Partitioning my MBP - What tools/how?

Hello.

I've just upgraded to Leopard, and everything went smooth. The only problem is that I want to make my Windows XP-partition bigger, and my OS X-partition smaller.

Is this possible without formatting either of the partitions? And if so, what tool(s) do I need? Thanks for any helpful replies.

Also another thing... How do I enable tapping on the mouse pad in Windows XP? (Like in OS X and any other laptop, when you simply quickly tap the pad instead of pressing the mouse-button).

 

No, you have to reformat the XP partition with Boot Camp assistant in order to make it larger.

As of now you can't enable tap clicking in Windows through boot camp.

 

I'm pretty sure one of the new features of boot camp was that you can resize partitions on the fly, including bootcamp.

Also you can do it in tiger via terminal so I'd think you can do it again in leopard.

 

I think the best option is to reformat to a single volume and reinstall Windows.

Although Disk Utility in Leopard now allows partioning on-the-fly. Though anytime you resize a partition you risk corrupting the system and losing data. So if you try this you should first back-up all of your data and defragment the Windows partition. After you defragment, restart into OS X Leopard and open Disk Utility (Application --> Utilities). Select your hard drive in the left pane and click the Partition tab. Then you need to drag the little handle in the lower left corner of the OS X partition (or enter the size in the text box) and click Apply. Then repeat this process with your Windows partition.

I have not personally tried this, but if the alternative is to erase Windows why not try? If you do decide to use Disk Utility to resize your partitions please share your results with us. Here is a related Apple Support Document, Mac OS X 10.5: About resizing disk partitions. And here is what you will see in Disk Utility:

 

Hm my Windows XP partition wouldn't boot any more, so I had to format it anyways. Bah. Oh well, got it the size I wanted now. The only problem is that I want to make a shared FAT32 partition on the MPB too, from the Windows-partition. Is this possible? I tried Norton Partition Magic, but it wouldn't work. Something about "Couldn't find the drive letter" or whatever.

So. Is it possible the make a FAT32-partition from my Windows XP NTFS partition? And if so, what program would I need?

Thanks in advance for any helpful replies.

 

mithzamon

I believe this is not as simple as one would like to think; i started a similar thread a while ago.

I look forward to seeing how you do this.

 

Bah sounds like a hell of alot of hassle from what I read from the links in your thread.

I've decided that I'll get MacFUSE and MacDrive instead Thanks for your reply anyways, I'm sure I would've found a way to mess up both OS X and Windows if you hadn't linked me your old thread, hehe

 

Well, I am sure there are people who may have figured out how to do this in a much easier way. Let's see if someone here thinks otherwise.

 

Buy an external hard drive.

Bootcamp, sharing data between OSX and XP with 3 partitions - Detailed (Long!) Version. With this guide you would need to first restore your drive to a single volume (OS X Only). Also, I think if you want to restore the drive to a single volume after having created 3 partitions you will need to erase everything (OS X, Windows, and the FAT32 partition).