Summary
Disk Utility got a facelift with the launch of OS X El Capitan. But this makeover didn’t go well for a handful of Mac users. Some of them find difficult to perform regular disk management activities on Apple hard disk drives including partitioning the disk, creating, resizing and deleting a partition.
Best Partition Manager for Mac: Easily Create, Edit and Manage Partitions on your Mac. Jignesh Padhiyar. You simply have to use the resize tool for changes. IPartition software’s flexibility allows the users to queue their tasks, edit flags in partition table, edit the type of partition and resize them, directly.
Good News Arriving Soon
Very soon we will need to partition our Mac hard drive in order to make room for macOS Sierra installation which Apple announced this WWDC 2016 in San Francisco.
Tip
But before the time arrives to partition the Mac hard drive for macOS Sierra installation, it is equally necessary to backup the data on Mac startup disk drive to avoid losing any files during the upgrade or installation processes.
OS X El Capitan Partitioning
With the help of screenshots, I will be explaining some basic set of activities that are to be done while partition the OS X El Capitan drive. Alternatively, the same procedure will be explained with the help of a disk manager utility known as Stellar Partition Manager.
Background
Partition Tool For Mac Bootcamp Resize
I am using an old 40 GB external hard drive to create, resize and delete partition with Disk Utility and Stellar Partition Manager software.
** Resolving Partition Option Greyed Out issue
- Select the external disk from the left side of Disk Utility
- Unfortunately, the Disk Utility partition option is greyed out (see below screenshot)
Solution: Select the ‘Generic USB Disk Media’ and the partition option will become active.
Partition Button is Now Active
Click the Partition button to start partitioning the external drive
Task 1) To create 3 Partitions of below sizes (using Disk Utility)
- Partition A = 20 GB
- Partition B = ~10 GB
- Partition C = ~10 GB
Step 1) Enter partition name and format i.e. ‘Partition A’ and ‘OS X Extended Journaled’
Step 2) Enter partition size i.e. 20 GB. Press Return and slider will automatically take 20 GB. Else drag the slider to occupy 20 GB of spaces for partition A.
Now select the 19.7 GB of the remaining hard drive spaces and click (+) plus sign. Name the 2 partitions as B and C.
Partition B and C Size
As shown above, the external hard drive is divided into 3 partitions of sizes 20GB, and two almost 10 Gb of partitions. Click Apply to save the changes.
Outcome Looks Good
Task 2) To resize the 3 partitions as below requirement (using Disk Utility)
- Resize ‘Partition A’ to 15 GB
- Resize Partition B to ~12 GB
- Resize ‘Partition C’ to ~13 GB
Now, here the problems arrives
Unable to resize Mac partition
Entered 15 GB for Partition A and pressed Return. The ‘Partition A’ shrinks to 15 GB but created a new partition of 5 Gb, which is unused.
Now as per our second task, we need to create around 12 Gb for Partition B. Let’s see if Disk Utility allows us to do it perfectly.
Unfortunately, neither the mouse slider nor the Size box is accepting the Partition B to expand to ~ 12 Gb in size. The same issue is bothering ‘Partition C’ which is not expanding to ~13 Gb of size either through the partition slider or with the help of the size box.
No Productivity
Since the partitioning as mentioned in Task 2 cannot be done with the help of Disk Utility on OS X El Capitan we will choose to achieve this task with the help of Stellar Partition Manager utility.
Stellar Partition Manager
Task 3) To resize the 3 partitions as below requirement (using Mac disk manager software)
- Resize ‘Partition A’ to 15 GB
- Resize Partition B to ~12 GB
- Resize ‘Partition C’ to ~13 GB
Witness the difference b/w Disk Utility and Stellar Partition Manager
Fortunately, Stellar Partition Manager utility collects all the available free spaces on the Mac hard drive or an external hard drive and uses it efficiently for resizing the Mac partitions.
Stellar Partition Manager
Now let’s achieve our tasks
** Resize ‘Partition A’ to 15 GB by using the mouse to drag the edge and shrink the partition size from 20 GB to 15 GB
** Time to resize ‘Partition B’ to ~ 12 GB
12 GB Resize Easily Done
** Time to resize / expand ‘Partition C’ to claim all available free spaces. In the above screenshot, you can see that Partition C is of size 8.3 Gb and only 1.74 GB of free spaces are available. Hence it will take all the free spaces but this external hard drive is only 40 in size so the final size of the Partition C will be 9.42 GB.
Mac Partition Resizing Done Successfully With Stellar Partition Manager
Click the Start button mounted on the top menu bar to apply the changes. Hence, we have achieved the partition-resizing task up to 90% with the help of Stellar Partition Manager utility. Concluding this article with: How to create bootable USB on Mac with Stellar Partition Manager application.
For all those Mac users who have been eagerly waiting to install and experience the next generation Windows 8 operating system on Mac machine, here is the simple procedure that you need to follow to install Windows 10/8 on your Mac using the Boot Camp Assistant software.
What you will need:
# Windows 10/8 DVD, ISO, or USB
# A USB drive with 8GB or more capacity
Resize Bootcamp Partitions
# One hour free time
We are going to use the Boot Camp Assistant software available on Mac. Boot Camp helps you install Windows OS on Intel-based Mac by downloading the necessary support software, creating a partition on your disk for Windows, and then starting the Windows installer.
NOTE: We assume that you have an Intel-based Mac machine with Boot Camp Assistant version 5.0 or later. It’s always a good idea to backup the important data on your computer before installing Windows on Mac. We used MacBook Air (mid 2013) to install Windows 10 on the Mac. The procedure to install Windows 8 or Windows 10 on other Mac machines might be a bit different and pretty much the same.
Procedure:
Step 1: Launch Boot Camp Assistant software. To launch it, go to Utilities and click on Boot Camp Assistant to open it.
Step 2: Once launched, click Continue button on the introduction screen to see the list of options available for your Mac. You will see three options:
# Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk
# Download the latest Windows support software from Apple
# Install Windows 7 or later version
If Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk option is not available on your Mac, it’s because your computer doesn’t support installing Windows from USB flash drive. Simply select the other options available and click Continue button.
By default, all three options are enabled. If you are on Mac Mini or MacBook Air, use the first option (Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk) to create a bootable Windows 10/8 USB flash drive to install Windows 10/8 directly from USB flash drive. Click Continue button to proceed to the next step.
Step 3:(Please skip this step if you haven’t selected Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk option in the above step) In this step, you need to select the Windows 10/8 ISO file and the USB device that you want to use to install Windows 10/8. Boot Camp Assistant will create a bootable USB drive for Windows 10/8 installation. Once you select the ISO file and destination USB drive, click Continue button.
Click Continue button if you are prompted with “The drive will be erased” message. Boot Camp Assistant may take a several minutes to create the bootable Windows 10/8 USB drive (it will also download Windows support software from Apple). Once Boot Camp Assistant finishes creating bootable Windows 10/8 USB, you will get “Boot Camp Assistant is trying to add new helper tool. Type your password to allow this” message. Type in the password and click Add Helper button to continue.
Step 4: Boot Camp Assistant now takes you to Create a partition for Windows window. Drag the divider between the partitions to set the size of the partitions. We recommend a minimum of 30 GB for Windows partition (Microsoft recommends 16 GB but if you want to install other software on Windows 10/8, allocate 30GB).
Click Install button to start partitioning the drive and then begin installing Windows 10/8 on your Mac. Your Mac machine will automatically reboot to begin installing Windows. You will see “Booting from Boot Camp Assistant created boot drive” message.
OR
If you haven’t selected Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk option in step 2, please insert the Windows 10/8 installation DVD into the tray and click Install button to start partitioning the drive and then Windows installation. Your Mac machine will automatically reboot to begin installing Windows.
From here on follow the on screen procedure until you need to select a partition to install Windows. In the Where do you want to install Windows? screen, select the partition named BOOTCAMP to install Windows 8. Make sure that you format the BOOTCAMP partition before selecting it as an unformatted drive may give “Windows cannot be installed to this disk x partition x” error.
To format the BOOTCAMP partition, select the partition in the list, click Drive options (advanced) and then click Format button. Click Ok button for the prompt.
Click Next button to begin installing Windows 10/8 on BOOTCAMP partition. Follow the on screen instructions to finish installing and configuring Windows 8. If you are new to installing Windows 10/8, follow our step-by-step Windows 10/8 installation procedure.
Step 5: Once Windows 10/8 is installed and running, you need to install Mac-specific drivers and other support software for Windows. The support software is on the same USB drive if you have selected Download the latest support software from Apple in step 2. Open the Windows 10/8 USB flash drive (that you have created using Boot Camp Assistant) and navigate to WindowsSupport folder and then double-click on setup.exe file to start installing all drivers and Apple Software Update.
If you are getting “Boot Camp requires that your computer is running Windows 7/8” error, then you need manually install all drivers and Apple Software Update. Open the Windows 10/8 USB drive and navigate to Drivers > Apple. Here you will find all Apple drivers and other software. Manually install all required drivers one-by-one.
If you want to install drivers for third-party hardware such as NVidia and ATI, you can find the required drivers under Drivers folder in the same drive. Good luck!
If you get Software you are installing has not passed Windows Logo testing message, click Continue Anyway button.
When you switch on your Mac, hold down the Alt key or Option key to see an option to boot into Windows or Mac. Good luck!
Hope this helps!