Question about CampTune

[tomdkat]

So, I've just downloaded the beta version and am excited about trying it out!

My scenario:
I've got an Intel-based Mac-mini with OS X 10.5 installed and Windows XP installed in a Bootcamp partition. Both are installed on a 60GB hard drive and both are about 30GB in size. I want to transfer both partitions to a 250GB hard drive and make the Mac OS X partition larger.

My plan:
I'm going to connect the 250GB hard drive to the Mac-mini using an external USB 2.0 hard drive enclosure. Then, I will use a partition cloning app (maybe Carbon Cloner and WinClone) to copy the partitions to the 250GB hard drive. Then, I will boot from the CampTune CD and use it to resize the Mac OS X and Bootcamp partitions on the 250GB which is *still* connected via the external USB enclosure.

Once this is done, I'll take out the 60GB HDD and will put in the 250GB HDD, boot the system and hope everything "just works".

Would CampTune work in this scenario or would I need to put the 250GB drive inside the system before I could resize the partitions?

Does anyone see any glaring holes in my "master" plan?

Thanks in advance!

Peace...

[Paragon_Tommy]

Hello Tomdkat,

I would deal with one hard drive at a time if we're resizing. You mentioned you're cloning from the 60GB to the 250GB. There's a couple of ways we can do this.

First off though, there are limitations to the Camptune software. It's limited to the sole purpose of shrinking one partition and adding the available space to the adjacent partition. It cannot utilize free space at the end of the partitions.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but ultimately, you want to end up with 2 125GB partitions for Mac and Windows.

What I would recommend doing instead is first boot to Windows from the original hard drive (60GB) and plug the 250GB hard drive in as a USB.

Prepare your 250GB to have two 125GB partitions. Right-click "My Computer", select Manage, Disk Management, locate your 250GB and delete all its partitions. Once it shows up as all "unallocated" right click to create new partition. Create a 125GB partition, and another with the remaining space.

So now so far we have 2 blank partitions in the 250GB external hard drive.

Install Paragon Drive Backup Free edition here:
http://www.paragon-software.com/home.../features.html

Run a complete partition backup of your first partition of the 60GB hard drive to your 2nd partition on the 250GB.

Run a restore of the backup you just made and restore it to the first partition on the 250GB. Remember to adjust the restored partition to utilize the entire available space.

Run a complete partition backup of your 2nd partition of the 6oGB hard drive to your first partition on the 250GB.

Run a restore of the 2nd backup you made to your 2nd partition on the 250GB.Again, remember to adjust the restored partition to utilize the entire available space.

Run a backup of the first track master boot record from the first hard drive and restore to your 2nd hard drive.

It's like playing partition musical chairs

---------------------------------------------------------

The other option is to use the cloning tools you've mentioned, and purchase Partition Manager 10 Personal, install in Windows, and resize the two partitions. Assuming your first partition is the Mac, first expand the Windows partition to 125GB, then slide that partition down so the free space is adjacent to the Mac partition, then expand the HFS partition.


Regards,
Tommy

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by Paragon_Tommy

First off though, there are limitations to the Camptune software. It's limited to the sole purpose of shrinking one partition and adding the available space to the adjacent partition. It cannot utilize free space at the end of the partitions.

Thanks for this critical piece of information. I had assumed I would have been able to "freely" resize the Mac OS X and the Windows (Bootcamp) partitions with CampTune, instead of having to use different tools.

Ultimately, on the 250GB drive I want to make the Bootcamp partition take 60GB and the OS X partition to take the rest of the free space. I was thinking I could use CampTune to do this after getting the current partitions copied to the 250GB HDD but I guess that's not the case.

I'll study your "musical chairs backup" plan a bit more and see if I can wrap my brain around it.

Thanks!

Peace...