apple_HFS, attempt to resize the partition to the end of the
image, or to the last used block in the embedded HFS/HFS+
filesystem (depending on size_spec). resize is often used when
a device image needs to be shrunken so that the HFS/HFS+ par-
tition can be converted to CD-R/DVD-R format and still be
burned. Note that gaps cannot be reclaimed as resize does not
move data. -fsargs can sometimes be used to minimize filesys-
tem-generated gaps. resize can also be used to grow a
filesystem and image without bound.
hdiutil burn does not burn Apple_Free partitions at the end of
the devices, so an image with a resized filesystem can be
burned to create a CD-R/DVD-R master that contains only the
actual data in the hosted filesystem (assuming minimal data
fragmentation).
Common options: -encryption, -stdinpass, -srcimagekey, -shadow
with friends, and -plist.
Size specifiers:
-size ??b|??k|??m|??g|??t??p|??e
-sectors sector_count | min | max
Specify the number of 512 byte sectors to
which the partition should be resized. If
this falls outside the min/max values, an
error will be returned and the partition will
not be resized. min automatically determines
the smallest size the partition can be
resized to and uses that value. max automat-
ically determines the largest size to which
the partition can be grown and then uses that
value.
Other options:
-imageonly only resize the image file, not the parti-
tion(s) inside of it. This is the default
for UDIF images (more partitions can then be
added in the new free space).
-partitiononly only resize the partition(s) in the image
(including their embedded filesystems). This
is the default for NDIF images. For a newly-
created SPUD where the partition fills the
image, the partition can only be shrunk. If
there is an Apple_Free partition after an
existing partition, that partition can be
expanded into the space marked by the
Apple_Free. Shrinking a partition results in
a larger Apple_Free partition.
-partitionNumber partitionNumber
specifies which partition to resize (UDIF
only -- see HISTORY below). partitionNumber
is 0-based, but, per hdiutil pmap, partition
0 is the partition map itself.
-growonly only allow the image to grow
-shrinkonly only allow the image to shrink
-nofinalgap allow resize to entirely eliminate the trail-
ing free partition. Such an image restored
to a hard drive will not boot OS 9 nor will
it allow OS X to boot on old-world (beige)
machines.
-limits Displays the minimum, current, and maximum
sizes (in 512 byte sectors) that could be
passed given possible -imageonly or
-partitiononly flags. Does not modify the
image.
-oldlimits behaves like -limits except that it reports
the stretch sizes that OS X version 10.3
would have reported (useful if an image needs
to be used with asr(8) on an older system).
segment
++++++++++++++++++++
I still dont know what exactly to enter but now i feel like this could actually work using terminal. any help is appreciated

Using TM to reformat one (FAT32) partition on external HD

Hi all,
I'm wondering what others' experiences have been using TM's reformat feature on only one partition in a drive. In my case, I have a 400GB Seagate external HD that has been partitioned to one half HFS+ and one half FAT32. Now that my data analysis programs have all come out with mac support, I have finally said goodbye to the ole Windoze machine (yey!!). However I am still left with a hard drive that has been partially made compatible for my old PC.
Right now, all music/docs/files/etc are stored on the FAT32 side of the drive, for the practical reason of TM needing HFS+. By default, the HFS+ side of the drive is then set up to be my TM location. Both my iBook and MBP see these as two separate HD's, and can read/write both.
What I am trying to get to as an outcome is having 1/2 of the hard drive partitioned for all my music, documents, large files, etc. Another 1/2 should be exclusively TM backups. Although TM gives me the alluring option of just reformatting one half of this drive so that both separate partitions are HFS+, I just get goosebumps thinking of all the things that could go wrong. And while I have begun the process of backing up files (slowly) to A-drive, I don't want to lose those files just yet. So here are the questions:
1. Has anyone ever been so brave as to reformat only one half of their hard drive (or one particular partition) with TM? Keep in mind my Mac sees it as two separate HD's.
2. Any advice on whether I should simply keep all 70GB of my music/documents/pictures/etc on the FAT32 drive and leave the configuration as it is? I have heard rumors it's a little more unstable, but on the other hand it would be accessible from multiple operating sys if anything went wrong. I do access this regularly for iTunes, and plan to do so over an Airport Extreme/usb hub set up permanently. I have little to no need for windows compatibility, but I'm also lazy and want to have as simple of a set-up as possible. And, knock on wood, I got a Seagate specifically because of the long term stability. Am I flirting with disaster?
3. I am repeatedly getting the error that I am not able to delete folders from the FAT32 side (My Music, My Photos, etc) because "You do not have sufficient privileges". Any ideas on how to get around that?
I know the best option would be to backup everything by network/another external HD, and that is the long-term idea, but for now just wondering if FAT32 can be my permanent data access solution without any serious looming problems.
Any advice on better sites than A-drive (www.adrive.com) for permanent, relatively inexpensive cloud storage would be much appreciated as well.
Thanks for taking the time, appreciate any advice here.

Ok, I finally understand.
redhedhs wrote:
I have a separate TM drive for the Intel Mac, so I'm focusing on having an Apple partition map for my iBook backups. Right now I have a successful partition to use for TM (let's call it TM DRIVE). And another for music, docs, etc (FILES DRIVE). FILES DRIVE is currently FAT32 formatted. I haven't had any problems with it, but I'm trying to figure out:
a. If it's even necessary to reformat this to Apple partition if I'm not using it for TM (ie: what are the possible scenarios that would necessitate avoiding FAT32 for this?).
Not necessary but I would recommend it. FAT32 has several limitations. For example, TM can not back it, up. the file size is limited. unix permissions don't work on it. if a file is locked you can't delete it from OS X and have to boot from windows to do it. Much better to use HFS+ if you are not going to use the drive with windows.
b. If I do want to reformat just the FAT32 partition, is it likely/probable that I would erase the info on the other partition if I did so?
No. It's quite safe to do so using disk utility. this has nothing to do with TM which threw me off.
just select the FAT partition in disk utility and reformat it to HFS+ using the "erase" tab. this will of course erase everything currently on the FAT partition but will not affect the TM partition in any way. as i said, the operation is quite safe.
Sounds like you're saying Disk Utility would be better suited for it, wondering if I should crosspost there? Either way, I wonder if I can just reformat one partition safely?
Thanks!

I was trying to resize my bootcamp partition and it got deleted now I have 217 GB of free space that I cant use and I want to rejoin it with my macbook partiton.

So I was trying to resize my bootcamp partition with Paragon and it was taking forever so I decided to use iPartition the Paragon started doing something and it was almost done when my macbook began to shut down. It was shutting down becuase I though the paragon wouldnt work. Anyway it shut down and I wasnt able to boot to the iPartition CD, so I decided to just screw it and just stick with Mac osx. Then while in the iPartition app once I booted up back into OSX it said I had 217 gigs of free space and my hardrive/mac os partition can only use like 270 gigs. But I desparetely need these 215 gigs back becuase I do things that require alot of memory. Does anybody have any idea how I can rejoin this free space with my mac partition. I already tried it in disk utility and it kept failing with a couldnt unmount disk error everytime I tried to resize back to its full size! PLEASE HELP! Heres a pic of what iPartiton shows me.

You need an external disk that is formated as HFS+ with a GUID partition map.
You can use either Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to create the clone.
Once ypu have the clone you can boot from my holding down the option key ater power on.
Once booted from the clone open Disk Utility.
Select the internal drive.
Click partition.
Select single partition.
Once drive has bee formated, restore the clone nack with the application used to make the original clone.
Boot from internal drive.
Allan

I erased my windows partition using disk utility then realized I should have used boot camp, because now I can't resize the original partition and seem to be stuck with a ghost unusable space. Boot Camp now doesn't give me the option to install or re

I erased my windows partition using disk utility then realized I should have used boot camp, because now I can't resize the original partition and seem to be stuck with a ghost unusable space. Boot Camp now doesn't give me the option to install or remove windows partition.

Hi, Ralph,
The problem is that I did erase the partition, using disk utility, but I can't go back to my original disk size pre-partition, as disk utility won't let me do it and gives the message "Couldn’t modify partition map because file system verification failed." When I try to use Boot Camp Assistant it won't let me select the third option to remove windows.

How to create a partition using the free space of an existing[SOLVED]

Hi Guys,
Since I could not install fifa 09 using wine on linux, I need to create a partition where I can install windows first in order to install fifa 09 on it. How can I create a partition using the rest free space of my , for example, /home partition?How can I do it in a secure way (meaning without doing something to my existing archlinux installation files and system files) ?
Thanks.
Please see this post:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=109402
Last edited by Archie_Enthusiasm (2010-12-08 19:23:46)

Use Parted Magic. But you *should* backup any important files just in case, regardless of method you use. You never know. Someone could unplug your computer, a power surge might happen, etc. A cousin of mine actually did something similar while I was gaming, the extension cord has a red button which he "accidentally" pressed. I would've cracked his skull had he done it while resizing a partition.
Anyway, the partitioning scheme should be the first thing you do when you decide go this route (dual booting). I remember about a year ago I forced myself to use Linux by formatting the entire drive to ext4, except for the 2 GB + 20 GB ntfs partitions. It was what kick-started me on this path. Here's my partitioning scheme for both computers, maybe you'll get an idea and do something similar:
Older computer:
2 GB ntfs - MicroXP
8 GB ext4 - Arch Linux + Home dir (to keep the dot files organized in one place)
20 GB ntfs - games partition
Rest is for media, formatted as ext3 with inode 128 (so it can be loaded as Read-Only in Windows too via Ext2fsd so they won't be affected in case of a virus infection)
New computer:
20 GB Windows 7
10 GB Arch Linux + home dir
50 GB games partition
Rest of the space is ext4 mounted to /media
Note that they're all primary partitions for remembering easier (sda1, sda2, sda3, sda4) instead of a combination of primary and extended which would probably look like sda1, sda5, sda6, sda7, etc.
Last edited by DSpider (2010-12-03 13:02:26)

Is it possible to resize a mac partition from windows?

Here's what's going on. I originally wanted to use Disk Utility to do this, which is clearly the easy way to do things, but my computer is so slow that Disk Utility immediately becomes unresponsive upon wanting to resize -any- partition. The windows side works fine though, it isn't slow as crap. Is there a way to resize the mac partition from windows (HFS+)? Any possible way? Even crazy ones? I'm open to suggestions.
Oh yeah, and in case you want to know...my Mac Mini just randomly started getting really, really slow, so slow in fact, that now my old iMac from 1999 is faster (it doesn't even have ANY RAM!). I tried resetting the PRAM/NVRAM, multiple times, booting into safe mode takes forever, but I left it for awhile and it finished. Almost worked, the finder showed up quicker than usual, but then it reverted back to it's slow self again once I opened Disk Utility. I tried booting into single user mode and typing /sbin/fsck -fy, and it's so slow, that it couldn't even do that! It got stuck at checking libraries or something, for hours, and i could type things in still, but it wouldn't recognize any commands (ie fsk - fy). I also cannot replace the RAM because it is an older mac mini and those things are hard as f*** to repair, trust me, i've tried. The weirdest part of all of this has to be that this is the computer that we DON'T download many apps onto, so it most likely isn't bloatware, adware, a virus or something else. We download most stuff to our MacBook, and go to the sketchy websites on it as well (it really should be the other way around, the mac mini would be around 3x less expensive to replace, it's just that it's the family computer). And that's always slow, but this surpassed it (btw, the laptop is a year or so older). I do not have the installation disk.
Can someone help? Mainly about the first thing...please. The second thing is hopeless, I will need to get a new computer pretty soon, and these macs don't last as long as they used to I guess, we'd most likely get a quality Windows PC to replace it, this has been a disappointment. I'm just trying to get a little more life out of it with Linux, maybe a year or two. That's what i've done with my old iMac. Runs GREAT. Especially for a 13 year old computer. The thing is, my folks don't want me to completely eliminate the mac partition even though it's virtually unusuable.

I'm not really understanding what the end goal was. But in case anyone else comes across the thread, neither the built-in Windows volume resizing utility nor any 3rd party Windows resizing utility should be used to resize either the Windows partition or the Mac OS partition. Invariably they all manipulate the NTFS volume in such a way that the secondary GPT is corrupt, the primary GPT is rendered invalid, and only correctly alter the MBR. It's a recipe for data loss.
Conversely, while Disk Utility can resize a Mac OS volume, it cannot resize an NTFS volume. With Lion and Mountain Lion, upon using Boot Camp Assistant there are already four partitions: EFI System, Mac OS, Recovery HD, and Windows. There is no more room for a fifth partition in the MBR partition scheme, and if you try to add one, Disk Utility will apparently let you and render Windows unbootable (because Disk Utility adds the fifth partition to the GPT, but can't add it to the MBR, and instead removes the hybrid MBR needed for Windows support and replaces it with a PMBR.)
So in effect this is not to be done except with 3rd party utilities.

Solaris-x86 mount fat32 partition, the partition max size limit?

solaris10 x86, laptop, 10G FAT32 partition for windows & x86 exchange data.
the fat32 partition mount as normal, can be read fine.
but write some file by x86, that can not find by windows.
anyboy know did the solaris-x86 mount fat32 partition, the partition max size limit? or no limit, why this problem occur?

Mounting Windows partition in Solaris
The easiest way to share data now is to do it through a FAT32 partition. Solaris
recognises it as partition of type pcfs. It is specified as device:drive where drive is
either the DOS logical drive letter (c through z) or a drive number (1 through 24).
Drive letter c is equivalent to drive number 1 and represents the Primary DOS partition
on the disk; drive letters d through z are equivalent to drive numbers 2 through 24,
and represent DOS drives within the Extended DOS partition.Syntax is
mount -F pcfs device:drive /directroy-name
where directory name specifies the location where the file system is mounted.
To mount the first logical drive (d:) in the Extended DOS partition from an IDE hard
disk in the directory /d use
mount -F pcfs /dev/dsk/c0d0p0:d /d
You can use mount directory-name after appending following line is in
/etc/vfstab file
device:drive directory-name pcfs no rw
for example
c0d0s0:c /c pcfs no rw
If your windows partition like the following means
C: - NTFS, D:-FAT32, E:-NTFS, F:-FAT32
Then you can only mount D, F not C & E.
Mounting D Drive:
mount -F pcfs /dev/disk/c0d0p0:c /mountpoint
Mounting F Drive
mount -F pcfs /dev/disk/c0d0p0:d /mountpoint
The driveletter only for fat not including other file systems (ntfs or any linux filesystems).

SOS : Accidentally deleted my entire FAT32 partition ...

Hi !
I accidentally deleted my entire FAT32 partition ( ~80 Gigs ), i wanted to delete a mount point, but i forgot the partition wall still mounted ...
i used rm -R themountpoint as root
it's FAT32, and i didn't write anything to the partition since then, my data isn't lost is it ?
how can i recover it ? ( from linux if possible )
i remember very long ago there were tools to recover the lost files, but file by file .. is there a way to "undelete" the files of the partition ? without having to save the files one by one on another driver/partition ( with 80gigs of musics and videos it'd be soo long .. )
i have a also have a WinXP partition on my computer if the necessaray tools are only available on windows ...
please help my, my "whole life" is on that partition ....
thanks
Last edited by chuckychuck (2008-12-27 13:37:02)

A friend of mine had similar problem...she deleted a folder on her usb stick.
I helped her with sleuthkit. It's in community repo.
http://www.sleuthkit.org/

"Resizeing" A Bootcamp partition

Hi - a pretty complex question
I know that you can't just resize a bootcamp partition, but I'm wondering if this proposed solution would work so that I could save myself some time:
-Make a disk image of the bootcamp partition and store it on the Macintosh HD using the Disk utility from the Snow Leopard installation disk.
-Get rid of the Bootcamp partition (which currently is a 32GB fat32 partition)
-Repair disk permissions (for good measure)
-Use the Bootcamp utility to create a larger (50GB Maybe) NTFS Partition.
-Use Disk utility from the snow leopard installation disk to dump the disk image of the old partition into the new partition.
Would that Work????
IF so, anything I should Know?
Thanks!

Sorry, I just remembered to post the follow up:
I successfully was able to use winclone (http://www.twocanoes.com/winclone) - Thank you very much "Sausage King of Chicago"
Their is one minor caveat. In order to successfully resize the partition, the windows drive MUST be formatted for NTFS (not fat32. Type:
"CONVERT C: /FS:NTFS"
in the windows Command prompt program. (of course, substitute your local disk's drive letter for "C" - mine was "F"
Command prompt will say that it can not reformat the drive, because it would have to dismount the local disk, so it will schedule a boot time re-format. Windows will have to restart twice (for me anyways) in order to reformat, so make sure you hold down option as the computer is restarting.
Once this is done, check to make sure that Windows XP is still working properly, then boot back into OSX.
Once in OSX, use winclone to Image your Bootcamp partition. Save it as a file to the desktop.
When done, remove your Bootcamp partition from the computer (making sure that the image file is still safe!!!) using Boot Camp Assistant.
Now repair your Macintosh HD using disk utility (repair disk). My disk needed so much repair that it told me to start up with my Leopard installer disk, and repair the disk from its disk utility.
Now you are ready to use Boot Camp Assistant to set up a new LARGER bootcamp partition. When you are done, don't go ahead and install windows, instead, dbl click on the image file you made, and when winclone opens, restore it into your new, bigger bootcamp partition. It should work.
Same Windows computer- much more free space!
Thanks for your advice

Resize a fat32 partition using linux 3.0

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