Formating a Partition in Mac

feriso · 16 Jan 2007 at 13:00

OK so I've got me a mac to play with and whilst I was installing the o/s I partition the drive into two, though only formated one of them. Now I'm running out of space on my 1st partition and I want to format and mount the other one but for the life of me I can't find how. :confused:

Can any one help. (using Mac OS X)

Will_3rd · 16 Jan 2007 at 13:30

I think Bootcamp can resize partitions, or try Disk Utility under the partition tab

AJUK · 16 Jan 2007 at 13:36

Disk Utility should be able to sort it, under the Partitions tab.

JimmyEatWorms · 16 Jan 2007 at 13:51

Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility

Use the erase function in there.

Beepcake · 16 Jan 2007 at 14:23

Unfortunately Disk Utility (GUI Version) sometimes has a hissy fit and refuses to work with certain partitions (had it happen to me several times). When it does that you can usually sort it out by running diskutil from a terminal. Make sure you read through the options first though to make sure you don't nuke the wrong partition

feriso · 16 Jan 2007 at 14:49

DIsk Utility (GUI) doesn't let me do anything on this partition, verify permissions, format anything (apart from see it)

I'll try boot camp and the terminal options -

BTW is boot camp part of the mac os? (sorry if this is a really noob question but I really am a noob for macs - single syllable answers may help

)

AJUK · 16 Jan 2007 at 14:57

You can get it here, http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

feriso · 16 Jan 2007 at 15:39

Will disk util be able to join the partitions together? i.e. extend my os x primary to include this other one?

Beepcake · 16 Jan 2007 at 15:55

feriso said:
Will disk util be able to join the partitions together? i.e. extend my os x primary to include this other one?

Running it from the commandline enables you to do that.

feriso · 16 Jan 2007 at 15:57

And this won't screw up my booting partition..... *fingers crossed* I'll try it when I get home.

Beepcake · 16 Jan 2007 at 16:00

feriso said:
And this won't screw up my booting partition..... *fingers crossed* I'll try it when I get home.

I won't offer you a guarantee but I've merged partitions with it several times when BootCamp/GUI Disk util have had a fit

feriso · 16 Jan 2007 at 21:50

Can't seem to find the unused partition of 8Gb

diskutil l gives me

/dev/disk0
#: type name size identifier
0: FDisk_partition_scheme *16.0 GB disk0
1: Apple_HFS OSX Base 8.0 GB disk0s1

and I can't see what command to use to merge two partitions in diskutil - it does mention not to be used on boot partition(!) Is that just a recommendation then?