Removing Windows Without Boot Camp

[shawsinio]

Hi all,

Was looking to free up some space on my hard drive, and since I really don't use windows on my macbook anymore thought I'd get rid of it. So went to open boot camp, but no sign of it. For some reason, I don't have boot camp on my computer anymore. so then went to re-download it, but there is only the leopard version on the Apple site. How do I go about getting rid of the windows partition now?

Cheers,

Shawsinio

 

[MSmith1915]

Partition

Probably by reformatting the hard drive and re-installing your OS. Might be easier to leave the partition.

Mike

 

[shawsinio]

hmm, is there really no other way? I only have a 60GB HD in this MacBook, so need all the space I can get!!

 

[wgilles]

Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know if I get what you are saying, but if you go into boot camp, is there an option to restore it even if it doesn't see Windows. I had a MBP a couple months ago and had Windows and OS X on it, I reinstalled OS X and it didn't see the Windows partition anymore, but I just went into Boot camp and clicked restore and it did it.

 

[shawsinio]

No, the problem is that boot camp doesn't seem to be on my computer anymore, I don't remember removing it, but without boot camp, I don't know how to remove the windows partition. Is boot camp still seeded anywhere, so I can get it back on my computer and then remove windows? It seems only the new leopard version is available on the apple website...

 

[Neil321]

No, the problem is that boot camp doesn't seem to be on my computer anymore, I don't remember removing it, but without boot camp, I don't know how to remove the windows partition. Is boot camp still seeded anywhere, so I can get it back on my computer and then remove windows? It seems only the new leopard version is available on the apple website...

Have you tried going into disk utility and seeing if you can revert or delete the partition from there?

 

[shawsinio]

Yeah, I've been through disk utility, but it won't let me erase the partition through there, when I select the partition then click on erase, the options it the comes up with are grayed out. That's why I'm a little stumped.

 

[Ripmax2000]

Once Leopard came out, Boot Camp on Tiger stopped working, so even if you did have it, you wouldn't be able to launch it.

Your options are to Erase & Install, merging back the partitions first or upgrading to Leopard then running Boot Camp to merge the partition back.

Also, you could just use Disk Utility to format the Windows partition into a Mac partition. Your drive would be in 2 partitions, but at least all the space will be available to you.

 

[Neil321]

Yeah, I've been through disk utility, but it won't let me erase the partition through there, when I select the partition then click on erase, the options it the comes up with are grayed out. That's why I'm a little stumped.

its not the erase tab you want as that formats the drive,click on your drive in the left pane the won with all the numbers then the partition tab up top then the revert button,failing that a erase & install and merge the partition or try booting from the restore disk and then disk utility

Oh and also beta bootcamp stopped once leopard was released so thats probably why you cant launch bootcamp

Maybe a case of upgrading to leopard im afraid if you need bootcamp that is or maybe you could try putting your clock back to i think it was oct 2007 not sure how its done but ive read it may work,no harm in trying

 

[shawsinio]

The revert button is also grayed out, so no luck there. Will probably look into either getting a new HD, as I need a new one anyway, and then just cloning the copy of my OS X drive onto that, or possibly I might upgrade to Leopard. Are there still a few kinks in Leopard or is it pretty much ironed out now? Does it tend to cause problems when you upgrade from Tiger or is it all pretty seamless? Thanks for your replies guys.

 

[chas0001]

Boot from your restore disks and go into disk utility. You should be able to remove the windows partition there as the disk will not be locked.
You should also be able to increase the size of the Macintosh HD partition to recover the space.

Always backup first!

 

[shawsinio]

O.K I'll give that a go. Can't do it at the moment though as my restore disks are at home and I'm at Uni currently. Will give it a bash next week. Thanks a lot.

 

[DaveF]

Leopard's Disk Utility lets you repartition a drive without erasing the primary partition's data. If this is not available in Tiger, you can upgrade to Leopard or buy a 3rd party utility to do this for you. As noted above, you'll have to boot from a different drive if you're repartitioning your boot drive.