expanding my bootcamp disk

Okay so I have a macbook 08 with a 250 gig harddrive. I used bootcamp to install windows 7 but I only allocated 18 gig for windows. That was a mistake. I need to expand that considerably so that I can have more free space to install and save windows programs and files. In fact, I need more space on the windows side than I do the mac side. :-/

How can I expand it? I have a bunch of unallocated space (probably half of the 250 gig drive) that's just being wasted.

Thanks!

Easy to do if you're willing to spend a few bucks. Go to the Paragon Software site and buy a copy of CampTune. $19.95

Thanks for that link. I should probably expand my BootCamo partition,

Ok, I used the software but I still can't access that extra space on my hard drive. I tried going into the disk utility but if I partition the mac disk to allocate that unused space the bootcamp drive stops working.

Bootcamp won't work unless the rest of the disk is not partitioned for some dumb reason . What can I do to utitlize that extra space?

Uh oh, turns out it deleted my windows installation Now it tries to boot to windows but it says "no bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key".

How do I get it to boot to mac so I can reinstall windows?

How do I get it to boot to mac so I can reinstall windows?

Click to expand...

Hold down your option key while rebooting and then choose your OS X partition to boot from. It also sounds like you didn't use Camp Tune properly. If used correctly, it expands the Boot Camp partition while shrinking your OS X partition by the same amount. Using Disk Utility is not required.

Also, let's move this thread to where it should be in the "Running Windows........." forum.

Sorry, let me clarify. The camptune worked great. But it wasn't allowing me access to the rest of my 250 gig drive, so I tried partitioning it to allow that unused space to be accessible. However, once I did that it messed up bootcamp.

Now I have to reinstall windows. How can I make use of that remaining unallocated space on my harddrive? It's just going to waste!

hoodleehoo said:

Sorry, let me clarify. The camptune worked great. But it wasn't allowing me access to the rest of my 250 gig drive, so I tried partitioning it to allow that unused space to be accessible. However, once I did that it messed up bootcamp.

Now I have to reinstall windows. How can I make use of that remaining unallocated space on my harddrive? It's just going to waste!

Click to expand...

Something must have gone wrong during the CampTune resizing because it should have left your drive fully accessible. Al right, too late now. Let's try to fix it.

First, make a backup of your OS X partition so that you don't lose any data. Use Time Machine or cloning software. (Carbon Copy Cloner)

Do you have your original install disk or an install disk for your MacBook? Just boot with it and enter Disk Utility. Use the partitioning tool from Disk Utility to remove the Boot Camp partition and then resize the OS X partition to fill the entire drive. Reinstall OS X or restore from the cloning software. Otherwise after reinstalling OS X, restore from Time Machine. After all that work, try the Boot Camp assistant once more and install Windows.

Well, it won't let me expand the partition all the way. It only goes so far. In order to use the remaining space on the 250 gig drive I have to create a second partition. But if I do that, then it won't allow creation of a windows drive.

Something may be wrong with the drive then. There's no reason why after removing the Boot Camp partition that you can't expand the OS X partition to fill the drive. After removing the Boot Camp partition it should show up as unallocated space. Run Disk Utility from the Snow Leopard DVD once more but this time do a verify and repair on the entire drive. Let's see what it says.

I don't have the disk that came with the macbook. I bought it used. :-/

I still have bootcamp, I reinstalled windows. But it still has that unallocated space and I can't expand the mac partition to fill it up. It wouldn't let me do that even before I used bootcamp.

Yeah, I understand why now. You're going to need a boot disk in order to properly get that hard drive setup correctly. Go on line and order the Snow Leopard retail DVD from Apple at a cost of $19.99. Once you get it, go ahead and try again. If the hard drive is not problematic, it should work first shot.

How do I know if I have snow leopard? I was thinking I had lion or something like that.

Also, will I have to completely reinstall windows again? Or is there a way to keep my windows?

I'll let others answer the Windows question. As far as OS X version go to the Apple menu and choose About This Mac.
Under OS X version will be the info you need.

10.6.0 - 10.6.x = Snow Leopard
10.7.0 - 10.7.x = Lion
Anything. 10.8 or higher is Mountain Lion

hoodleehoo said:

How do I know if I have snow leopard? I was thinking I had lion or something like that.

Also, will I have to completely reinstall windows again? Or is there a way to keep my windows?

Click to expand...

The reason you want Snow Leopard is because it's the last version of OS X sold on DVD disk and that's what you need to boot the machine. Lion is no longer available and Mountain Lion is only available from the Mac App Store. And... unless you're at least running Snow Leopard 10.6.3, you won't have access to the Mac App Store.

As far as reinstalling Windows goes, you probably will have to reinstall. Moving the partitions around will likely kill the Windows boot sector. Anyway, you have to ascertain that your hard drive is OK first.