How to resize Boot Camp partition (Windows 7) on a Macbook Air?

How can I extend the Boot Camp partition (where Windows 7 Ultimate is installed on) on my Macbook Air? I understand that there are a few utilities like one from Paragon that I need to burn on a disk and then bootup from it to do so. But the Macbook Air has no ODD? Can I use the remote disc function of the Macbook Air to do so?

 

I have the same question but have a plan in place.

It seems that you can really resize the boot camp partition. i found out that the easiest strategy would be using your installed Mac OS to resize it. But by doing so you will loose all your info on the windows partition.

I have made a recovery disk and took a system image with Win 7. So my plan is

1. Resize boot camp partion (more space) with Mac OS
2. Reinstall win 7 using system image recovery. (Make sure you make the repair disk and backup the system image prior to step 1.

As we speak i'm not quite desprate for more space. My setup is 30 gb for mac os and the remainder for WIn 7. So far I still got plenty of space on my 250 gb ssd

 

I have resized using the Apple Disk Utility without loosing data on my XP Pro/bootcamp partition.

 

I can't resize the partition in Apple Disk Utility. There isn't even the partition tab. Any other solution?

 

click on the drive itself to see the partition tab... not one of the partitions under it. There should be a partitions tab if your on the right spot.

There are several Linux Boot CDs out there you can download that do that...

Ultimate Boot CD - Overview has one that can be run off USB stick too.... I'm assuming the MBA can boot off a USB stick, but I haven't tried it.... but it has a utility that allows resizing of partitions, including NTFS... and its free. But like all resizing, I'd suggest having a backup before trying... never hurts to be safe.

 

Oops, how dumb I must be. Let me try it.

 

And I think the MacBook Air can't boot from a USB.

 

Actually you can boot from USB.. You have to hold down the "option" key when starting your computer.

You can't "traditionally" resize your BootCamp volume because of your partition type of NTFS. Only Apple Partition Map (GUID) will allow you to do that.

There are plenty of programs out there that will help you back up your Windows partition first. I usually use winclone

 

So I can't resize the Windows partition even though there's free space? Must I reinstall everything?

 

what I pointed you to (and yes and Air can boot off USB) resizes just fine without losing any data.

 

What doh and I said both didn't point at reinstalling.

IMO its much easier to make an image and reinstall the image after you resize... but thats just me. Takes a bit more know-how to do it the other way.

 

Can I use GParted on a USB Drive instead? That is the only utility I've used before.

 

a current version of gparted should resize NTFS without losing data... just resize and its ready to go.

 

The MacBook Air doesn't seem to be able to boot from the USB Drive with GParted on it. My Asus laptop can. I've tried holding the Option key during start, but only gives me Macintosh HD and Windows, in addition to the WiFi boot.

 

I never tried it... but some good info here...
How to boot a Linux live USB on a Mac? - Super User

 

Er...there's been an EASY gui live boot tool since 2008 to do this - non-destructive resizing of bootcamp windows parition - it's called CampTune.

CampTune Non-Destructively Resizes Your Boot Camp Partition | Lifehacker Australia

Giving this info to assist others coming to this prominent thread on google, like I just did. Save them time

 

nice link, french. gonna bookmark that.

 

Just to confirm I bought it and it works as advertised, too. failed the first time though, with this error but no harm done, just resized mac os partition back to full space in Snow Leopard's disk utility and then needed to give it another go.