“Macintosh HD,
the boot partition of your Mac drive, is termed as the primary partition since
it contains the system files. Though Mac OS X facilitates it volumes to be
modified on Intel-based Macs, you must not try making any alteration in the
boot volume when booted from it. In case you have the bootable disc of your
Mac, you can use it to make required changes in the boot volume.”
Though you can
create, format, delete, modify, and repair any of the secondary volumes of you
Mac drive whenever it is required, you cannot; in fact, you must not try making
even a single alternation in the Mac boot volume since it may cause failure of
your Mac. Well, in case you need to perform any of these operations on the boot
volume, you need to boot from a secondary bootable media. For this, you can
boot from either Mac bootable disc or Recovery HD (i.e. in case of Mac OS X
Lion or Mountain Lion).
Need for Bootable Disc
Booting from Mac
bootable disc is quite safe and productive as compared to booting from Recovery
HD. In fact, following are the advantageous of having the bootable disc:
1. With bootable disc, you can repair corrupt Mac
boot volume.
2. With bootable disc, you can repair corrupt
permissions of Mac boot volume.
3. Bootable disc facilitates installing Mac OS X on
your as well as other Mac machines compatible with this version of Mac OS X.
4. In case the Recovery HD of your Mac Lion or
Mountain Lion is not accessible, you can boot from Mac bootable disc to modify
Mac boot volume.
5. Having bootable disc eliminates the need for
downloading Mac OS X installer app whenever it is required.
6. Bootable disc
helps you clone Mac boot volume as well as the entire Mac drive.
Well, if you are a
Mac OS X Lion or Mountain Lion user, then you must know that you were not
shipped Mac bootable disc with your Mac machine. Therefore, either you create a
bootable DVD from your current boot volume using a professional partition
manager for Mac or download Mac OS X installer app from the online Mac App
Store after purchasing it.
Creating Mac Bootable Disc
After being known
with the advantageous of having Mac bootable disc, you must want it for your
Mac as well. Well, in case you do not have it, you can create it on your own
after downloading the Mac OS X installer app.
Step1: Go to /Applications folder and look for Mac OS X
installer.app
(You can recognize it
with the name “Install Mac OS X <version
name>.app”, where version name
would be Lion or Mountain Lion.)
Step2: After
this app is located, right click (or control + click) it and choose ‘Show
Package Contents’ in the context menu.
Step3: In
the folder that opens, navigate to Contents > Shared Support folder and look
for the ‘InstallESD.dmg’ file.
Step4: Now,
minimize this window and launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities
>Disk Utility).
Step5: Drag
the ‘InstallESD.dmg’ file to the left pane of Disk Utility.
Step6: After
that, select the ‘InstallESD.dmg’ file at the left and click the Burn button on
the Disk Utility toolbar.
Step7: When
prompted, insert a blank DVD and choose/ fill the required options in the
window that pops up, and then click the Burn button.
As the disc burning
process is finished, a message pops up to notify the same to you.
Partitioning Mac drive by resizing Mac boot volume
As discussed above, the boot volume of your Mac drive
is the primary volume that you must not try modifying while booting from it.
Therefore, you need some other bootable media (e.g. Mac OS X boot disc). After
creating Mac bootable disc using the steps discussed above, you need to boot
from it for making required modifications in it. In this regard, you need to
track the following steps:
Step1: When your
Mac is running, insert Mac OS X boot disc and restart it.
Step2: Right after
you hear Mac startup tone, hold down the C key to boot from the Mac boot disc.
Step3: When you
see the gray screen, release the C key.
Step4: In the Mac
OS X boot window, select a preferred installation language and click the Next
button.
Step5: Now, in Mac
OS X Utilities screen, launch Disk Utility.
Step6: Once in Disk
Utility, select your Mac drive at the left and go to the Partition tab at the
right.
Step7: In its graphical
view, select the Mac boot volume (i.e. the volume named as Macintosh HD) and
drag it upwards (to shrink it) by holding its bottom boundary or the
bottom-right corner.
(By shrinking the boot volume, you create free
space on your Mac drive. Using the available free space, you can either enlarge
one or more existing Mac volumes or create a new one instead.)
Step8: When
required amount of free space is available, highlight it in the graphical view
and click add (+) button to create a new volume.
Step9: Now, give
this volume a Name, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as its Format, and
specify its Size under Volume Information area.
Step10: When you
are finished, click the Apply button to save the changes.
Now, exit Disk Utility and other windows as well,
and then restart your Mac normally. Make sure you eject the boot disc and verify
the changes you have made after booting it in normal mode.
In order to perform all these operations, you can
also use a professional partition manager for Mac. However, make sure
you are well familiar with it before making any alteration, as it may adversely
affect your Mac.
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